Best Cyber Security for Small Business UK
The best cyber security options for a UK small business in 2026 span platforms, specialists, and certification bodies, not just one type of firm. This guide compares 7 providers: Precursor Security, CyberSmart, WorkNest Secure (formerly Bulletproof), Huntress, Sophos MDR, Cyber Tec Security, and ANS Group, on pricing transparency, delivery model, and fit for a 10-250 staff business. Precursor ranks first for a small business that wants Cyber Essentials, managed detection, and testing from one accredited team with published, SMB-sized pricing; a genuinely tiny business may need nothing more than a self-serve platform such as CyberSmart.
Seven UK providers compared for small business cyber security, from self-serve compliance platforms to full accredited teams, on pricing you can see, delivery model, and what a 10-250 staff business actually needs first.
We are Precursor Security, and we have ranked ourselves first on this list.
We rank first here honestly, not by default. We are a specialist provider: a CREST-accredited team that publishes fixed, small-business-sized pricing across Cyber Essentials, managed detection, and testing. That is the right fit for most businesses in the 10-250 staff range in this guide. It is not the right fit for everyone. If you run a 5-person business with no in-house IT and a limited budget, a self-serve platform such as CyberSmart may genuinely be all you need for now, and we say so plainly further down this page.
We describe every competitor fairly using only public information, and link the independent CREST member directory so you can check our working. If you already know you want to compare larger, enterprise-scale providers rather than SMB-fit ones, our broader cyber security companies UK comparison covers that ground instead.
What a small business actually needs first
Not everything at once. A 10-250 staff business gets more from doing these three things in order than from spreading a small budget thin across all three at once.
Cyber Essentials
Five basic technical controls that close off most opportunistic attacks. Increasingly required for contracts and cyber insurance, and the cheapest, fastest win on this list.
Managed detection
A small business has no in-house SOC team to notice an alert at 2am. Human-led monitoring matters more than a one-off test for most SMBs at this stage.
Testing, proportionate to risk
A test matters sooner if you handle card payments or client data, or a customer, insurer, or framework asks for one. Otherwise it follows once the basics are in place.
Seven providers, side by side
| Provider | HQ / ownership | Pricing published | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Precursor Security | Leeds, UK, independent | Yes | From £1,500 (CE) / £900/mo (MDR) / £2,500 (pentest) |
| 2. CyberSmart | London, UK, independent | Yes | From £299.99+VAT (CE) / £49+VAT per user/mo |
| 3. WorkNest Secure (formerly Bulletproof) | Chester, UK, part of WorkNestGroup / Axiom GRC (Inflexion-backed) | No | On application |
| 4. Huntress | Columbia, Maryland, US, privately held | No | Set by reseller/MSP |
| 5. Sophos MDR | Abingdon, UK, owned by Thoma Bravo (US private equity) since 2020 | No | On application (partner-quoted) |
| 6. Cyber Tec Security | Jersey / UK / Bermuda, independent certification body | No | IASME base fee from £299.99+VAT |
| 7. ANS Group | Manchester, UK, majority-owned by Inflexion (private equity) | No | On application |
HQ and ownership verified against Companies House and each firm's own newsroom, September 2026. "Not published" means we could not find a fixed price stated publicly; it does not mean the firm lacks a rate card, several sell only through a partner or MSP channel.
The 7 best cyber security
providers for UK small business
1. Precursor Security
Specialist provider (testing + SOC + certification)Precursor holds triple CREST accreditation, Penetration Testing, Vulnerability Assessment, and Security Operations Centre, and is an IASME-accredited Cyber Essentials assessor. All three prices a small business actually needs are published: Cyber Essentials from £1,500, managed detection and response (MDR/SOC) from £900 per month with full incident response included as standard and human analyst investigation on critical alerts within 10 minutes, and penetration testing from £2,500. One accredited team, one fixed quote after a scoping call, no enterprise minimum contract.
Trade-off: A specialist team, not a self-serve platform. For a 5-person micro-business with no in-house IT, a cheaper platform product may genuinely be all that is needed, see the note below.
2. CyberSmart
Platform (compliance + device monitoring)CyberSmart is a software platform, not a testing firm or a human-staffed SOC. It grew out of a GCHQ cyber accelerator in 2017 and is headquartered in London. The platform combines Cyber Essentials certification, continuous device compliance monitoring, and staff security awareness training in one dashboard. Cyber Essentials starts from £299.99+VAT for a self-guided micro-business submission, and the ongoing platform is priced from roughly £49+VAT per user per month.
Trade-off: A compliance and hygiene platform, not a penetration testing house or a monitored SOC. A business that later needs manual testing or 24/7 human-led incident response needs a second provider.
3. WorkNest Secure (formerly Bulletproof)
Service (testing + compliance)WorkNest Secure launched in May 2026, combining Pentest People and Bulletproof, two previously separate CREST-accredited testing firms, into one division of WorkNestGroup, part of Axiom GRC, an Inflexion-backed governance-risk-compliance platform built from Marlowe PLC's former risk software and services business. The combined division offers penetration testing, incident response, DPO support, and certification support spanning ISO 27001, PCI DSS, Cyber Essentials, and DORA.
Trade-off: Pricing is on application, and the brand itself is a very recent combination of two acquired firms inside a much larger group, an SMB buying today is buying into an integration still bedding in.
4. Huntress
Platform (MDR, sold via MSPs/IT partners)Huntress is a US-headquartered managed detection and response platform built specifically for SMBs, pairing managed endpoint detection with a fully staffed 24/7 SOC. The honest labelling point: Huntress is sold almost entirely through IT support companies and MSPs rather than direct to end businesses, in the UK that channel includes distributors such as Giacom. A small business buys Huntress through its existing IT provider, not from Huntress itself, and the price depends on that provider's markup.
Trade-off: Not a direct-to-business relationship. A business with no existing MSP or IT partner reselling Huntress cannot simply buy it, and pricing stays invisible until a reseller quotes it.
5. Sophos MDR
Platform (MDR, sold via partners)Sophos, headquartered in Abingdon, UK, and owned by US private equity firm Thoma Bravo since 2020, offers Sophos MDR in two tiers, Essentials and Complete, on top of its endpoint protection platform. Sophos sells mostly through partners and MSPs rather than publishing direct list pricing. By Sophos's own market positioning, MDR is generally better suited to organisations running 100-2,000 endpoints, at the smaller end of small business, a lighter platform is often a closer fit.
Trade-off: Pricing is not published, sold through a partner channel, and best suited to the larger end of the SMB range rather than a genuinely small team.
6. Cyber Tec Security
Certification body (Cyber Essentials only)Cyber Tec Security is an IASME-licensed Cyber Essentials certification body operating from Jersey, the UK, and Bermuda, focused specifically on Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus, and IASME Cyber Baseline and Cyber Assurance certification. The underlying IASME certification fee it passes through follows the published tier scale, from £299.99+VAT for a micro-organisation up to £499.99+VAT for a large one, though its own guided assessment package is quoted individually rather than published as a fixed rate.
Trade-off: Certification only, no penetration testing, no monitoring, no incident response. A business that needs any of those needs a second, different provider.
7. ANS Group
MSP (managed IT + security)ANS Group, headquartered in Manchester and majority-owned by private equity firm Inflexion since 2021 following its merger with UKFast, runs a UK-based 24/7 SOC inside a much broader cloud, Microsoft, and IT managed services business. It publishes a security offering aimed specifically at SMBs alongside client work for the MOD, Cabinet Office, and emergency services at the larger end of its book.
Trade-off: Security is one line of a large, multi-service IT business, not the core specialism, and pricing is not published.
How we ranked them for small business
Six criteria specific to what a 10-250 staff business needs, not what a FTSE 100 procurement team needs. Weighting is ours; the underlying facts are checkable.
Whether a small business can see a fixed price, sized for its own scale, before a sales call, not an enterprise day rate quoted on application.
The sensible first step for almost every small business, and increasingly required for contracts and cyber insurance. Whether the provider can deliver it directly.
A small business has no SOC team of its own. Whether a real person investigates when something fires, not just a dashboard alert nobody is watching.
Whether response is built into the service, or billed as a separate retainer an SMB is unlikely to have budgeted for in advance.
Whether testing, monitoring, and certification can come from a single relationship, fewer vendors for a small business with no dedicated procurement function to manage.
Whether the engagement model, contract length, and minimum spend suit a 10-250 person business, or are built for a much larger buyer.
Red flags for a small business
choosing a provider
Whichever provider you choose, including us, walk away if you see these.
Enterprise minimum contract sizes
A minimum scope, seat count, or spend commitment built for a much larger organisation costs a small business time and money it does not need to spend. Ask directly what the minimum engagement looks like before you get quoted.
A tool with no human behind it when something fires
A dashboard or agent is not a security team. Ask specifically who investigates an alert at 2am on a Saturday, and how quickly, in writing, not "our platform detects it automatically."
Unpriced "POA" everything
A provider that cannot give a rate range before a discovery call is optimising for deal-size discovery, not your budget. A genuinely SMB-fit provider can tell you roughly what you will pay before the first call ends.
Fear-led selling
A pitch built on breach statistics and worst-case scenarios rather than a straight explanation of what you need and why. A proportionate recommendation, not the maximum possible package, is the sign of a provider worth trusting.
A separate paid incident response retainer
Some MDR and monitoring products bill response as an optional extra. A small business with no existing IR budget will not have this in reserve when it matters most, check whether response is included, not bolted on.
Locked multi-year terms
A small business changes shape quickly, headcount, tooling, and risk profile all shift within a year or two. A long lock-in with no reasonable exit is a poor match for that pace of change.
What a small business should budget for
Cyber Essentials
Cyber Essentials Plus, with a hands-on technical audit, typically starts higher. Certification is valid for 12 months.
Managed detection (MDR)
Priced on endpoints and log sources. Full incident response should be included, not billed separately.
Penetration testing
External network testing is the typical entry point. Scope grows with web applications, internal networks, and cloud.
Figures shown are Precursor Security's own published starting prices, included for scale reference. Confirm current pricing on the linked service pages before budgeting.
Comparing something more specific?
This guide compares whole providers for a small business. If you already know which discipline you need, or a larger enterprise-scale comparison, these go deeper.
Sized for a small business. Priced like one.
Cyber Essentials from £1,500. Managed detection from £900 a month with incident response included. Penetration testing from £2,500. Fixed quotes, no enterprise minimums.
Cyber security for small business
The questions small business buyers ask most when comparing UK providers.
There is no single figure, spend should follow risk, not a rule of thumb, but a working small business budget is easier to reason about in stages than as one number. Cyber Essentials certification, the sensible starting point, runs from roughly £1,500 to £3,000 depending on whether you need the basic or Plus level. Managed detection and response with a real 24/7 human team behind it typically starts from around £900 per month once you move beyond a self-serve platform. A first penetration test, once you have something worth testing, usually starts from £2,500. A 10-250 staff business is usually better served spreading spend across these three stages in order than putting the whole budget into one of them.
Cyber Essentials first, then managed detection, then testing proportionate to risk. Cyber Essentials forces five basic technical controls, firewalls, secure configuration, access control, malware protection, and patching, that close off the majority of opportunistic attacks, and it is increasingly a precondition for winning contracts and for cyber insurance. Once those basics are in place, managed detection and response matters more than testing for most small businesses, because an SMB has no in-house SOC team to notice an alert firing at 2am. Testing comes third, and should be proportionate: a business handling card payments or sensitive client data needs it sooner than one that does not.
Not on day one, and not every business needs one on the same timeline. A test is proportionate once a business handles payment data, client personal data, or is asked for one by a customer, insurer, or compliance framework, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and enterprise supply-chain security questionnaires all commonly require it. For a small business with no in-house IT team, Cyber Essentials and managed detection close more of the realistic attack surface, opportunistic scanning, phishing, unpatched software, than a one-off test does. Once those are in place, a proportionate test, often starting from an external network or web application assessment, is the sensible next step rather than the first one.
Increasingly, yes. Most UK cyber insurers now ask about basic technical controls at application or renewal, and a growing number require or discount premiums for Cyber Essentials certification specifically, alongside evidence of endpoint protection, MFA, and backups. Managed detection and response, and any incident response capability behind it, strengthens an application further and can materially affect both premium and payout terms after a claim, insurers scrutinise whether a business had monitoring and a response plan in place at the time of an incident. Check your specific insurer's requirements before renewal rather than assuming any one certification is universally sufficient.
Precursor Security, CyberSmart, WorkNest Secure (formerly Bulletproof), Huntress, Sophos MDR, Cyber Tec Security, and ANS Group all have a genuine claim to a small business shortlist, each for a different reason: Precursor for published, SMB-sized pricing across testing, monitoring, and certification from one accredited team; CyberSmart for a self-serve compliance platform suited to a micro-business; WorkNest Secure for testing bundled with a wider compliance relationship; Huntress for MDR sold through an existing MSP; Sophos MDR for a business already on the Sophos endpoint platform; Cyber Tec Security for certification only; and ANS Group for security folded into an existing IT relationship. Which is right depends on team size, whether you already have an IT partner, and whether you need one provider or several.