Where are MSPs seeing the most growth?

Nine MSPs reveal which parts of the business are scaling the fastest

Whether they’re pursuing an acquisition, a hiring drive or new partnerships, most MSPs share one anchoring objective – growth, particularly revenue and profit upticks year-on-year.

But how to achieve this is often the million-dollar question, and the managed services business is no different.

The global managed services market stands at $5.4trn, and UK MSPs remain optimistic for this year’s growth expectations.

But what’s in the driver’s seat and ramping up their businesses the most?

IT services? Absolutely. Cybersecurity? Most certainly. AI? Undoubtedly.

CRN spoke with nine MSPs to find out what technology, solution or service is contributing the most to their annual growth.

Jay Ball, CEO, Flotek

Our premium IT and cyber services. For example, we have two IT plans. One is a generic IT support, typical of what you see from an MSP.

And then we have a secondary product, which is our premium IT service, which includes more advanced cybersecurity products [such as] custom intranet, so we want to use cloud computing, and so we're seeing a lot of customers grabbing onto these more advanced services.

So I think that growth is coming from businesses seeing services that they haven't seen before from their existing providers or other people out there.

And so HUB365, which is our internet product that's seeing massive growth, cyber naturally is seeing massive growth, because everyone is terrified of what happens if you get a breach.

We're now seeing a lot more people who have been through a breach understand the cost of a breach and therefore are willing to spend on securing themselves.

Melissa Rambridge, CEO, inTEC

Cybersecurity as a Service. We have a product called inTRUST, which means we're addressing the need in the market for that comprehensive security solution that enhances the customer's overall security posture.

It would be remiss of me not to mention AI and automation and how businesses can adopt the same within their own processes and workflows. That's a key area, too.

Rob Mackle, MD, EMEA & APAC, Assured Data Protection

We’re launching an innovation team to specifically focus on growth opportunities. This is a strategic initiative aimed at expanding our market-leading disaster recovery (DR), backup, and cyber resiliency services with the addition of new technologies which complement current data protection services.

We’ve built a strong business, taking Rubrik’s disaster recovery and immutable backup technology to the market through our MSP model. The team will focus on identifying and implementing technologies which bring new value to customers, beyond our current Rubrik-based offer.

We’ve also embarked on a major global expansion beyond the UK, encompassing Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Australasia. This rapid expansion will continue, as demand for consumption-based, pay for what you use, IT services continues to grow in parallel with demand for our MSP offerings.

Russell Crampin, MD, Axians UK

We see excellent growth in our industrial operational technology (OT) cybersecurity business where we operate as a partner and MSSP.

The industrial OT market is changing, albeit at a slower pace than traditional IT markets.

However, it’s building momentum and shows no sign of slowing down. The demand to extract automation, data analysis, efficiencies and safety from industrial systems is driving more and more connectivity, but this is at odds in a world where cybersecurity risk and compliance is increasing.

Geoff Kneen, CEO, Advania UK

AI is undoubtedly the fastest-growing area of our business at the moment, and it’s driving growth in several adjacent technologies. The Power Platform, particularly Power Apps, is seeing strong uptake as clients look for ways to build bespoke tools and workflows. We’re seeing a real shift in mindset: rather than trying to shut down shadow IT, organisations are now looking to embrace and enable it, provided it’s governed appropriately.

Low-code and no-code platforms are allowing non-technical users to develop apps, and IT’s role is evolving to support that innovation while ensuring the right controls are in place. Helping clients create a framework that balances empowerment with governance has become a key growth area for us.

We’re also seeing continued momentum around Microsoft Copilot and broader Microsoft licensing, as businesses increasingly seek to embed AI into their day-to-day operations. On the hardware side, the rise of AI-enabled PCs and the upcoming end-of-support for Windows 10 are prompting equipment refreshes, which is further contributing to growth.

Together, these areas: AI, low-code solutions, Microsoft adoption, and modernisation of endpoints, are driving strong performance across the business.

Stephen Richardson, CEO, Digital Origin Solutions

Security services are absolutely going to be the fastest-growing segment for us.

Security assessments, vulnerability management, managed threat detection, and user training are all areas where demand is rising sharply.

Clients are becoming more aware that cybersecurity is no longer optional, and we’re seeing higher willingness to invest, especially when tied to regulatory requirements, cyber insurance, or tangible risk reduction outcomes.

Alongside security, cloud service management and automation consultancy (e.g. using Power Platform tools) are areas we note will show steady growth, too.

Geoff Wing, CRO, Arc

As ever, we see strong demand for our support and helpdesk services based on our reputation for outstanding customer service; besides this, cost consolidation activities - as well as services that will provide rapid access to demonstrable savings - are in demand.

Increasingly, we are also seeing growing demand and interest in AI and automation capabilities, as well as data governance.

Oliver Spence, CEO, CybaVerse

Our MDR offering is really taking off.

Where we've been able to consolidate compliance, penetration testing and VR into a single platform, a lot of MSPs have been really positive.

Tool consolidation is a big thing. MSPs have so many different products and tools and specifically in cybersecurity. There's a lot of different options out there.

So a lot of our growth is coming from our MDR platform and module.

Lee Robinson, co-founder & director, Meta Eagle

Our security products. A lot of our customers now are being a lot more security conscious.

We're a little bit different in that we baseline all of our products, and we say, ‘You're having endpoint, and all these products because we believe in them, and you should have’, but we're also having customers come to us, seeing what's in the news.

Case in point, I had the managing director of a hotel and bar chain reach out to me only a couple days ago, she's seen what's happened in the news in terms of Marks and Spencers and everything else. And they're asking the question of, ‘Do we need this? Have we got all of the protection that we can have? Are there any other products and suites and services that we invest in?’

Our biggest area of growth, 85 per cent of our revenue is our managed service plan in that people either need things managed correctly they don't have the skill set or much like you would with your accountant or your HR department, you can outsource it to people that know what they're doing. So that is by far the biggest area of growth for us.