How can MSPs secure the talent they need to grab hold of growing demand for their services?

Grand View Research predict that USA demand for MSP services will double by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 13%. It’s a similar story in most developed markets as businesses seek to outsource their non-core IT activities to experts.

Such a strong sellers' market would normally mean easy growth. But MSPs cannot hope to recruit and train sufficient cyber security engineers.

America has a 500,000 strong cybersecurity job gap.

50% of UK businesses have cyber security skills gaps (S: UK Govt Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2023)

There’s an overall global shortage of nearly 4 million cyber professionals (S: World Economic Forum)

Salaries are rising, staff churn rates are on the up.

Management’s time is increasingly soaked up by HR challenges rather than focused upon winning growth.

Leaders at MSPs know something must change if they are to grab hold of the good times that markets currently offer them.

We see a combination of two strong solutions:

Automation:

MSPs tell us Octiga saves each engineer around 5 hours a week. This is like getting a free engineer for every seven employed! Better still, visibility of potential Microsoft 365 security risks is dramatically improved, these risks are instantly closed, service levels improved.

L1 engineers can confidently take on tasks that previously sucked up L3s time.

Automation tools (including Octiga) are no-brainers.

As automation tools improve MSPs' reputation for service then they are far more likely to receive valuable recommendations and referrals from their clients.

Adding offshore employees:

There is a global talent shortage, but some countries (the Philippines is a top performer) have a deep and well-educated IT talent pool allied to excellent English skills. Specialist IT outsourcing companies such as Yempo Solutions have excellent reputations for providing pseudo employees who become fully integrated into MSPs overall teams. Talent can be so good that clients can’t spot MSPs local vs. offshore employees. These IT specialist outsourcers remove the risks associated with adding offshore employees via more generalist providers that often-started life as contact center providers.

2024-2030 will provide good times for MSP leaders that embrace automation and offshoring.

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