Buying an IT managed services business: what to look for
For founder-led MSPs and IT services firms buying in their sector: the UK market, what makes MSP targets different to assess and how to find willing sellers.
This page is for owners of founder-led IT managed services businesses, usually with £5m to £100m turnover, who want to grow by buying other MSPs or IT services firms. You might want a new region, a security or cloud capability you don't have, or more customers to put through the service desk you have already built.
We help you find the right businesses to buy, including ones that are not for sale, approach their owners in confidence and keep the deal moving. We don't do the technical review ourselves. Your own technical lead or an independent IT specialist does that, alongside your lawyers and accountants.
What is happening in the UK IT services M&A market?
Activity is high and steady. Moore Kingston Smith counted 648 UK IT services deals in 2025, up 1% on 641 in 2024. Private equity was involved, directly or through a business it already owns, in 73% of them, up from 70% in 2024 (Moore Kingston Smith, January 2026). Those figures cover IT services broadly, not only managed services, but they show who you are competing with.
Two points follow for a founder-led buyer. First, well-run MSPs with good contracts are attracting more than one buyer, so waiting for one to come to market usually means competing on price. Second, size affects price. Across UK and Irish mid-market deals in the second half of 2025, a business with £10m of EBITDA (operating profit) averaged 8.4 times that profit, against 3.3 times for one with £200,000 (Dealsuite, February 2026). Smaller MSPs can be bought for less, but they often depend more heavily on the owner.
A count of IT businesses is not a count of businesses you can buy. Most will never sell to you. The work is finding the few whose owners are open to a conversation and who fit what you want.
Why do MSP owners buy other MSPs?
The reasons we hear most often are practical:
- Customers and density. Adding customers in your region makes better use of engineers and the service desk you already pay for.
- Capability. Buying a business with a security operations, cloud or compliance skill set can be quicker than building one, and it gives you people who already do the work.
- People. Skilled engineers are hard to hire. An acquisition brings a working team, if you keep them.
- New regions. A business with a local presence and reputation can be a faster way in than opening an office.
- Scale. A larger, more recurring business is usually worth more per pound of profit, as the Dealsuite figures above suggest.
What makes an MSP different to assess?
A general due diligence checklist covers the basics. These are the points that matter most for an MSP.
| Area | What to check |
|---|---|
| Recurring revenue | How much of turnover comes from contracted monthly services, against projects and hardware. Contract length, notice periods, auto-renewal and any change-of-control clauses that let a customer leave on a sale. |
| Customer concentration | How much revenue sits with the top five customers, and whether any one customer could leave after a change of ownership. |
| Supplier and platform dependence | Reliance on one remote monitoring tool, one cloud platform or one distributor. Partner status, licence terms and whether they transfer to a new owner. Margins on resold licences. |
| Technical estate | How the target's tooling, documentation and processes compare with yours. Two different stacks make integration slower and more expensive. |
| Security exposure | The target's own security record, past incidents, backups, access controls and insurance. An MSP holds keys to many customers' systems, so a weakness in the target becomes your weakness. |
| People | Who holds the customer relationships and the technical knowledge. Engineer turnover, contracts, notice periods and what keeps key people after completion. |
Customer contracts and people are where buyers most often find surprises. The customer who "always renews" may be on a rolling 30-day agreement. The engineer who knows every client's network may have no reason to stay. Check both early, before you agree the price and main terms in writing.
How does finding MSP targets work?
Many MSP owners get regular calls from buyers and brokers, so a generic letter gets ignored. What works better:
- Define what you want to buy and why. Region, size, service mix, customer type and the share of recurring revenue you need. This is your acquisition thesis.
- Research the market properly. Company filings, websites, accreditations, partner listings and hiring activity show what a business really does and roughly how it is run.
- Approach the owner in confidence, as you. A direct, respectful approach that explains why their business fits yours. Owners respond to a buyer who understands their customers and their team.
- Qualify before you meet. Confirm the owner is open to a conversation, the business roughly fits on size and service mix, and nothing obvious rules it out.
More on approaches is in how to find off-market acquisition targets.
Who does what on an MSP acquisition?
We have not completed an MSP acquisition for a client, so we won't claim one. What we bring is a method: research, confidential approaches and deal management, which Michael Ferguson has used across sectors, including a software acquisition and buy-side work at CDI Global. You can read about that on our case studies page.
On a typical MSP deal the responsibilities split like this:
- You: the decision, the relationship with the owner and the integration plan.
- Acquisitiv: the search, owner approaches, qualification and keeping the deal on track.
- Your technical lead or IT reviewer: tooling, security, licensing and integration effort.
- Your accountants: recurring revenue quality, real profit and working capital.
- Your lawyers: customer contracts, supplier terms, data protection and the sale agreement.
How can Acquisitiv help?
If you want introductions to owners open to selling, Acquisitiv Target 45 researches 100 businesses that fit your criteria, agrees the list with you, approaches the owners in confidence and makes 5 introductions to owners open to a confidential conversation about a sale. If we are short at day 45, we keep going at no extra fee. It does not promise a completed deal.
If you plan to buy several MSPs over the next few years, the Acquisitiv Expansion Partnership runs your search, pipeline and live deals month after month, coordinating your lawyers and accountants, so you can keep running the business.
Where to start
If you are weighing up whether to buy and what, the first step is a conversation. Book an Expansion Briefing: a 30-minute call with us about what you want to buy and whether now is the time, followed by a short written summary and a recommended next step.
Questions buyers ask
Do I need a sector specialist to assess an MSP?
You need sector specialists for the technical and security review: someone who can look at the target's tooling, licensing, backups and security posture. That is usually your own technical lead or an independent IT reviewer. Finding the right businesses and running the process is a different job, and it is the part we do.
What counts as recurring revenue in an MSP?
Fees paid under a contract for an ongoing service, such as monthly managed support, monitoring, backup or security services. Project work, hardware sales and one-off installations are not recurring, even if a customer buys them every year. Ask for revenue split by type and check it against the contracts and invoices.
How do I compete with private equity-backed buyers?
Often by getting there first. Many owners have never been asked directly and will talk to a buyer who approaches in confidence and respects what they have built. A trade buyer that can explain where the team and customers will fit can be more attractive to an owner than the highest headline price.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 by Michael Ferguson.
Want owners at your table in 45 days?
Start with a free Expansion Briefing. If Target 45 is right for you, we'll plan it together on the call.