Practical IT support for UK small businesses
Consumer extended security updates for Windows 10 ended on 13 October 2026, but the odd straggler is still humming away in UK small offices. Here is a calm, practical order of work for finding those machines, isolating the risky ones, and deciding between refurbished Windows 11 hardware, a straight replacement, Linux, or commercial ESU.
That old desktop in the cupboard is not just clutter — it is a storage device with a history. Here is a practical 45-minute routine for UK small firms to retire a computer cleanly, from asset register to WEEE paperwork.
Someone signed up for a free tool with their work email in about ten seconds, and two years later it's still running, still holding customer names, and nobody has ever looked at it. Here's a gentle, practical way to find those apps, work out which ones deserve a closer look under UK GDPR, and clear out the ones that don't.
Your domain is the address on the van, the link in every quote, and the front door for customers. Yet the registrar login often sits untouched for years. Here's a practical, coffee-length review covering transfer locks, auto-renew, recovery contacts, DNS alerts and a simple rehearsal for the day the domain goes missing.
Supplier invoice fraud rarely looks dramatic. It looks like a familiar PDF, a polite nudge and a new sort code. Here's a practical 2026 playbook for UK small firms: spot the switch, verify by phone, tighten the mailbox, and keep legitimate suppliers moving.
Copilot doesn't create new leaks; it exposes the ones already sitting in SharePoint and OneDrive. Before you switch it on, run a short permission audit that closes stale guest links, tightens broad access and sets a simple no-go list for sensitive files.
Most small firms only find out what they don't control on the day they try to leave an IT provider. This is a calm, practical rehearsal you can run in 90 minutes—covering Microsoft 365, DNS, backups, phones and data handover—so a future provider switch is boring rather than dramatic.
Most small firms treat the helpdesk as a repair shop: something breaks, someone fixes it, everyone moves on. But the same tickets, read in batches rather than one at a time, can reveal phishing attempts, account takeover attempts and ageing kit long before they become an incident.
Cloud services are convenient right up to the moment a renewal email lands with new terms, a higher price or a product name you no longer recognise. This guide explains what you actually own, what you need to export, and how to keep a one-page exit plan ready without turning it into a project.
Insurers are asking sharper questions about multi-factor authentication, tested backups and incident plans — and 'we are careful' is not an answer. This is a practical walk through a typical 2026 questionnaire, with the simple evidence a small UK firm can gather without hiring a security consultant.
The UK's old phone network is winding down, and the tricky part is rarely the desk phone. It is the alarm, lift line, card terminal or fax that quietly depends on it. Here is a calm, checklist-led way to find every line, ask the right questions and test before you switch.
One dug-up cable can take out your card machine, your email and your shared files at the worst possible moment. A cheap 4G router plus a laminated one-page procedure keeps a small UK office trading while the ISP gets its act together.
A phone that keeps buzzing with sign-in approval requests isn't a glitch — it usually means someone already has a password and is waiting for a tired tap. Here's how a small UK firm should respond without losing a working day.
Green ticks in a backup console prove that files were copied. They prove nothing about whether you can get them back on a Tuesday afternoon with a customer waiting. Here's a short, repeatable drill for UK small firms using Microsoft 365, SharePoint, OneDrive or an on-site server.
Most small UK firms don't have an IT department — they have a person. That works beautifully until the person is on a beach in Portugal with no signal, or wins the lottery and doesn't come back. Here's a plain-English look at the risk, and a practical afternoon's worth of fixing it.
A returned laptop feels like the end of an offboarding job. In Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, it's often just the visible part. Here's what actually happens to a leaver's mailbox, files, forwarding rules and licence — and the simple checklist a UK line manager can follow without needing an IT degree.
Most small firms don't need a sprawling IT audit. They need a short, repeatable routine that catches the boring risks before they become expensive ones. Here's a 25-minute monthly check built for a two-person office, a busy manager, and anyone who'd rather not spend their Friday evening resetting passwords.
A phone line that never closes feels like reassurance, but for most UK small businesses it is the least valuable part of an IT contract. Here is why proactive monitoring, honest response-time promises and people who can actually turn up matter far more than midnight heroics.
Dark evenings, Black Friday inboxes and a fortnight of empty desks make November and December a gift to criminals. Here are seven practical jobs to complete before your team downs tools for Christmas, each with a quick win and a short brief for staff.