Top 5 MSP takeaways from the 2025 IT Trends Report

Earlier this year, Auvik released our annual IT Trends Report, spotlighting some of the key changes for network management, MSP, and IT practitioners. We know the market and its ups and downs can have a huge impact on the success of MSPs, so we’re bringing you a roll-up of key statistics and findings related to MSP specifically. Read on to see what we found.

1. Support remote work capabilities for end users or be left behind!

You’re definitely in the minority of MSP employees if you aren’t thinking about how to maintain secure, high performance environments for remote workers. 87% of MSP respondents to our survey noted that they support remote work for their clients at least some of the time. MSPs need to work effectively while minimizing site visits, but it can be hard to prepare infrastructure for employees when you don’t know if they’re working from their study, the local café, or the office

2. Improve toolset to improve visibility and by extension, support for hybrid work

Speaking of how remote work impacts employee experience delivery, 50% of MSPs reported using 10+ tools to manage client networks, and 44% of MSPs reported a lack of real-time visibility as a major barrier to network monitoring. Another 74% cited server monitoring as contributing to the sprawl. It’s understandable in the MSP world to need multiple tools to cover all of a client’s technology needs, especially if you serve multiple different industries. However, with a lot of tools to work with and not a lot of time to learn the ins and outs, it’s no surprise that many MSP IT professionals are experiencing burnout.

3. Combat burnout with automation, tool consolidation, and training

60% of IT pros in our report said that they experience moderate or higher degrees of burnout at work. Another 44% said that the burden of their work prevents them from being productive. It’s beginning to sound like MSPs need to focus not only on their clients, but on building effective work balance for their own employees. That means not only helping to ease tool sprawl and the burdens of an on-demand job, but helping to train their MSP employees to adapt to new tool sets and acquire new skills.

4. Make space for employees to take rest or practice upskilling

Nearly ⅘ (78%) of IT professionals reported facing barriers to upskilling that include stress and workload. These are potentially MSP employees with good work ethics and problem solving skills who don’t have enough time in their day—one solution alone won’t transform their situations. Some recommendations to help build resilience and training are:

• Automation: automating more workflows or even having a streamlined and well-documented process to resolve recurring tickets can go a long way to help MSP employees do their best work.
• Consolidation: aiming to replace several tools with all-in-one purpose built solutions can not only give MSP employees less to struggle with, but there is less to train on when all of the information is in one or two sources rather than 10-12.
• Teamwork: buddy junior and senior employees into teams that can share information with each other. Junior employees can focus on basic reporting, communication, and administration, while senior employees can support them in deep technical troubleshooting and understanding process or documentation.

5. Prepare for growth in IT budgets, or lose out on spend!

70% of IT departments have said their budgets will increase in the next year. 51% of respondents said that they will see increases of 10% or more. This number gives decent growth potential for MSP partners who work in co-managed or fully-managed situations. What should they prioritize?

Some considerations for MSP tool sets, practices, and policies:

• Cloud monitoring and SaaS monitoring are two topics top of mind for client budgets. It’s always important for MSPs to be able to see everything they are working with in a client’s environment.
• 34% of organizations surveyed for our report have said they lack fully polished AI policies. This could be an opportunity for MSPs to contribute their knowledge and make the creation or supervision of an AI policy part of their contracts. 
• Training for both AI usage and ITSM were ranked among the highest desired skills for IT employees. Putting some budget toward training internal MSP employees is a key investment for business that can help improve client experience.

MSPs can differentiate by providing access to certified, up-to-date specialists, especially in a world that is adopting new technology more and more. Offering proactive monitoring for areas like SaaS, network, and cloud are key for supporting modern work environments. Addressing skill gaps internally and reducing complexity and sprawl of MSP tools is also key. These were the top findings from our 2025 IT Trends Report for MSPs.