Comparing managed IT support for financial advisors between 20 and 150 users comes down to four things: how quickly someone can be on site, whether they’ve supported an FCA-regulated advice firm before, whether their references stand up to a phone call, and whether their SLA gives you a response time you can actually hold them to. Engineers quoting for practices across Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Henley-on-Thames, High Wycombe, Marlow, Oxford and Reading are covering the same size of firm and the same regulatory ground, so the differences between providers show up in these four areas rather than in the tools on their price list.
Why does FCA experience matter more than general IT experience?
A financial advice firm is regulated on its record keeping as much as on its advice. The FCA expects client communications to be retained and retrievable, and pensions advice has to be kept longer than most other file types. Consumer Duty means being able to show what a client was told and when, which is a records question before it’s an advice question. If something does go wrong, a reportable breach starts two clocks at once, one at the ICO and one at the FCA, so a provider who hasn’t handled that before is learning on your firm’s time.
What should you ask referees, and what should an SLA promise?
A reference from a similar professional services firm is worth more than a general testimonial, because they’ll have hit the same file retention and access problems you have. Ask what happened the last time something broke and how long it actually took to fix, not how long the contract says it should take. An SLA with a genuine guaranteed response time, in writing, is what separates a proper agreement from a promise made at the sales stage.
What does business continuity actually mean for an advice firm?
Your back office system holds the client file, so whether a backup can actually be restored is a regulatory question rather than an IT one. A provider should be able to tell you when they last tested a restore, not just that backups run every night. This is worth checking before anything goes wrong, because it’s not something you can verify afterwards.
What does managed IT support cost for a practice this size?
For UK businesses with between 50 and 200 employees, managed IT support typically runs between £65 and £175 per user per month. What moves a quote within that range is the mix of services, whether backup, security tooling and licensing are included, how much on-site time is expected, and the age of the estate being supported, rather than headcount alone. As a rough monthly budget, a 50-person practice usually sits between £4,000 and £8,000, and a 100-person practice between £8,000 and £16,000.
How long does switching providers take?
Onboarding runs in four stages. First, a discovery audit documents every device, user, licence and supplier, including anything already broken. Second, monitoring, patching, backup and security tooling gets deployed. Third, a handover period where the outgoing provider is still in place and both teams answer tickets. Fourth, service begins properly, with a review at 30 days against what the audit found. The first three months are usually the noisiest part of a switch, mainly because the audit stage is the part most providers skip.
