Before hiring a managed IT service provider (MSP), you need evidence—not promises—that the partner can secure your data, meet new regulations and scale with your growth plans. Gartner Forecasts Global Information Security Spending to Grow 15% in 2025

While an MSP can augment technology expertise and knowledge gaps, finding the right MSP partner can be difficult. There are many firms out there with similar services and offerings. And if you don’t have technical expertise, it might be hard to assess their work.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of seven of the most important questions you should ask an MSP when determining whether they are a good fit to meet your technology infrastructure and service needs.

7 Critical Questions to Ask When Hiring a Managed IT Service Provider in 2025

1. Do you provide 24 × 7 × 365 monitoring and support?

Cyber-attacks don’t respect business hours. Confirm that the MSP’s Network Operations Centre and Security Operations Centre run round-the-clock and that SLAs define response and resolution times for P1 incidents. See how Spector’s Managed IT Support desk answers urgent tickets with 98% positive score.

2. How often do you perform risk assessments, and what frameworks guide them?

Ask for recent reports aligned to ISO 27001:2022 or NIST CSF 2.0. Routine assessments keep security posture aligned with evolving threats. ISO – 27001 overview.

Recommended: First Step to Compliance: A Thorough and Accurate Risk Assessment

3. Can you demonstrate compliance with my industry’s regulations?

If you handle health or payments data, the MSP should map controls to HIPAA, PCI DSS and the EU’s NIS2 Directive . Request attestation letters or third-party audit summaries.

Read: Is your business ready for HIPAA and PCI-DSS

4. What documentation proves you follow best practices?

Look for certifications such as Cyber Essentials Plus or SOC 2 Type II, evidence of MFA on all administrative accounts and a change-management log showing peer reviews.

Learn more: ISO27001 vs NIST Cyber Security Framework – Which one to choose?

5. What is your Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery plan, and when was it last tested?

The MSP should provide RTO/RPO targets, test results (at least annually) and evidence of immutable backups stored outside the Microsoft 365 tenant.

Read: How Backups and Disaster Recovery Protects SMEs

6. Do independent auditors review your security posture?

External audits reveal gaps internal teams miss. Expect penetration-test summaries or CREST-certified assessments at least once per year.

7. How do you measure and improve your own incident-response performance?

Effective incident metrics—Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR)—show the MSP learns from every breach attempt. Ask for last quarter’s figures.

Latest MSP Trends to Watch in 2025

• AI-powered SOC co-pilot – speeds threat triage by 40 %.

• Device-as-a-Service bundles – hardware, patching and warranty in one per-user fee.

• RegTech dashboards – real-time NIS2 compliance scores visible in customer portals.

Next steps before hiring a managed IT service provider

1. Short-list three vendors and run these seven questions.

2. Request a 90-day roadmap and sample quarterly report.

3. Speak to two current customers matching your size and sector.

Why are the above questions crucial?

Having an MSP on your side is about more than just saving time and effort. You must have a clear understanding of how they intend to protect your company from evolving cyberthreats, how they plan on ensuring that you comply with regulations to avoid fines and reputational damage and whether they can provide you with data backups when you need them.

Learning about an organisation’s process and culture is another vital part of doing business together, so keep that in mind when considering providers.

Read: How to Smoothly Transition to a New IT Services Provider

Talk to Spector IT—your future-proof managed IT service provider

If you have any questions about this process, get in touch. Finding a new provider might seem like a daunting task, but it can be made much easier if you know what you’re looking for. Our specialists will be happy to advise and recommend a solution based on your needs.