I'm 31 and have spent the last four years working in internal IT, after previously working at a small MSP for about eight months. That earlier MSP experience was poorly structured and mostly involved constant break/fix firefighting, so I've been cautious about returning to that environment.
My current internal role involves supporting the IT director, helping with a few projects each year, maintaining infrastructure, working with vendors, and assisting end users. We use a fairly enterprise-focused technology stack, but the role is usually quiet and only becomes genuinely challenging during project work. I estimate that around 30% of my time involves new or interesting projects, while the rest is routine maintenance and support.
I've now been offered a senior position at an established MSP that has operated for around 40 years and employs roughly 10–12 people. The role would involve cloud migrations, on-premises project delivery, ownership of customer environments, and acting as an escalation point for complex issues. The work would include virtualisation clusters, remote desktop environments, networking, Microsoft 365 tenant management, and backup platforms.
The offer is around £5,000 more per year. I would need to work onsite for the first three months while onboarding, and then participate in a P1 on-call rota every three weeks, with enhanced pay for critical incidents. My commute would only be slightly longer, but I currently have hybrid working and would lose that initially.
I'm interested because I feel stagnant in my current position and want more hands-on experience, especially with cloud technologies and project leadership. My concern is that the MSP could simply mean nonstop firefighting, excessive workload, and burnout. Would taking this role improve my long-term career prospects, or would it be better to stay in internal IT and look for a more challenging position there?
3 Answers
The MSP could accelerate your learning, but only if the role genuinely includes project ownership and not just ticket queues and emergency support. A year or two of good MSP experience can give you exposure to many environments and make it easier to move into a more senior internal role later.
Before accepting, ask how much of the job is planned project work versus reactive support, how many people share the on-call rota, how often P1 calls actually happen, and whether engineers are given time for documentation and root-cause fixes. An established company is encouraging, but established does not automatically mean well-managed.
The biggest issue is that you may be comparing a calm internal role with an MSP based on its best-case job description. You have already experienced an unstructured MSP, and many of them operate with thin staffing, aggressive customer promises, and constant context switching. Being called a senior engineer at a 10-person company may simply mean you are the person expected to solve everything.
That doesn’t mean every MSP is bad. If they can show you a realistic service desk structure, proper escalation boundaries, documented environments, dedicated project time, manageable customer numbers, and engineers who have stayed for several years, it could be a worthwhile two-year career move. If they are vague about those points, assume the job will be mostly firefighting and keep looking for a stronger internal or specialist cloud role.
That’s the balance I’m struggling with. I’m not getting much hands-on project leadership at the moment, so a temporary period of intensity might be worthwhile, but I don’t want to repeat the chaotic MSP experience I had before.
I’d be very cautious about moving for only £5,000 more. Once you account for regular on-call, five days onsite during probation, and the risk of losing work-life balance, that increase may not compensate you for the extra demands. Find out whether on-call has a separate standby payment, how frequently engineers are contacted, whether time off in lieu is provided, and whether the rota includes both nights and weekends.
If your current role is comfortable but stagnant, I would first look for a better internal position with genuine infrastructure or cloud ownership. You can also negotiate with the MSP or ask for a larger increase that reflects the on-call commitment.
The on-call payment is double time for P1 incidents, and I’d be on the rota roughly every third weekend. I’m less interested in the raise itself than the experience, but I agree that the workload and actual frequency of incidents need to be clear before I decide.
That’s exactly what interests me: using the role to build stronger cloud and project experience, then potentially moving into a senior internal position later. My main worry is making sure the advertised project work is actually there rather than being replaced by constant break/fix work.