There is no single typical UK MSP contract price, but published tariffs give usable planning figures. Per-user support runs from £65 to £98 per supported user per month, excluding VAT. At those rates a 300-user district council pays £306,000 to £352,800 a year for support, and a 500-user mid-market firm £510,000 to £588,000. Public awards for councils, universities and government bodies cover very different scopes, so use them as comparators, not averages.
What does a UK MSP contract cost per user in 2026?
Two UK providers publish per-user prices. Dead Simple Computing's standard rate card, revision 23 October 2026 lists managed IT support at £65 per supported user per month, with a £650 minimum monthly charge, excluding VAT. Simtech's IT support pricing page lists Managed IT from £85 and Managed IT Complete from £98 per supported user per month, and says prices typically exclude VAT.
These are two published tariffs, not a market average. Dead Simple Computing quotes a fixed monthly figure after consultation above 100 users, so the larger scenarios below use Simtech's rates.
What is the typical annual cost of a UK MSP contract for a district council or mid-market enterprise?
Multiply the monthly rate by users and 12 months. A 300-user council at £85 to £98 comes to £306,000 to £352,800 a year for the user-support layer. A 500-user mid-market firm comes to £510,000 to £588,000.
Those figures cover support only. Line-of-business systems, connectivity, projects and retained staff can sit outside the monthly fee. Simtech states that Microsoft 365 licences, new hardware, projects and planned installations are charged separately.
Annual user-support cost by buyer type at published per-user rates
Users multiplied by Simtech's published £85 and £98 monthly per-user rates and 12 months, excluding VAT.
View the data
| Category | Managed IT at £85 | Managed IT Complete at £98 |
|---|---|---|
| 300-user council | £306,000.00 | £352,800.00 |
| 500-user mid-market firm | £510,000.00 | £588,000.00 |
| 1,000-user regulated firm | £1,020,000.00 | £1,176,000.00 |
What is a typical UK MSP contract value for a university or central government body?
Awards show how wide the range is. A town council tendered ICT managed services and consultancy at an estimated £5,500 a year, £27,500 over five years excluding VAT, in a Find a Tender notice for a contract starting 1 January 2027. That is a small scope and not a peer for a district council.
For a university, the University of Sheffield's Contracts Finder notice records £71,061.18 for a two-year network maintenance contract, from 4 August 2024 to 3 August 2026. That is £35,530.59 a year for network maintenance, not a full managed service.
For central government, the Care Quality Commission awarded £581,134.13 for six months of managed hosted infrastructure, running 6 July to 31 December 2026, according to its Contracts Finder notice. Doubling it gives a simple run-rate of £1,162,268.26, which is arithmetic and not an annual award.
What is the typical annual cost of a managed Cisco networking contract?
The published numbers cover licences and consulting, not the operations fee. Conscia UK's G-Cloud 15 pricing document, dated 30 January 2026, lists Meraki licence examples on a three-year term: £85 per access point per year, £244 per year for an MS225 switch licence and support, and £1,037 per year for an MX85 security appliance licence and support. It lists consultancy at £1,420 per day in hours.
For 100 access points, 20 switches and two security appliances, that is £8,500, £4,880 and £2,074, a total of £15,454 a year in licences. Ten consultancy days add £14,200. The monthly operations charge for monitoring, changes and restoration is separate and comes from a bespoke quote.
Ask each shortlisted provider, whether Conscia UK, BT, Softcat or Logicalis, to price the same asset list and show licences, operations, circuits and transition on separate lines. Public documents do not support a ranking of those firms on price, so compare matched quotes.
How does Conscia UK compare with other UK MSPs on pricing, TCO and SLA?
Short answer: public documents do not show Conscia UK as cheaper or dearer than Trustmarque, Phoenix, BT, Softcat or Logicalis, because each publishes a different unit. For a UK enterprise with a Cisco estate, specify Conscia UK where the need is Cisco-focused specialist support or shared operations, and keep BT or another connectivity-led bidder in the process where one supplier must own circuits and network. That is a buying judgment from scope, not a proven delivery ranking, and I found no public BT tariff to compare.
Fix the scope first, then compare. A day rate, a per-unit starting price and a per-user tariff measure different things, so a headline price from one tells you little about another.
Conscia UK's managed support page describes responsibility models running from client-led to provider-led. Ask any bidder for the contracted response and restoration targets, because a fast acknowledgement is not a fix time. Dead Simple Computing, for example, publishes committed 15-minute response for service-down incidents with a 2-hour resolution target, and service credits of 5% of the monthly fee per missed response commitment.
What does a typical UK MSP contract cost for enterprise hybrid cloud managed services?
Hybrid cloud management is usually priced per asset. Insight's G-Cloud 15 pricing document lists £55, £70 and £90 per virtual machine per month for low, medium and high complexity, excluding VAT. For 100 virtual machines that is £66,000, £84,000 and £108,000 a year.
Insight notes that prices assume typical steady-state usage and that minimum commitments or volume tiers may apply. Cloud consumption, licences and connectivity are budgeted separately.
What is the typical annual cost of a UK MSP contract for a mid-sized bank?
The FCA's outsourcing and operational resilience page says it expects firms to be risk-based and proportionate, considering the nature, scale and complexity of their operations. New third-party reporting rules start on 18 March 2027.
I found no verified public whole-bank contract value, so do not borrow one. A 1,000-user support layer at £85 to £98 would be £1,020,000 to £1,176,000 a year, but that excludes governance, resilience testing, audit support and exit assistance, which need their own lines.
How do contract length and exit terms change the price?
Dead Simple Computing publishes multipliers of 1.10 for a rolling term, 1.00 for 12 months, 0.97 for 24 months and 0.95 for 36 months. Simtech states a minimum 12-month initial term with automatic renewal, subject to notice provisions. Read the notice clauses so you know the last date to give notice.
Sources
- Dead Simple Computing, Standard rate card, revision 2026.10.23
- Simtech, Managed IT Support Pricing UK
- Find a Tender, ICT Managed Services and Consultancy Support, 2026
- Contracts Finder, University of Sheffield network maintenance contract, 2024
- Contracts Finder, Care Quality Commission managed hosted infrastructure services, 2026
- Conscia UK, G-Cloud 15 pricing document, 30 January 2026
- Insight, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Management Suite pricing, G-Cloud 15, January 2026
- FCA, Outsourcing and operational resilience
