- IT Support
IT Support Trends for 2026: What SMEs Should Prepare For
22 Mar, 2026
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Downtime Cost Calculator
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UK average is approximately £150,000 per employee per year
Common Causes of IT Downtime
| Cause | Typical Duration | Frequency (per year) | Prevention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware Failure | 4–24 hours | 1–3 incidents | Monitoring & proactive replacement |
| Software Crash / Update | 1–4 hours | 3–6 incidents | Patch management & testing |
| Network Outage | 1–8 hours | 2–4 incidents | Redundant connectivity & monitoring |
| Cyber Attack / Ransomware | 24–72 hours | 0–1 incidents | Security stack & backup strategy |
| Human Error | 1–4 hours | 4–8 incidents | Training & access controls |
| Power Outage | 1–6 hours | 1–2 incidents | UPS & cloud failover |
| ISP / Internet Failure | 2–12 hours | 2–4 incidents | Dual ISP & SD-WAN |
| Cloud Service Outage | 1–8 hours | 1–3 incidents | Multi-cloud & DR planning |
Figures are industry averages for UK SMEs. Actual incident frequency and duration vary based on infrastructure quality and IT support arrangements. Talk to Cloudswitched about reducing your downtime risk.
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