DevSecOps Maturity Model: Assessment Guide & Roadmap

DevSecOps, integrating security into every phase of the software development lifecycle, is no longer optional. But many organisations struggle to know where they stand and what to prioritise. This maturity model helps you assess your current state and plan your journey.

Why a Maturity Model?

Security transformation doesn't happen overnight. A maturity model provides an honest evaluation of where you are today, a logical progression path from basic to advanced capabilities, a framework for prioritising investments at each stage, and a common language for discussing security investment with stakeholders. Without this structure, security initiatives often become reactive firefighting rather than strategic improvement.

The Five Maturity Levels

Level 1: Initial (Ad Hoc)

At this stage, security is an afterthought, applied inconsistently if at all. There are no security requirements built into the development process, and security testing, if it happens, comes too late to be effective. Developers are generally unaware of their security responsibilities, and there's no security tooling integrated into pipelines. The response to vulnerabilities is purely reactive.

Typical outcomes: Security issues discovered in production, potential data breaches, and compliance failures during audits.

Level 2: Managed (Foundational)

Basic security practices are defined but not consistently applied across the organisation. Security policies exist, but enforcement remains largely manual. Some security testing happens before release, developers receive basic security training, and vulnerability scanning occurs periodically. An incident response process has been documented, even if it hasn't been tested.

Typical outcomes: Fewer security incidents than Level 1, but issues are still found late in the development cycle when they're expensive to fix.

Level 3: Defined (Integrated)

Security becomes an integral part of the development process with automated controls. Security requirements appear in user stories, and automated security testing runs as part of CI/CD. SAST and DAST tools are integrated into pipelines, dependencies are scanned and managed, security champions are embedded in development teams, and threat modelling is performed for new features.

Typical outcomes: Most issues are caught before production, and remediation is significantly faster.

Level 4: Quantified (Measured)

Security is measured and continuously improved based on data. Security metrics are tracked and reported to leadership, KPIs are tied to security objectives, policy enforcement is automated, and SLAs govern remediation timeframes. Regular red team exercises test defences, and compliance monitoring runs continuously rather than in annual sprints.

Typical outcomes: Predictable security posture with measurable improvement over time.

Level 5: Optimised (Proactive)

Security becomes a competitive advantage, with continuous innovation. Security is embedded in the culture, everyone thinks about it naturally. Proactive threat hunting identifies issues before they become incidents, remediation is automated where possible, and the DevSecOps toolchain is fully integrated. Security is expressed as code, and the organisation contributes back to the security community.

Typical outcomes: Industry-leading security posture that becomes a differentiator in the market.

Assessing Your Maturity

To assess your current level, consider your organisation across four key domains.

Culture and Training: Consider whether developers receive security training, whether security is seen as everyone's responsibility or just the security team's job, and whether you have security champions embedded in development teams.

Process: Look at whether security requirements are included in sprint planning, whether threat modelling is performed for new features, and how quickly vulnerabilities are remediated once discovered.

Technology: Evaluate whether security testing is automated in your pipelines, which tools are integrated (SAST, DAST, software composition analysis), and whether builds can be automatically blocked for security issues.

Measurement: Consider what security metrics you track, how you measure improvement over time, and whether there are SLAs governing how quickly different severity vulnerabilities must be fixed.

Practical Improvement Steps

Moving from Level 1 to Level 2 requires establishing foundations: implement basic security training for developers, add a security review stage before release, deploy basic vulnerability scanning, and document your security policies so everyone understands expectations.

Moving from Level 2 to Level 3 focuses on integration: integrate SAST tools into your CI pipelines, implement dependency scanning to catch vulnerable libraries, establish a security champion programme, add security acceptance criteria to user stories, and implement branch protection with security gates.

Moving from Level 3 to Level 4 emphasises measurement: define and track security KPIs, implement SLAs for vulnerability remediation, add DAST to your pipeline toolkit, conduct regular penetration testing, and automate compliance reporting.

Common Challenges

Developer resistance often manifests as complaints that security slows things down. Address this by making tools developer-friendly, minimising false positives, and demonstrating the value security provides.

Tool fatigue occurs when too many security tools generate overwhelming numbers of alerts, many of them false positives. The solution is to consolidate your tooling and invest time in tuning to reduce noise.

Lack of ownership happens when the security team becomes a bottleneck because they can't be everywhere. Empower development teams with training and tools so they can own security in their domain.

Legacy systems present challenges because modern DevSecOps practices don't always apply cleanly to older applications. Take a risk-based approach, prioritising the highest-risk systems and applying practices where feasible.

Get Your Assessment

We offer a free DevSecOps maturity assessment to help you understand where you stand and what to prioritise. The assessment includes a current state evaluation across all maturity domains, gap analysis against your target state, prioritised recommendations based on your specific context, and a practical roadmap for improvement. Get in touch to schedule your assessment.