IT Staffing and Personnel Costs: Budget Benchmarks

IT personnel is the largest single IT budget category, typically representing 28-35% of total IT spend. This includes internal IT salaries and benefits, contractor costs, managed service provider fees, and training. At mid-market and enterprise scale, personnel can reach 35-40% of IT budget as organisations build sophisticated IT departments. Small businesses that outsource to MSPs often show lower personnel costs as a percentage because the MSP cost is categorised as a service rather than headcount.

General benchmarks: startups (1-50 employees) typically have 0-1 dedicated IT person; SMBs (51-250) have 1-3 IT staff or use an MSP; mid-market (251-1,000) have 5-20 IT staff; enterprises (1,001-5,000) have 20-100 IT staff. The ratio of IT staff to total employees varies from approximately 1:30 (complex environments, regulated industries) to 1:100 (simple environments, strong SaaS stack). The right ratio depends on environment complexity, compliance requirements, and how much is outsourced.

For companies under 75 employees, an MSP is typically more cost-effective. An MSP for 50 users costs $50-$150 per user per month ($30,000-$90,000 per year), versus $80,000-$120,000 all-in for a full-time IT generalist. Above 75-150 employees, the economics shift. At 150 employees, a 3-person IT team at $70,000 average salary ($210,000 per year) can deliver broader coverage and institutional knowledge than an equivalent MSP contract. The decision also depends on environment complexity and whether you need 24/7 coverage.

At SMB scale (50-250 employees), one IT generalist or MSP handles everything. At mid-market (250-1,000), a typical team includes an IT manager, one or two helpdesk/support technicians, a sysadmin for infrastructure, and at 500+ employees a dedicated security role. At enterprise scale (1,000+), you need specialisation: network engineering, cloud operations, security operations, identity and access management, application management, IT service management (ITSM), and vendor management. Platform engineering roles (DevOps, SRE, platform engineers) are increasingly common in technology companies.