What does an MSP actually do?

A managed service provider keeps the lights on. Helpdesk, patching, backups, hardware, the daily work of keeping systems running and secure. A good one is worth every penny. But an MSP is paid to maintain what already exists, not to ask whether it's the right setup for where your business is heading. Ask one for strategy and you'll usually get more of what they already sell - more licences, more managed service. That's not a knock on them. It's the model. Keeping things running and deciding where things should go are two different jobs.

If you've ever asked your provider for a technology roadmap and got back a quotation, you've seen the boundary of that model first-hand.

What does a full-time CTO give you - and what does it cost?

A full-time CTO gives you someone in the building, fully invested, owning technology from top to bottom. For a business with the scale and the pipeline to keep that person busy and well paid, it's the right move. For a 40-person manufacturer or a £6M agency, it usually isn't - at least not yet. A senior technology leader is one of the more expensive hires you'll make, and most established SMBs don't have a year of strategic work lined up to justify the salary. So you either pay a lot for someone who ends up doing work well below their level, or you leave the seat empty because you can't quite justify filling it properly.

The numbers bear that out. Published UK guides put the all-in cost of a full-time CTO somewhere between £140,000 and £230,000 a year once salary, employer National Insurance, pension and recruitment fees are counted. That's money well spent when technology is the product - a software business scaling a fifteen-person development team needs someone in that seat every day. For most established SMBs, the honest question isn't "can we afford it?" but "would we keep them busy at the level we're paying for?"

What about promoting from within - or an interim CTO?

Two other options come up in these conversations. The first is promoting your most capable technical person - the developer who's been there longest, or the IT manager who keeps everything going. Sometimes that works. More often you lose your best engineer and gain a reluctant strategist, because running systems well and setting direction are different skills. It's the same MSP boundary, one desk closer.

The second is an interim CTO: a full-time but temporary leader, usually brought in for three to six months around a specific event - a sale, an acquisition, a wholesale system replacement. Interims are the right call when there's a genuine full-time job that will end. If the need is ongoing but part-time - direction, supplier control, a plan that tracks the business - the interim model doesn't fit, because the point isn't cover. It's cadence.

Where does a fractional CTO fit?

A fractional CTO gives you the senior thinking without the full-time cost. Someone who has led technology before, working with you a few days a month, accountable for direction rather than tickets. The job is clarity and strategy: understanding what you've got, deciding what you actually need, and leading the work to get there. For an established business of 20 to 150 people, a few days a month of genuine technology leadership - at a fraction of a full-time cost - is usually the right-sized answer.

It sits above the MSP, not in place of it. Done well, it makes your MSP relationship work harder, because someone is finally holding it to a plan instead of a renewal cycle. The MSP runs the estate day to day; the fractional CTO decides what the estate should become - and makes sure every supplier underneath is pulling in that direction.

Fractional CTO vs MSP vs full-time hire: how do you tell which you need?

A rough test. If the problem is "things keep breaking and nobody's fixing them fast enough," that's an MSP question. If the problem is "we don't know what we've got, where it's taking us, or whether we're spending the right money," that's a leadership question - and at SMB scale, fractional is usually how you answer it without overcommitting.

Put plainly:

• "Things keep breaking and fixes are slow." That's a service problem. An MSP conversation - or a harder look at the one you've already got.

• "We don't know what we've got, what it costs, or where it's taking us." That's a leadership problem. Fractional is usually how you buy that at SMB scale.

• "Technology is our product and we're scaling an in-house team." That's when the full-time hire starts to earn its keep.

These aren't rival camps. Plenty of businesses keep their MSP exactly where it is and bring a fractional CTO in above it. One keeps the machine running; the other decides where the machine is going. Most growing businesses need both - they just reach for them in the wrong order.

The mistake to avoid

The common error is reaching for the option you already understand - calling the MSP, or posting a job - before you've named the actual problem. Diagnosis first. Get that right and the choice tends to make itself. Spend on maintenance when you needed direction, or hire a director when you needed maintenance, and you'll feel it for a year.

It usually starts with a clear view of your technology estate - what you've got, what it's doing, and where it's holding you back. Once that's on the table, the right kind of help is rarely a hard call.