How much does managed IT support cost per user in the UK in 2026?

Pricing is the question every prospect asks within ten minutes of meeting us, and it's the question most MSP websites quietly avoid. So here's a straight answer, with the caveats that actually matter.

The honest UK range in 2026: £45 to £95 per user per month

Across the dozens of quotes our clients have shared with us during procurement, UK managed IT support for businesses in the 10–50 user bracket falls into three rough bands:

• £45–£60 per user/month — Helpdesk, patching, basic endpoint protection, Microsoft 365 administration, monthly reporting. Licences extra.
• £60–£80 per user/month — Everything above, plus 24/7 cover, more capable security tooling (EDR, conditional access, MFA enforcement), some project hours included, quarterly business reviews.
• £80–£95+ per user/month — Full Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences included, comprehensive security stack, virtual CIO time, regular tabletop exercises, and named engineers.

Anything below £45 either has hidden exclusions or is being sold at a loss to win a logo. Anything above £95 should be delivering a genuinely senior strategic relationship — not just a thicker invoice.

Why the same business gets quotes 40% apart

Two MSPs can quote the same client £42 and £78 and both be telling the truth — they're just selling completely different things. Here's what to interrogate:

Are Microsoft 365 licences included?

Microsoft 365 Business Premium is roughly £18.10 per user per month at retail. If your low quote excludes licences and your high quote includes them, you've found about 40% of the gap right there. Always normalise this when comparing.

Is security tooling extra?

A modern security baseline needs more than Windows Defender. Conditional access policies, MFA enforcement, EDR (endpoint detection and response), DNS filtering, and a backup that's actually tested — these cost the MSP money, and they either pass it on or skip them.

What's the engineer-to-client ratio?

Industry benchmark is roughly one engineer per 50 users. Cheap quotes often work because each engineer is carrying 200+ users. You'll feel it in response times within three months.

What happens at 7pm on a Friday?

Real 24/7 cover costs money. "We have a number you can call" usually means voicemail until Monday. Ask specifically: who picks up, what's their job title, and can you see last quarter's response time data.

What you actually want to ask: total cost of IT

Per-user/month is a useful comparison metric, but the better question is total annual cost of IT including:

• Managed support contract (per user × 12)
• Microsoft 365 licences (per user × 12)
• Hardware refresh (typically 25% of laptop cost per user/year)
• Project hours (migrations, upgrades, special initiatives)
• Telephony, internet, accessories

For a 25-user business in 2026, that's typically £45,000–£75,000/year all-in. The managed support component is usually 40–55% of that figure.

Internal IT hire vs MSP: the simple maths

A junior internal IT hire in Greater Manchester costs roughly £35,000–£45,000 fully loaded — salary, NI, pension, holiday, kit, training, recruitment. They cover one set of skills, work one set of hours, and take holiday.

A 25-user managed contract at the £55/user baseline is £16,500/year for the support, or roughly £35,000/year all-in including M365 Business Premium licences. You get a team — first-line, second-line, security, projects, account management — plus their tooling stack (RMM, PSA, EDR, SIEM, backup, documentation).

Below 30 users, the MSP almost always wins on value. Above 50 users, a hybrid (one internal lead + a co-managed MSP) often beats both pure plays. The crossover point depends entirely on how much project work you're running.

The exclusions list is where the truth lives

Every MSP quote has an exclusions list. Some MSPs make theirs longer than the inclusions list. Look specifically for:

• Project work above X hours per month
• Hardware procurement and warranty management
• Out-of-hours emergencies (and what counts)
• Email migrations, tenant-to-tenant moves, domain changes
• Non-standard software support
• Site visits and travel

If you don't get the exclusions list before signing, you'll meet it as your first invoice surprise.

A note on cybersecurity baselines

The NCSC and IASME have steadily raised what counts as a sensible baseline. Cyber Essentials is now a near-mandatory floor for any UK business that takes data seriously, and many supply chains require it. If your MSP isn't naming this, naming MFA, naming patching SLAs and naming backup recovery time objectives — they're not really managing your security.

Inology's SecureState rates, in plain English

We publish our pricing because it's the fastest way to weed out conversations that aren't a fit. The numbers don't move with headcount — same flat per-user rate whether you're 5 seats or 50.

• SecureState Baseline — £55/user/month. A single bundled package: helpdesk, M365 administration, device monitoring and patching, EDR, conditional access, monthly reporting and quarterly business review. We don't sell the components separately.
• SecureState Plus — £70/user/month. Adds Compliance Protect: information protection, encryption controls, policy enforcement, and Cyber Essentials audit support. One-off £850 setup.
• SecureState Complete — £85/user/month. Adds 24/7 SOC, advanced email protection, and named senior engineers.
• Servers — £95 per server per month on top of any tier, where you have on-premise infrastructure.

Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences are passed through at our cost. Project work is quoted separately and transparently. The Baseline package is sold as a single bundle — we don't unbundle it, because the user side and the device side of the operating model only work together.

If you'd like a quote with the full inclusions and exclusions list mapped to your business, drop us a note — we'll come back with a one-page comparison you can put next to anyone else's.