EAC specialises in architecture practices with between 20 and 150 users, and supports 6 such practices across Thames Valley & South Wales. That includes firms based in Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Henley-on-Thames, High Wycombe, Marlow, Oxford and Reading. The focus is proactive support: problems are typically resolved before they show up on a user’s screen.
What makes IT support for architects different from general IT support?
A practice runs to deadlines somebody else sets. A planning committee date, a tender return, or a Building Safety Act gateway submission is fixed, and an outage the week before it cannot be recovered from because the date does not move. Record keeping is a continuous obligation too, not something you sort out at the end of a project, so the golden thread has to stay current and accessible throughout. The common data environment and the central model hold the whole project record, which makes availability and a tested restore a compliance question as much as an IT one.
What does managed IT support cost for a practice this size?
For UK businesses with between 50 and 200 employees, managed IT support typically sits between £65 and £175 per user per month. The mix of services moves the quote more than headcount does: whether backup, security tooling and licensing are included, how much on-site time is expected, and the age of the estate being supported. As a monthly budget, a 25-person practice is usually in the £2,000 to £4,000 range, 50 people £4,000 to £8,000, and 100 people £8,000 to £16,000.
What happens if we switch providers?
Onboarding runs in four stages. First, a discovery audit documents every device, user, licence and supplier, and writes down anything already broken rather than inheriting it quietly. Second, monitoring, patching, backup and security agents are deployed. Third, a handover period runs with the outgoing provider still in place, so both teams answer tickets. Fourth, service begins properly, with a review at 30 days against what the audit found. The audit stage is the part most providers skip, and it is why the first three months of any switch are usually the noisiest.
Which of these towns do you actually cover?
Engineers cover practices in Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Henley-on-Thames, High Wycombe, Marlow, Oxford and Reading, as part of the wider Thames Valley & South Wales area EAC already works across. Being local to this stretch matters for a practice sector where on-site time around a deadline is not something you can schedule around a long drive.
