OutsourcedCyberSecurity:TheUKGuide
Outsourced cyber security means engaging a specialist provider to run some or all of your security function, 24/7 monitoring, detection and response, testing, and compliance support, instead of building it in-house. In the UK, outsourced services run from hundreds of pounds a month against a £500,000 to £1,000,000 or more per year in-house equivalent once salaries, licensing, and a 24/7 rota are accounted for.
What outsourced cyber security covers, what it costs against building the function in-house, the fully managed and co-managed models on offer, and what to check before you sign.
Outsourced cyber security, in plain English
Outsourced cyber security means engaging a specialist provider to run some or all of your security function, 24/7 security monitoring, detection and response, penetration testing, incident response, and compliance support, rather than recruiting, training, and staffing that capability yourself. It can mean handing over the whole function or outsourcing specific pieces while you keep others in-house.
This guide covers the buyer's version of that decision: what outsourcing actually covers, what it costs against an in-house build, the delivery models on offer, and what to check before signing. If you are specifically evaluating a managed SOC, see our guide to what a managed SOC is.
What outsourced cyber security actually covers
Four functions organisations most commonly hand to a specialist provider, bought together or separately.
SOC and MDR monitoring
Human analysts watch your SIEM, endpoint, identity, and cloud telemetry around the clock, triaging alerts and containing confirmed threats. This is the part most buyers mean by 24/7 security monitoring: a managed SOC or MDR service replacing the night shift and weekend cover an in-house team cannot staff.
See managed SOC coveragePenetration testing
Manual, CREST-accredited testing of networks, web applications, APIs, and cloud environments, proving what an attacker could actually exploit rather than just what a scanner flags. Most organisations run this annually or after significant change, and it is the natural entry point for a wider outsourced relationship.
See penetration testing scopesIncident response
When a threat is confirmed, a specialist team contains it, isolates affected systems, preserves forensic evidence, and guides remediation. Outsourced incident response is either bundled into a managed SOC or MDR contract as standard, or retained separately for organisations that keep monitoring in-house.
See incident responseCompliance support
Evidence packs, monitoring logs, and audit-ready reporting mapped to frameworks such as ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, and NIS2. A provider running both testing and monitoring can produce the paper trail an auditor or insurer asks for from one relationship instead of stitching together two vendors' output.
See compliance servicesWhat outsourcing costs, and what building it yourself costs
A small in-house SOC team of three analysts costs upwards of £210,000 per year in salaries alone, before SIEM and EDR licensing, threat intelligence subscriptions, training, and management overhead. A genuine 24/7 rota needs 8 to 12 analysts across three shifts, putting the honest fully loaded cost at £600,000 to £1,200,000 a year, in line with the £500,000 to £1,000,000 or more that a full in-house Security Operations Centre typically runs once every cost line is accounted for.
Outsourced SOC and MDR services deliver equivalent coverage from £900 per month, typically operational within 2 to 3 weeks of signature. Penetration testing runs separately, from £2,500 per fixed-price engagement, against 6 to 12 months to recruit and accredit an internal detection team.
Full managed SOC cost guide by tierFully managed vs co-managed
A fully managed model hands the whole function to the provider: monitoring, tooling, and response, delivered as a single monthly subscription with no internal rota to run. A co-managed model keeps some functions in-house, typically daytime triage or tooling ownership, while outsourcing what internal teams cannot staff themselves, such as overnight and weekend cover or deep incident response. Most UK mid-market organisations land on a fully managed SOC or MDR contract because the alternative, running a partial internal rota alongside a provider, still requires the recruitment and shift-pattern overhead outsourcing was meant to remove.
Fully managed
The provider runs monitoring, tooling, and response end to end. No recruitment, SIEM licensing, or 24/7 rota for you to build. This is the model behind Precursor's managed SOC and MDR services, from £900 per month.
Co-managed
Your team keeps daytime control and tooling ownership; the provider adds overnight cover, threat hunting, or incident response capacity. Suits organisations with an existing internal security function that lacks 24/7 depth rather than an absent one.
What to check before outsourcing
Four things to verify before signing, regardless of which function or provider you choose.
UK SOC and data residency
Where the analysts who see your data physically sit, and whether that team is UK-based with no offshoring and no follow-the-sun handover to an undisclosed subcontractor. This matters for regulated sectors and for who can lawfully access your environment.
No offshoring, DBS-checked staff
A UK phone number is not a UK team. Ask where the analysts triaging your alerts at 3am physically work, and whether they are vetted employees rather than a subcontracted floor overseas.
Incident response included
Containment, evidence preservation, and executive communication bundled into the monthly fee as standard, not billed separately as a per-incident retainer that only becomes visible after something has already gone wrong.
Published pricing, verifiable accreditation
A provider that publishes starting prices and named tiers, rather than "POA" on every page, and holds accreditation you can independently verify (CREST for testing and SOC operations, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus) rather than a badge with no register entry behind it.
Why testing and defence from one provider matters
Outsourcing testing and defence to the same provider means a finding from a penetration test can feed straight into detection tuning instead of sitting unread in a report once the engagement ends. This is what a closed-loop, or test-and-defend, model means: one accredited team runs both the offensive testing and the defensive monitoring against the same environment, so the SOC has full context on what was tested and the offensive team validates the exact detection coverage it later relies on.
The alternative, buying testing and monitoring from two vendors that never speak, leaves the loop open at both ends: the SOC tunes its rules against its own assumptions with no outsider validating the blind spots, and a known-weak path from last year's test is watched no more closely than anything else.
Read the closed-loop buying guideWhen not to outsource everything
Outsourcing the function is not the same as outsourcing the responsibility. Three things stay yours regardless of provider.
- 01
You keep accountability, governance, and risk ownership.
A provider runs the function: monitoring, testing, containment. It does not own the decision to accept a risk, sign off a control gap, or answer to the board when something goes wrong. That responsibility stays with you regardless of how much is outsourced.
- 02
A co-managed model suits teams keeping daytime control.
Organisations with an internal security or IT function often keep policy decisions, vendor management, and daytime triage in-house, and outsource the parts they cannot staff themselves: 24/7 overnight cover, deep forensic response, or specialist testing. That is a deliberate choice, not a compromise.
- 03
Outsourcing everything without oversight is its own risk.
Handing over the whole function with no internal point of contact to interpret reports, challenge findings, or hold the provider to its SLA leaves you dependent on a relationship you cannot audit. Someone internally still needs to own the vendor.
Scope out an outsourced security function for your environment.
One UK team for monitoring, testing, and response. Fixed monthly pricing, no POA, no per-incident fees.
Outsourced cyber security, the short answers
The questions buyers ask most before outsourcing part or all of their security function.
Outsourced cyber security means engaging a specialist provider to run some or all of your security function, such as 24/7 monitoring, detection and response, penetration testing, incident response, or compliance support, instead of building that capability in-house. It is delivered as a contracted service rather than a team you recruit, train, and manage yourself.
UK outsourced cyber security starts from a few hundred pounds a month for a single service. Managed SOC and MDR services start from £900 per month. Penetration testing starts from £2,500 per engagement, with external network tests from £2,500, web application tests from £3,750, and internal network tests from £6,250. This runs against a £500,000 to £1,000,000 or more per year in-house equivalent once you account for a 24/7 analyst rota, SIEM and EDR licensing, threat intelligence subscriptions, training, and management overhead.
At minimum: a UK-based team with no undisclosed offshoring, incident response included in the monthly fee rather than billed as a separate retainer, published pricing rather than "POA" on every page, and accreditation you can independently verify, such as CREST for testing and SOC operations, ISO 27001, and Cyber Essentials Plus. A committed human response time for critical alerts, not just a promise that an alert will be raised, separates a genuine service from a dashboard that emails you overnight.
For most organisations under roughly 1,000 employees, outsourcing delivers stronger coverage at lower total cost. A genuine 24/7 in-house rota needs 8 to 12 analysts across three shifts, putting the honest fully loaded cost at £600,000 to £1,200,000 a year, against outsourced managed SOC and MDR services from £900 a month, typically operational within two to three weeks rather than the 6 to 12 months it takes to recruit and accredit an internal team. Organisations with mature in-house security capacity sometimes keep monitoring internal and outsource only testing or overflow incident response, a co-managed model rather than a full handover.
Yes, and doing so is what the closed-loop or test-and-defend model refers to: one provider runs offensive testing (penetration testing, red team) and defensive operations (SOC, MDR, incident response) against the same environment, so a finding from a test feeds directly into detection tuning instead of sitting unread in a report. The alternative, buying testing and monitoring from two unconnected vendors, means the SOC has no context on what was tested and a known-weak path is watched no more closely than anything else.