Key facts
- In-house staff provide on-site presence and deep knowledge of your business
- One in-house person cannot cover every specialism or be available every day of the year
- Outsourced support costs a predictable fee with no recruitment, training or holiday cover to arrange
- Many growing businesses use both: an in-house person plus outsourced specialists
- dijitul Complete plan: £99 a month + VAT with IT and Microsoft 365 helpdesk and 3 hours of work
- Most outsourced support is remote; on-site visits are quoted when genuinely needed
The short answer
For most UK businesses with fewer than about twenty or thirty staff, outsourced IT is the more practical choice: you get a range of skills for a monthly fee, without the cost of a full-time salary. Larger businesses, or those with a lot of on-site hardware such as manufacturing or schools, often benefit from at least one in-house person, usually supported by an outsourced provider for specialist work and cover.
The right answer depends on how much of your IT needs hands on site, how specialist your systems are and how much a day without IT would cost you.
Side-by-side comparison
| Factor | In-house IT | Outsourced IT |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Full salary, employer costs, training and tools | Monthly plan or hourly rate |
| On-site presence | Every working day | Mostly remote; visits arranged when needed |
| Knowledge of your business | Deep, built up daily | Good, built up through documentation and history |
| Range of skills | Limited to one or two people | Broader across websites, Microsoft 365, networks and security |
| Holiday and sickness cover | Gap unless you hire more people | Provider covers it |
| Recruitment and retention | Your responsibility | Not your problem |
| Scaling up or down | Slow: hiring or redundancy | Change plan or hours |
| Control and priorities | You set priorities directly | Agreed through the plan and requests |
What in-house IT does well
An in-house IT person is in the building. They can swap a broken keyboard in two minutes, notice that the meeting room screen is not working before the client arrives and learn exactly how your team uses its systems. They can also take on projects that are unique to your business without a quote for each one.
The weaknesses are coverage and breadth. One person cannot be a website developer, Microsoft 365 administrator, network engineer and cyber security specialist all at once, and they take holidays. If they leave, much of what they knew may leave with them unless it was written down.
What outsourced IT does well
An outsourced provider brings experience from many different set-ups and tools for monitoring, backups and security that would be expensive to buy for one business. You pay for what you need and can change it as you grow. There is no recruitment, no training budget and no gap when someone is off.
The trade-offs are that most work is remote, and the provider will not know your business as well on day one as someone who works there. Good providers close that gap by documenting your systems. dijitul supports most clients remotely and quotes any on-site work upfront. See managed IT services and remote IT support.
Questions to decide between them
- How many of your IT problems last year actually needed someone physically present?
- How much would a day without email, your website or your main system cost?
- Do you need specialist skills, such as cyber security or website development, only occasionally?
- Could your business cope if your one IT person left or was off for a month?
- Is there enough IT work to keep a full-time person busy and developing?
If most answers point to remote work, occasional specialist needs and a small team, outsourcing is usually the better fit. If you have a lot of on-site equipment and constant small requests, an in-house person backed by an outsourced provider may be best.
The hybrid option
Many growing businesses combine the two. An office manager or junior IT person handles day-to-day issues on site, while an outsourced provider looks after Microsoft 365 security, backups, the website, networks and projects, and covers holidays. This is often called co-managed IT.
Our Complete plan at £99 a month + VAT includes an IT and Microsoft 365 helpdesk and 3 hours of fixes or changes each month, which fits well alongside an in-house person. Specific projects are quoted. If you are weighing up your options, an IT audit or IT consultancy session can help, and our pricing page shows every plan.
Frequently asked questions
At what size should a business hire in-house IT?
There is no fixed rule, but many businesses under about twenty or thirty staff find outsourced IT more cost-effective. Businesses with lots of on-site equipment or specialist systems may need someone in the building sooner, often supported by an outsourced provider.
Is outsourced IT support cheaper than hiring someone?
For most small businesses, yes. A full-time hire brings a salary, employer costs, training and holiday cover. dijitul's Complete plan is £99 a month + VAT, including a staff helpdesk and 3 hours of work each month, with ad-hoc help at £45 an hour + VAT.
Can outsourced IT work alongside our in-house person?
Yes. Co-managed IT is common. Your in-house person handles on-site tasks, while dijitul covers Microsoft 365 security, backups, websites, networks and holiday cover, so your staff member is not the single point of failure.
What happens when outsourced IT needs someone on site?
dijitul handles most support remotely, which is quicker for the majority of problems. If something genuinely needs hands on site, such as cabling or hardware replacement, we tell you upfront and quote it before any visit is booked.
How do we avoid losing knowledge when IT staff leave?
Document everything: admin accounts, network layout, backups, licences and suppliers. dijitul keeps documentation for the systems we look after, so knowledge stays with the business rather than with one person.
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