PQC Ready · practical transition guidance
PQC migration planning
Translate cryptographic dependencies and supplier constraints into prioritised migration waves, testing and continuity decisions.
Published and reviewed 15 September 2026 · PQC Ready, a brand of SDTC Solutions Ltd
Build a plan around dependencies
Post-quantum migration affects trust relationships, software lifecycles and operational procedures. A plan must identify who controls each change and which other systems must be ready before it can proceed.
Prioritise the work
Combine confidentiality lifetime, service criticality, exposure and change lead time. Supplier roadmaps and end-of-support dates can determine the practical route. Record the reason for each priority rather than assigning urgency solely from an algorithm name.
Design controlled migration waves
For each wave, define the accountable owner, affected services, prerequisites, test environment, acceptance criteria and change window. Include certificate lifecycle and key-management changes as well as protocol support.
A pilot should examine interoperability, performance, failure handling and operational recovery. Define how an unsuccessful change will be contained; a fallback that restores vulnerable protection needs an explicit risk decision.
Keep decisions reviewable
The roadmap should retain assumptions, dependencies and approved exceptions. Update it when standards, products or business requirements change. Execution is separately scoped and approved; a planning engagement is not evidence that a migration has already been delivered.
Continue exploring
- PQCEMM: enterprise post-quantum maturity
- The NCSC post-quantum migration timeline
- Crypto-agility: planning for cryptographic change