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World desk7 min

MSPs in 2026: What High-Performing Providers Do Differently

What high-performing MSPs are changing in 2026: how they use automation, build security and resilience services, manage growth, and assess profitability.

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Strong managed service providers are combining disciplined operations with targeted automation, credible security and resilience services, and a clearer way to show customers the value they deliver. Recent industry surveys point to those patterns, but they do not establish a single global ranking or one formula for success. What counts as “best” depends on a provider’s customers, geography, risk profile, and service scope.

What “best” means when there is no global ranking

There is no universally representative dataset that ranks MSPs around the world using one definition of performance. The available evidence instead comes from vendor-published surveys, profitability benchmarks, and country-specific market studies. Their respondents, methods, and measures differ, so their findings are useful indicators—not a league table.

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A practical way to assess an MSP is to look at how well it connects six parts of the business:

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  • Automation: whether it applies automation to repeatable work and measures the results.
  • Security and resilience: whether its services address security, compliance, backup, and recovery in a way suited to the customer’s risks.
  • Service mix: whether the services support reliable delivery and recurring customer value.
  • Customer growth: whether the provider can find suitable customers and explain its value clearly.
  • Technician capacity: whether staffing and processes support consistent service as the business grows.
  • Profitability and scale: whether growth translates into sustainable operating performance.

Geography matters, too. The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s 2025 study estimated 12,867 active MSPs in the UK as of March 2025. The study, conducted by Frontier Economics and Glass.AI using online textual evidence, describes its estimates as indicative. It also cautions that comparison with the previous year is affected by changes to methodology and eligibility criteria as well as actual market entries.

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How leading MSPs are applying AI and automation

The useful distinction is not simply whether a provider says it uses AI. It is where the technology fits into service delivery, which work it changes, and whether the provider can show that the change improves an outcome customers care about.

Automate repeatable internal work first

MSP GLOBAL’s Spring 2026 survey summary says 55% of respondents used AI internally for activities such as ticket routing and reporting. Kaseya’s April 2026 release, based on a survey of more than 1,000 MSPs worldwide, separately reports that 53% were already using AI to automate ticketing, patching, and monitoring. These are findings from different surveys and should not be combined into a single adoption rate.

For an MSP, repeatable workflows are a practical place to evaluate automation: routing tickets, collecting information, generating reports, or supporting patch and monitoring processes. A sound implementation still needs clear ownership, review paths for exceptions, and a way to detect errors. Faster handling is not a win if it creates missed alerts, incorrect changes, or more work for technicians later.

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Distinguish embedded AI from a service customers can see

MSP GLOBAL reports that 39% of respondents embedded AI within existing services, while 36% offered client-facing AI-enabled services. The distinction matters. AI can help deliver an existing service without becoming a separate customer-facing product; a client-facing offering needs a clear scope, an explanation of its limitations, and a defined responsibility for its outputs.

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The same MSP GLOBAL summary says 48% of respondents in Kaseya’s 2026 survey identified AI and automation as clients’ top need for 2026. That is a reported expectation, not proof that every customer wants the same solution. Providers should start with a specific customer problem, agree how success will be measured, and explain what remains subject to human review.

Why security and resilience are central to the service mix

Security is both a business priority and an area where execution matters. MSP GLOBAL’s Spring 2026 summary identifies cybersecurity as a key business focus for 34% of respondents, making it the second-highest priority in that survey.

Kaseya’s 2026 State of the MSP Report release says 71% of surveyed MSPs reported year-over-year cybersecurity revenue growth and 50% reported growth in backup and disaster recovery (BCDR). These are revenue-growth reports from Kaseya’s survey, not a forecast or a guarantee that a particular security or recovery offering will grow for every provider.

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Make the security promise concrete

Sophos’s 2026 MSP Perspectives Report summarizes responses from 800 MSP partners across seven countries. Its public summary highlights cybersecurity leadership, compliance services, and inefficiency associated with fragmented tools and automation, but does not provide detailed percentages. The practical implication is to make security services understandable and operational: define what is monitored, how incidents are handled, which compliance needs are in scope, and what the customer must do.

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Older context from Kaseya’s 2025 benchmark summary found that 67% of respondents identified security as one of their five fastest-growing revenue categories, 76% said clients were most concerned about security, and about 95% considered integration among remote monitoring and management (RMM), professional services automation (PSA), and documentation tools essential. Those 2025 findings are a separate, older benchmark—not interchangeable with the 2026 surveys.

Treat recovery as part of security planning

Security controls cannot eliminate every incident. Customers also need a credible account of how their data and services can be restored. An MSP evaluating its resilience service should be able to explain what is backed up, how recovery is tested, who makes decisions during an incident, and how recovery objectives align with the customer’s operations. Those specifics are more useful than presenting backup as a product name alone.

How MSPs can grow when acquisition and hiring are difficult

In Kaseya’s April 2026 survey, 71% of respondents named acquiring new customers as their top challenge. Its release also describes shrinking larger customer-spend deals and increased difficulty hiring skilled technicians; 16% of respondents reported difficulty hiring skilled technicians.

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These findings point to two linked constraints: a provider needs a sales proposition that fits a buyer’s actual needs, and enough delivery capacity to support the work it sells. Pursuing growth without checking service capacity can strain response times and customer trust. Conversely, promising an expansive service catalogue without explaining what is included makes it harder for prospective customers to judge fit.

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Show value in terms the customer can verify

A stronger sales conversation ties the service to a customer’s operational concerns: risk, continuity, response, compliance obligations, or the time required to manage technology internally. The provider should make scope, responsibilities, reporting, and escalation paths clear enough that the customer can tell what is being delivered and what evidence will demonstrate progress.

That clarity also helps avoid treating every prospect as the right fit. Customer size, risk profile, regulatory requirements, and internal capabilities all affect which services make sense. An MSP that can explain where its service stops—as well as what it covers—sets more realistic expectations.

Build capacity around the work being sold

Hiring is only one way to address delivery constraints. Providers can also review handoffs, documentation, repetitive tasks, and how technicians are assigned. The objective is not to replace skilled judgment with automation; it is to reserve that judgment for work where it matters and make routine delivery more consistent.

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What the profitability benchmarks do—and do not—show

ConnectWise’s June 23, 2026 release summarizing the Service Leadership Index 2026 Annual IT Solution Provider Industry Profitability Report says MSP revenue grew 9.6% in 2025 and adjusted EBITDA grew 17.1%. The release also says best-in-class IT solution providers achieved adjusted EBITDA of 19% or more for a sixth consecutive year. That last figure describes a best-in-class group, not the average MSP.

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The benchmark summary describes global coverage across 104 countries. It is still a summary of a benchmark report, not a guarantee that an individual business can reproduce those results. It does, however, make an important distinction: revenue growth and profitability are different measures. A provider needs to understand whether additional revenue is producing sustainable operating returns, rather than assuming that growth alone means healthier performance.

ConnectWise quotes Peter Kujawa, EVP and GM of Service Leadership and IT Nation, as saying that top-performing providers are “operating smarter,” with efficiency and AI automation helping them expand service gross margin output and build more scalable operating models. This is the executive’s interpretation in a vendor-hosted release. It should not be read as evidence that AI alone causes margin growth: staffing, service design, pricing, workflow discipline, and execution also shape profitability.

How to evaluate an MSP’s approach

Whether you are choosing a provider or reviewing your own operation, ask for evidence tied to the services and outcomes that matter to your situation. A useful discussion covers the following:

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  • Automation: Which workflows are automated, how are exceptions handled, and how does the provider know the change improves service?
  • Security: What is monitored, how are incidents escalated, and which compliance responsibilities are included?
  • Resilience: What can be restored, how is recovery tested, and who is responsible for decisions during an outage?
  • Service scope: What is included in the recurring service, what is out of scope, and how are changes handled?
  • Customer value: What will be reported, how often, and how will the reporting connect to the customer’s operational needs?
  • Capacity: How does the provider manage workload, coverage, and handoffs when demand or staffing changes?
  • Performance: Which operational and business measures does the provider track, and are they appropriate for the customer’s size and risk?

For comparisons between providers, align the geography, year, respondent population, and definitions behind any published benchmark. A survey of MSP respondents, a profitability benchmark, and a country-level market estimate answer different questions. Taken together, the evidence suggests that stronger providers connect operational discipline, targeted automation, credible security and recovery, customer communication, and sustainable economics—without assuming that one tool, service, or growth metric defines “best.”

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