Managed IT Support vs In-House IT: What’s Right for a Yorkshire SME?
You’re growing. The IT problems are growing with you. Somewhere between the third password reset of the week and the morning the Wi-Fi died before a client pitch, hiring your own IT person started to feel like the obvious answer.
It might be. But before you write that job spec, it’s worth thinking about what you’re really signing up for. Not just the salary, but what happens on the days that person isn’t there, and what they can and can’t realistically cover on their own.
I’ll be straight with you: I run a managed IT company, so you’d expect me to say “outsource it”. But there are businesses where an in-house hire is the right call, and I’ll tell you which ones. Here’s the honest comparison for a small Yorkshire team.
An IT hire costs more than the salary
The number on the job advert is just the start. Once you add National Insurance, pension, a laptop, software, training and probably a recruiter’s fee, the true cost of one person is a good chunk higher than the salary you advertised.
That’s not a reason to avoid hiring. It’s just worth going in with your eyes open. If you’d like the figures side by side, our guide to what managed IT support costs in the UK lays them out plainly.
For most small teams, though, the money isn’t the deciding factor. These next two points are.
What happens when your IT person is off?
They’ll take holiday. They’ll get the flu. They might, one day, hand in their notice. None of that is a criticism, it’s just what happens when your whole IT setup lives in one person’s head.
The problem is timing. The email server doesn’t wait until they’re back from Majorca. When your one IT person is away, you’re back where you started: Googling error messages and hoping.
There’s a quieter risk too. If they leave, how much do you know about the day to day running of your own systems? Which passwords, which licenses, which backups? “It was all in Dave’s head” is a stressful thing to realise the week after Dave leaves.
In the Navy, where I learned IT, a system that depended on one person wasn’t a system. It was a liability. The same applies to a small firm in Yorkshire.
One person can’t be an expert in everything
Think about what “IT” covers for a small business now. Laptops, tablets, phones. Microsoft 365. Backups. Cyber security. Wi-Fi and broadband. Supplier contracts. Getting new starters set up and locking leavers out on the day they go.
A good generalist can handle most of that. But one person is rarely also a security specialist, a Microsoft 365 expert and a backup engineer. Each of those is a specialist topic.
In practice, a lot of in-house IT people end up calling in outside help for the hard stuff anyway. You pay the salary and the specialist’s hourly rate. You can see how it’s all adding up?
With managed IT support, you get a team instead of a person. Whoever picks up your ticket has seen your problem before, probably that week, at another Yorkshire business.
Two businesses, one bad Monday
Picture two small Yorkshire firms, much the same size, both growing.
The first hired an IT person. They’re great. They know their systems, they’re friendly, and the team love them. Then they book a fortnight in Spain. On the Monday they are away, a phishing email gets through, and someone’s account is compromised. Nobody’s quite sure what to do. The director spends the morning on the phone to Microsoft, and a client email goes out from the hacked account before anyone notices.
The second went with managed IT support. Same Monday, same email. But the suspicious login is flagged straight away, the account is locked, and the team gets a message explaining what happened. By lunchtime it’s a story, not a crisis. Nobody was on holiday, because the support was never one person.
That’s the real difference. It’s not about one being cheaper on paper. It’s about whether your IT keeps working when life happens.
It’s why we focus on speed: our average response time is 11 minutes, and 98% of issues are sorted the same day.
When in-house genuinely makes sense
There are businesses where hiring is the right answer, and we’ll say so if you’re one of them.
- You need someone physically on site every day. A warehouse, a workshop or a lab with specialist kit that needs hands on it daily is a different job to remote support.
- You run bespoke systems that are central to the business. If your core software is custom-built, an internal person who knows it inside out can be worth the cost.
- You’re a much larger business. At that size, a hybrid model starts to make sense: an in-house IT lead for day-to-day knowledge, backed by a managed provider for security, monitoring and cover.
If none of that sounds like you, the numbers usually point one way.
When managed IT is the smarter choice
For most small Yorkshire businesses, managed IT support wins on cover and cost. It’s usually the better fit if:
- Your team works across the office, home and client sites, so most fixes can happen remotely.
- You need predictable costs you can put in a budget, not a salary plus surprise specialist bills.
- You want security, backups and monitoring handled properly, not squeezed in around password resets.
- You can’t afford for IT to stop when one person is on holiday.
And you’re never too small for it. A small consultancy arguably needs proactive support more than a big firm, because there’s nobody in the building to spot a small problem before it becomes a big one. That’s especially true for consultants and professional-services firms handling confidential client data.
Because we monitor your systems around the clock and fix issues before they reach your team, clients typically find they’re raising far fewer IT tickets once we’ve settled in. For most small teams, our Core plan is the natural place to start, with the option to step up to Core+ if you want support completely off your plate.
What one Yorkshire business found when they did the math’s
A creative marketing agency in Leeds with 12 staff had budgeted for their first IT hire last year. Before advertising, they asked us to run the comparison. The results were a no brainer. Especially with the team mainly working in hybrid positions. Moving to managed IT instead saved them over £10,000 in the first year, and their team now gets same-day fixes without waiting for one person to be free.
Not sure which is right for you?
Every business is a bit different, and the honest answer depends on your size, your systems and how your team works.
If you’d like a second opinion before you write that job spec, book a free 15-minute chat. We’ll look at your setup and give you a straight answer, even if that answer isn’t “hire us”. It’s just a conversation.
Managed IT Support or in house: Which is best for you?
Is managed IT support cheaper than hiring someone?
For most small teams, yes. Once you add National Insurance, pension, equipment and recruitment, one employee costs far more than a managed plan for the whole team. Our cost guide has the full figures.
What's the difference between outsourced IT and managed IT?
They’re often used to mean the same thing. “Managed” usually means proactive: your systems are monitored and maintained continuously, rather than someone only fixing things after you call.
Can I have both an in-house person and a managed provider?
Yes. It’s called co-managed IT, and it suits larger firms. Your in-house person handles daily requests while the provider covers security, monitoring, specialist work and holiday cover.
Will I lose control if I outsource my IT?
You shouldn’t. A good provider documents your systems so you can see exactly what you have. With Singularitee, every client gets proper IT documentation, so nothing lives in one person’s head.
Am I too small for managed IT support?
No. Most of the businesses we look after are small teams. Smaller teams often benefit most, because there’s no one in-house to catch small problems early.
How long does it take to switch to managed IT?
Most businesses are onboarded with very little disruption. We plan the move around your working day and handle the setup ourselves.
