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IT · 18 Sep 2026 · 24 min read

IT Support Cost Calculator UK (2026) - Real Prices, Hidden Extras and In-House Costs

Work out what IT support should cost your business. Published UK prices per user, out-of-hours and onsite rates, and what in-house IT really costs.

Businessman comparing IT support plan pricing options on laptop in office

Tired of annoying IT support services? It's likely your company signed a multi year contract with great support on paper but when it comes to calling for help, you get through to a low level technician who reads from a sheet and then you have to wait days for a senior to call for anything remotely complex but now you are stuck in a 5 year contract with escalation clauses you didn't notice. This is exactly why IT Pro Expert offers direct support to a senior with no long term contracts. Most UK businesses pay between £30 and £150 per person per month for managed IT support, and the realistic middle of the market sits at £45 to £85. The monthly figure is rarely the whole bill, though. Below is a calculator built on published UK prices, the ranges behind it, where our own prices sit, and the extras that tend to appear only after you have signed.

The following prices are accurate and compiled by AI after an extensive UK IT Support marketing search. In fact they may be lower than most companies who do not advertise their price. We have not manipulated these in any way.

What a UK business typically pays for managed IT support, per month (ex VAT)
Team sizeTypical UK providerIT Pro Expertsupport and anti-virus
3 people£140–£500minimum charges apply£156.504-person support minimum
5 people£225–£425£202.50
10 people£450–£850£405
25 people£1,125–£2,125£1,012.50
50 people£2,250–£4,250£2,025
75 people£3,375–£6,375£3,037.50

What our price includes: Standard Support (remote support 9–5, fair-use hours) at £35 per person, with a 4-person minimum, and ThreatDown Premium anti-virus and endpoint protection at £5.50 per person. That is £40.50 per person.

Optional extras, which many providers build into their standard packages: email phishing and malware protection £3.50, vulnerability checks and patch management £4.50 and cloud backup £7.50 per person, and Microsoft 365 or server management £75 per site or server.

Help outside a contract, per hour (ex VAT)
Type of workTypical UK providerIT Pro Expert
Ad-hoc support£75–£150most charge £90–£130£85£105 for non-contract clients

Typical monthly figures are the UK standard band of £45–£85 per person, as used in Red Eagle Tech's 2026 worked totals; the 3-person row uses published minimum charges of £140–£500 instead. Larger teams often negotiate volume discounts, so the 50 and 75-person ranges may run lower. Hourly figures are from Red Eagle Tech. Work out your own figure with the calculator.

IT support cost calculator

Only 5 of 15 UK providers in a July 2026 survey published any prices, so this calculator is built from the ones that do. Set your team size, sites and the level of cover you need. The estimate updates as you go. All figures are monthly and exclude VAT, Microsoft 365 licences and hardware.

Count people who use IT, not devices. Most providers, including us, charge per person.

Level of service

Basic covers a helpdesk, monitoring and patching. Standard adds proactive maintenance, endpoint and email security, and backup. Security-led adds managed detection and response.

Support hours

Typical UK provider, per month

£450–£850

£45–£85 per person · £5,400–£10,200 a year

Typical UK provider £450–£850
IT Pro Expert £405
In-house (1 IT person) £3,617–£4,083

IT Pro Expert: Standard 9–5 support

  • Support: 10 × £35£350
  • Anti-virus: 10 × £5.50£55
  • Total a month£405

£40.50 per person, £4,860 a year.

Budget separately for onboarding (£500–£5,000 one-off with most providers; ours is lower than everyone else) and around £100–£300 a year for 2 new starters.

Estimates only, based on published UK price ranges checked in September 2026. The method and sources are listed at the end of this article.

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What managed IT support costs per person

UK managed support falls into three bands. Basic support covers a helpdesk, monitoring and patching, usually with chargeable site visits. Standard support adds proactive maintenance, endpoint protection, email security and regular reviews, and is where most businesses with 10 to 100 staff sit. Security-led packages add managed detection and response, compliance help and often 24/7 cover.

Managed IT support: UK price ranges per person, per month (ex VAT). Bars show the published market range for each band; the vertical line marks IT Pro Expert's equivalent price. Market bands from Red Eagle Tech's July 2026 guide; the 24/7 row adds the £15–£30 uplift reported by Connection Technologies and Red Eagle Tech to the standard band. Our figures are support plus anti-virus; email protection, patching and backup are optional extras with us, where many providers include them in the band.
  • UK market range
  • IT Pro Expert
Basic managed£30–£55IT Pro Expert £33.50
Standard managed£45–£85IT Pro Expert £40.50
Standard with 24/7 cover£60–£115IT Pro Expert £54.50
Security-led (MDR / SOC)£85–£150IT Pro Expert: quoted individually
£0£40£80£120£160

Where IT Pro Expert fits

We publish our prices, and we charge per person (per Microsoft 365 account), not per device, so a laptop and a phone for the same person cost the same as one. All prices below are monthly and exclude VAT.

ServiceTypical UK marketIT Pro Expert
Basic support, 9–5£30–£55 per person£33.50 per person: support £28 plus anti-virus £5.50 (4-person minimum; limited hours, working-day response; excludes new Windows setups)
Standard managed support, 9–5£45–£85 per person£40.50 per person: all-inclusive support £35 plus anti-virus £5.50. Email protection, vulnerability and patch management, and cloud backup are optional (fair-use hours)
24/7 supportStandard plus £15–£30 per person£54.50 per person: Premium 24/7 support £49 plus anti-virus £5.50 (unlimited hours, rapid response)
Small teamsMinimum charges of £140–£500 a month are common; some providers set £500 or £650From £112 a month: a 4-person minimum on Basic (£112) and Standard (£140), and a 5-person minimum on 24/7 support (£245)
Onsite visits£150–£300 per visit, or £75–£125 an hour£35 per person per month, call-outs included under a fair-use cap
Microsoft 365 or site managementSeparate fees from £100–£125 a month at some providers£75 per site or server
Cloud backup£5–£10 per person£7.50 per person
Email security£3–£5 per person£3.50 per person
Ad-hoc support outside a contract£70–£150 an hour£105 an hour, or £85 for contract clients
New Windows PC setup£50–£150 per new starter£85 per device
Onboarding£500–£5,000 one-off£POA one-off
Project work£650–£975 a day£650 a day, or £340 a half day
Endpoint protection£5–£8 per device£5.50 or £6.85 (ThreatDown Premium or Elite)

Our onboarding is lower than any other. Most UK providers charge between £500 and £5,000.

The extras nobody mentions

The monthly fee is the easy part to compare. These are the charges that usually sit outside it.

Onboarding

£500–£5,000 one-off for the initial audit, documentation and tool rollout, depending on size and complexity.

New starters

£50–£150 per person to set up accounts, devices and security profiles.

Minimum charges

£140–£500 a month is typical, which quietly prices out one- to four-person businesses.

Out of hours

£100–£200 an hour on business-hours contracts. Some rate cards charge up to three times the normal rate on bank holidays.

Onsite visits

£150–£300 per visit, or £75–£125 an hour, when visits are not in the contract.

Project work

Migrations, office moves and upgrades at £100–£175 an hour or £650–£975 a day.

Work outside the contract: UK hourly rates (ex VAT). Ad-hoc and prepaid ranges from Red Eagle Tech (most providers cluster at £90–£120 for ad-hoc work); onsite from Your IT Department; out-of-hours from Connection Technologies and AIS Technology. September 2026.
Remote ad-hoc£70–£150
Prepaid block hours£78–£12010–40 hours bought upfront
Onsite, not in contract£75–£125
Out of hours£100–£200
£0£50£100£150£200
Per-job and day rates (ex VAT). New-starter and per-visit ranges from Connection Technologies and Sheridan Computers; engineer and project day rates from Red Eagle Tech. Onboarding (£500–£5,000) is left off so the scale stays readable.
New starter setup£50–£150
Onsite visit£150–£300
Engineer day£575–£975
Project day£650–£975
£0£250£500£750£1,000

Smaller print worth checking

  • Minimum call-out charges. A low hourly rate can come with a two-hour minimum, travel time and a diagnostic fee, so a 15-minute fix can cost over £100.
  • Prepaid hours that expire. Blocks of 10 or 20 hours at £85–£120 an hour often lapse at the end of the month or quarter.
  • Hardware mark-up. Providers often add 10–25% when buying equipment on your behalf. Ask whether the margin is disclosed.
  • Contract length. 24-month terms sometimes earn a 5–10% discount over rolling monthly contracts, in exchange for less flexibility.

Does location change the price?

Yes. London providers charge more, with published estimates ranging from 10% to more than 25% above the rest of the country, and onsite visits in the capital can also pass on Congestion Charge, ULEZ and parking costs. Northern and Scottish providers publish lower ranges.

Managed support by region, per person per month (ex VAT). Scotland from Stratiis (10–100 staff); Greater Manchester from Tech Savvy Solutions; East Midlands core support from F1 Group; UK-wide from ATS Connection; London from published UK pricing guides. The dashed line marks IT Pro Expert's Standard price of £40.50 with anti-virus, which is the same wherever you are.
  • Published regional range
  • IT Pro Expert Standard
Scotland£35–£60
Greater Manchester£30–£70
East Midlands£45–£85
UK-wide£30–£90
London£40–£100
£0£30£60£90£120

What in-house IT really costs

Hiring your own IT person looks simple on a job advert. The salary is only the start: employer National Insurance, pension, training and the tools to do the job all come on top, and when that one person is on holiday or off sick, so is your support.

£29,000median UK IT support technician salary (IT Jobs Watch, to August 2026)
£33,000median second-line support engineer salary
£41k–£46kreal yearly cost of one junior technician, with 20–35% employer on-costs
£200median UK day rate for a contract IT support engineer
Yearly cost: managed support versus one in-house technician (ex VAT). Managed range is the standard band (£45–£85 per person) before minimum charges. In-house is one technician at £41,000–£46,000 fully loaded (Red Eagle Tech) plus monitoring and security tools at £20–£25 per person, which is the provider trade price, so a business buying the tools itself would usually pay more. The vertical line is IT Pro Expert Standard with anti-virus. Calculated from the published ranges above.
  • Managed support, standard band
  • One in-house technician
  • IT Pro Expert
5 people£2,700–£5,100In-house £42,200–£47,500 · Us £2,430
10 people£5,400–£10,200In-house £43,400–£49,000 · Us £4,860
20 people£10,800–£20,400In-house £45,800–£52,000 · Us £9,720
30 people£16,200–£30,600In-house £48,200–£55,000 · Us £14,580
£0£15k£30k£45k£60k

Questions to ask before you sign

  • What are the exact support hours? Many contracts cover only 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Ask what an evening or weekend call costs.
  • Is security in the price? 46% of UK small businesses identified a breach or attack in the past year (Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26). Endpoint protection, email security and backup should be named in the quote, not added later.
  • How are onsite visits charged? Included, capped per month, or billed every time, and is there a travel charge?
  • What is the response time, and is it a commitment or a target? Published UK commitments range from 15 minutes to 4 hours.

Frequently asked questions

How much does IT support cost per person in the UK?

Most UK businesses pay £30–£150 per person per month, with standard managed support at £45–£85. As a guide, a 10-person business on standard support typically pays £450–£850 a month, and a 25-person business £1,100–£2,100, excluding VAT.

Is per-person or per-device pricing better?

Per-person pricing is the most common model and usually the fairest. A typical office worker with a laptop, dock, phone and shared printer can count as three or four devices, so per-device pricing (typically £15–£50 per device) climbs quickly. We charge per person.

What does 24/7 IT support cost?

Moving from business hours to 24/7 cover typically adds £10–£30 per person per month, or 30–50% of the package price. Without a 24/7 contract, out-of-hours work is usually billed at £100–£200 an hour.

Is it cheaper to hire an in-house IT person?

Rarely, for a small business. One junior technician costs about £41,000–£46,000 a year once employer on-costs are included, before tools and training. Managed support for 30 people on a standard package costs less than half of that.

Why do some providers quote £20 a person or less?

Usually because the package is helpdesk-only or leaves security, backup and onsite visits to be billed separately. Providers' own tooling costs run at £20–£25 per person before any support is delivered.

How we built the estimate

The calculator uses published UK price ranges for each service level, then adjusts for the options you choose. The adjustments are our own working assumptions, listed here so you can judge them:

  • Team size: small teams pay more per person and larger teams less, so we add 15% below five people and 5% below ten, and reduce the rate from 3% at 30 people to 18% at 200 or more.
  • Minimum charges: the low estimate never falls below £140 a month and the high estimate never below £500, in line with published minimums.
  • Location: London adds 10–30%, the South East 10–15%, and the North, Midlands and Scotland reduce the figure by 5–10%.
  • 24/7 cover adds £15–£30 per person; compliance support adds £10–£30 per person.
  • Servers add £50–£300 each a month; each extra site adds £100–£125 a month; onsite visits add £150–£300 each.
  • In-house: £41,000–£46,000 a year per technician plus tools at £20–£25 per person, a month.

Sources, all checked in September 2026: Red Eagle Tech, Connection Technologies, Dead Simple Computing, ATS Connection, AIS Technology, Your IT Department, Initial IT, Weald IT, Tech Savvy Solutions, Stratiis, F1 Group, Sheridan Computers, IT Jobs Watch and the UK Government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26. IT Pro Expert prices are from our current service catalogue.

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