How much does IT support cost per user per month in the UK? (2026 pricing guide)

The 2026 UK IT support price range, in one table

A few honest notes before we go deeper:

• These are per-user, per-month prices for outsourced managed IT support in the UK. They do not include hardware, software licences (Microsoft 365, Adobe, line-of-business apps), connectivity, or one-off project work.
• Per-user pricing is the most common UK model in 2026. Some providers still quote per-device or flat retainer. Per-device is fine if your headcount is stable but device count is growing; flat retainers usually favour the provider, not you.
• VAT is on top.

What is actually included at each tier

Budget / Pay-As-You-Go (£15 to £25 per user / month)

You are not buying support. You are buying a phone number you are allowed to ring. Most “block hours” or “ad-hoc” arrangements work out at this rate when you spread the cost across your team. There is no monitoring. There is no patch management. If a server falls over at 11pm on a Tuesday, you will find out at 9am on Wednesday when half the office cannot log in.

Fine for a 3-person business with two laptops and a printer. Not fine for anyone trying to grow.

Essentials (£25 to £40 per user / month)

This is where most growing SMBs land, and it is where we sit too. At this tier you should expect:

• A real UK help desk, not a ticketing portal that goes quiet for two days
• Microsoft 365 administration: user lifecycle, mailbox issues, licensing, security baselines
• Endpoint patching (Windows, macOS, third-party apps like Chrome, Zoom, Adobe)
• Antivirus or basic EDR
• Backup of M365 data (mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams)
• Asset and warranty tracking for your laptops, desktops, and mobiles
• Onboarding and offboarding for new starters and leavers, done properly so accounts are not left dangling
• A monthly or quarterly check-in so someone is actually thinking about your IT

For context, Smart Start IT’s Essentials tier is £35 per user per month, which sits squarely in the middle of this range.

Standard (£40 to £60 per user / month)

When you cross 20 people, the business changes shape. You start having real compliance pressure (Cyber Essentials, GDPR, often ISO 27001 conversations), real cyber risk (you are now an attractive target), and real complexity (multiple offices, hybrid workers, line-of-business apps). Standard adds:

• Managed EDR or MDR (Endpoint Detection and Response, or Managed Detection and Response)
• Email security and phishing protection beyond what M365 ships with
• Regular vulnerability scanning
• Dark web monitoring for your domain and exec emails
• Cyber Essentials certification support (often included once a year)
• Quarterly business reviews with a virtual CIO (vCIO) who actually plans, not just reports
• Faster SLAs (typically 15 minutes for P1, 1 hour for P2)

At this tier the conversation shifts from “fix my broken thing” to “what is our 18-month IT plan”.

Premium / Co-Managed (£60 to £100+ per user / month)

If you are a regulated firm (financial services, legal, healthcare), if you have already had an incident, or if you are co-managing with an internal IT person who needs backup, you are at this tier. You are paying for:

• 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC) coverage
• Cyber Essentials and the audit support that goes with it
• Dedicated technical account manager (one human you actually know)
• Compliance evidence packs ready for client audits
• Tabletop exercises and incident response retainer
• Custom integrations and bespoke automation

Worth it if your downtime cost is measured in thousands of pounds per hour. Probably overkill if you are a 12-person marketing agency.

Hidden costs to watch for in UK IT quotes

This is where a “£25 per user” quote turns into £45 per user once the dust settles. Things to look for in the small print:

• Onboarding fee. Some providers charge £1,000 to £5,000 just to take you on. Reasonable for messy environments. Suspicious if not disclosed.
• Per-device add-ons. £8 per server per month here, £4 per network device there, suddenly your “per user” price is misleading.
• Project work carve-outs. “Anything taking more than 4 hours becomes a project” sounds reasonable until you realise that includes most M365 migrations, new office moves, and any networking change.
• Out-of-hours rates. Some providers double their rate for support after 5pm, even on a contract that says 24/7.
• Licence resale margin. Many MSPs mark up Microsoft 365 licences by 10 to 25 percent. Worth knowing if you are buying 50 seats.
• Backup egress. Restoring 200GB of OneDrive can incur a per-GB fee if you are not careful.
• Cancellation terms. 90-day notice is standard. 12-month auto-renewal is not standard, push back on that.

The fix is simple: ask for an all-in monthly cost for a typical 20-person team during the sales process. If they hesitate, that is your answer.

In-house vs outsourced: the real cost comparison

A common founder question: “Should I just hire someone?”

Let us put real numbers on it. A mid-level IT engineer in the UK in 2026 costs:

• Salary: £35,000 to £45,000
• NI and pension: ~13.8 percent on top
• Equipment, training, software licences: £3,000 to £5,000 per year
• Recruitment fee if you go through an agency: £4,500 to £7,500 once
• Holiday and sickness cover: priceless when they are off and your servers are down

Total fully-loaded cost: roughly £48,000 to £62,000 per year for one person who cannot be in two places at once, does not have specialist security training, and goes home at 5.30pm.

For 20 staff at £35 per user per month, you would spend £8,400 a year on outsourced support, and you would have a whole team of engineers covering helpdesk, security, networking, and Microsoft 365.

The break-even point is roughly 80 to 100 staff, give or take. Below that, outsourcing nearly always wins on cost and capability. Above that, you typically want a co-managed model: one or two internal IT staff handling the on-site and political work, with an MSP handling the infrastructure, security, and out-of-hours cover. See our managed IT services for how that works in practice.

How to evaluate an IT support quote

Before you sign anything, get answers to these eleven questions in writing:

1. What is the all-in cost for our team size, including any add-ons, for the first 12 months?
2. Is the help desk UK-based or offshored? Who picks up the phone at 9am on a Monday?
3. What are your SLAs for P1, P2, P3, and P4 tickets, and what are the consequences if you miss them?
4. Do you include EDR or MDR, and if so, which platform?
5. Is Microsoft 365 backup included, or is it an add-on?
6. What is your onboarding process, and is there a fee?
7. How do you handle out-of-hours support, and is it included?
8. What does offboarding look like if we leave you in 18 months?
9. Can we see a sample monthly report?
10. Do you charge a margin on Microsoft licences, and what is it?
11. Have you ever lost a client to a security incident, and what did you change after?

Question 11 is the one. The honest providers will tell you a war story. The dishonest ones will say “no, never” with a straight face.

When cheap is too cheap

If a UK IT support quote comes in at £15 per user per month for a managed service, something is being skipped. Usually one of these:

• No real monitoring. You will only know about a problem when someone tells you.
• No patching cadence. Vulnerabilities sit open for weeks.
• No backup. The provider assumes Microsoft does it. Microsoft does not.
• Offshore help desk. Fine if your team is patient, painful if they are not.
• No security expertise. First-line techs only. No one to call when something serious happens.
• Reseller-only model. They badge another MSP’s service and you have no real relationship.

The honest version of cheap is co-managed: you keep an internal IT person, the provider supplies tools, escalation, and out-of-hours. That can be done well at £20 to £30 per user. Anything cheaper than that for a true managed service is usually a corner being cut.

What Smart Start IT charges

We are upfront about pricing because we would rather you self-qualify than waste a call:

• Essentials: £35 per user per month. UK help desk, Microsoft 365 management, endpoint patching, antivirus, M365 backup, onboarding/offboarding, monthly check-in. The right starting point for most 10 to 50 person teams.
• Standard: £55 per user per month. Essentials plus managed EDR, email security, vulnerability scanning, dark web monitoring, Cyber Essentials support, quarterly vCIO time.
• Premium: from £85 per user per month. Standard plus 24/7 SOC, Cyber Essentials, dedicated technical account manager, compliance evidence packs, incident response retainer.

No onboarding fee for teams under 30 staff. No long-term contract: 30-day rolling. No licence margin on Microsoft 365.

You can also read more about our IT support service, managed IT options, or browse all our services.

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