Last Updated on September 8, 2026
Managed IT is priced per user per month, which sounds like a comparable unit and is not, because nobody agrees what is inside it.
All figures below were read at source on 8 September 2026, with each page’s own date noted, and all are excluding VAT.
The three published UK ranges
| Publisher | Published range | Page date |
|---|---|---|
| Dead Simple Computing | £40 to £150 per user a month, explicitly labelled market context rather than a rate card | Published 31 May 2026 |
| Connection Technologies | Basic £40 to £55, Standard £55 to £85, Premium £85 to £150, typical package £55 to £65 | Updated 3 September 2026 |
| Techzura | Break-fix lite £25 to £45, support and core management £30 to £80, fully managed with security £60 to £120 plus, project work £75 to £125 an hour | Published 3 June 2026 |
The disagreement is at the floor. Techzura publishes £25 to £30 as a starting point; the other two both put the floor at £40. None of these is a survey; all three are indicative ranges published by providers.
Connection Technologies is the only one that defines its tiers by feature set, and that definition is the genuinely useful part: basic as business-hours helpdesk plus patching, antivirus and backup; standard adding endpoint detection and response, email security and multi-factor authentication; premium adding 24/7 cover, a security operations centre and compliance.
That is the shape of a comparison a buyer can actually make. A single number cannot be compared at all.
Penetration testing, where the day rates cross over
| Test | Precursor Security, updated Aug 2026 | Cyphere, published 7 April 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Web application | £3,750 to £6,250 plus | £2,500 to £30,000 |
| External network | £3,750 to £6,250 plus | £3,500 to £30,000 |
| Internal network | £6,250 to £10,000 plus | not stated separately |
| Full assessment | £12,500 to £25,000 plus | not stated |
| Firewall | not stated | £2,000 to £10,000 |
| PCI | not stated | £4,000 to £25,000 |
| Red team | not stated | £25,000 to £75,000 plus |
| Consultant day rate | About £1,200 per CREST-accredited day | £750 to £1,100 for manual assessments |
The day rate line is the one to notice. Precursor’s approximate £1,200 sits above Cyphere’s entire published range. Both are UK providers publishing on their own sites within five months of each other.
If you sell testing, that is the spread your quote lands in, and a client who has read the lower one will treat your number as an opening position unless you explain what a day buys.
The demand-side numbers you have to be able to answer
From the DSIT Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/2026, published 30 April 2026:
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Businesses identifying a breach or attack in 12 months | 43 per cent |
| Micro businesses | 42 per cent |
| Small | 46 per cent |
| Medium | 65 per cent |
| Large | 69 per cent |
| Median cost of the most disruptive breach | £0, with the middle 50 per cent from £0 to £200 |
| 95th percentile cost | £4,000 for smaller businesses, £10,000 for medium and large |
| Businesses holding Cyber Essentials | 5 per cent, up from 3 per cent |
| Micro businesses using an external cyber provider | 44 per cent |
The £0 median against a 43 per cent breach rate is the most commercially awkward statistic in this sector, and pretending it does not exist is not a strategy. A buyer with a finance background will find it.
The honest way to use it is to change what you are selling. Most breaches cost little because most are trivial. The distribution has a long tail, and the argument is about the tail, about continuity, about the compliance evidence an insurer or a large client will demand, and about the working days lost that the survey’s cost figure does not capture.
That argument survives contact with the statistic. Catastrophe framing does not.
What to publish
- Three tiers, defined by what is included rather than by adjective.
- A price per user per month for each, excluding VAT, or an honest from figure.
- Minimum user count and minimum term.
- Response and resolution targets by severity, and last quarter’s actual performance against them.
- What is not included: project work, hardware, licences, out-of-hours, third-party vendor management.
- Your own compliance evidence: ICO number, Cyber Essentials certificate, ISO certification body.
Point four is the differentiator. Published targets with published actuals is the only claim in this sector that a competitor cannot copy without also having to be good, and almost nobody does it.
The sector you are selling into
From the DSIT UK Cyber Security Sectoral Analysis 2026, published May 2026 and covering FY 2024/25: 2,603 active cyber security firms, £14.7 billion revenue, £9.1 billion gross value added, about 69,600 FTEs, and 58 per cent of firms with 1 to 9 employees, 19 per cent with 10 to 49, 13 per cent with 50 to 249 and 9 per cent with 250 plus. 69 per cent are pure-play cyber providers.
There is no official count of UK MSPs. ONS’s 188,000 information and communication businesses at March 2025 is far broader and should not be presented as one.
Common questions
How much does managed IT support cost per user in the UK?
Published ranges disagree at the floor. Techzura publishes £25 to £45 for break-fix lite and £60 to £120 plus for fully managed with security. Connection Technologies publishes £40 to £55 basic, £55 to £85 standard and £85 to £150 premium. Dead Simple Computing publishes £40 to £150 as market context. All exclude VAT.
How much is a penetration test in the UK?
Published ranges vary widely by test type: web application from £2,500 to £30,000 on one publisher and £3,750 to £6,250 plus on another. Day rates disagree too, at about £1,200 for a CREST-accredited day on one and £750 to £1,100 on the other.
What does a breach actually cost a UK business?
The DSIT Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/2026 puts the median cost of the most disruptive breach at £0, with the middle 50 per cent from £0 to £200 and the 95th percentile at £4,000 for smaller businesses and £10,000 for medium and large.
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