At some point most growing businesses hit the same question: do we hire someone to look after IT, or bring in a managed provider? Both can work. Here is how to think it through honestly.
The cost comparison
A capable IT generalist in the North of England costs a meaningful salary, plus National Insurance, pension, holiday, training and the kit to do the job. A managed support contract for a small team often costs less than that all in, and spreads the risk across a whole team rather than one person.
One person, or a team?
The catch with a single in-house hire is that no one person is genuinely expert at everything: helpdesk, networking, security, cloud, telephony and procurement. A good provider gives you specialists across all of those, plus cover when your one person is on holiday, off sick, or simply asleep when a server falls over at 2am.
Where in-house still wins
- You are large enough to keep a full IT team genuinely busy
- You need someone embedded in the business day to day, walking the floor
- You have highly specialised systems that need dedicated, deep knowledge
The model most SMEs land on
For a lot of small and mid-sized businesses, the sweet spot is a hybrid: a managed provider handling the helpdesk, security, monitoring and out-of-hours cover, sometimes alongside an internal "go-to" person who knows the business. You get depth and resilience without carrying a full team.
That is exactly how our managed IT support works, and if budgeting is the sticking point, our guide to IT support costs breaks down the numbers.
Not sure which way to jump? Talk it through with us, we will give you a straight answer even if that answer is "hire someone".
