Lead generation for IT support companies in the UK
Which public-record signals genuinely suit an MSP or IT support firm, which belong to somebody else's playbook, and how to write a first email that is timely rather than pushy.
An IT support firm has a genuinely good prospecting problem: the moment a company most needs you is public information. Companies incorporate, grow past their first setup and file on a schedule, and all of that is on the public record before anybody starts shopping. The difficulty is that most of the public record signals people talk about were designed around a different trade.
This post is about which ones actually suit managed IT, which belong to somebody else, and what to write when you find them. If you want the equivalent for practices, UK lead generation for accountants is the sibling piece and the signals are genuinely different.
First: whose codes are you looking for?
Your own SIC code is IT consultancy activities (62020) or business and domestic software development (62012). Neither is any use for finding customers, because your customers are not IT firms.
Work backwards instead. Read the Companies House records of your five best clients and note the codes they filed. Most MSP client bases cluster into a handful: professional services, trades, healthcare, wholesale, agencies. Which SIC codes actually describe your customers has the method, and each code we cover has a page on the SIC hub with a live company count.
The signal that suits you best: just incorporated
A company registered in the last few months has no incumbent IT provider. Nobody to displace, no contract to break, no relationship to overcome. They are buying laptops, email, a domain and support in the same fortnight, and whoever is in front of them wins by default.
One caveat we would rather you heard from us: a company registered this month usually has no website and no published email address yet. There is nothing to verify and nobody to write to. Leadistry holds those companies back until they can actually be reached, which takes months rather than days, so what you get is new companies that have started trading rather than a list of names filed last Tuesday. Finding recently incorporated UK companies explains the timing.
Filter the public record to your area and the company ages that suit managed IT, with the director's name, a verified website and a verified email on every lead. 25 free to start.
The second one: first accounts coming
A company approaching its first set of annual accounts is roughly 9 to 21 months old, and that is the window where the setup a founder cobbled together stops coping.
The headcount has grown past the point where everybody shares one password. Somebody has bought a second office laptop. The free tier of something has run out. It is a proxy for "past the beginning, not yet organised", which is exactly the buying moment for a first support contract, and it is a dated public fact rather than a guess.
The ones that are not really yours
Two of the live register signals get recommended to everybody and genuinely belong to accountants:
- Accounts due and accounts overdue. A looming or missed filing deadline is a strong buying signal, for whoever files accounts. It says nothing about a company's IT.
- Confirmation statement due or overdue. Same. It is the cheapest first job in an accountant's playbook and it is not yours.
You can search on them. We would rather tell you they will convert worse for you than for the practice down the road, and point you at what those deadlines mean so you can judge for yourself. If your firm sells to accountancy practices, that is a different and perfectly good play: sell to them, do not copy them. The accountants page shows what they are being sold.
The observable one: a website that is letting them down
The public record cannot tell you about a company's IT, but its own website can tell you something. A site with no HTTPS, no mobile layout, a single page or a copyright line that stopped years ago says nobody technical has looked at this business in a while.
That is not proof of an IT problem, and we would not pretend otherwise. It is a reasonable prior, it is checkable in a browser before you write, and it gives you a first line that is specific. The poor website filter covers how the grading works.
What to write
Three rules, and the third is the one everybody gets wrong.
Lead with the dated fact, not the pitch. "Incorporated 4 June, first accounts due 31 March" is a real thing you know about them. It earns the next sentence.
Make the offer small. A new company does not want a managed services proposal in the first email. A setup checklist, a half-hour on getting email and backups right, or a fixed price for the first month is a much easier yes.
Never write anything that reads as an accusation. This matters. Filing dates are public, and it is very easy to write a line that sounds like a telling-off. "Your accounts are late" is an accusation about a company you have never spoken to. "Accounts due 14 September" is a fact and reads as helpful. We enforce this in our own product wording, and it is the single biggest difference between a reply and a report.
Two things we will not claim for you either. Nobody on this list put their hand up, so treat it as cold outreach where you happen to know why you are writing. And nobody here telephones anybody: this is email, and the whole timing argument exists to make a cold email worth opening.
Building it once
The routine is small enough to run by hand: pull your customer codes plus your radius plus a company-age band, check the sample, write two emails, send, stop on reply. Most firms do it for three weeks and then stop, which is why the automated version exists.
A pipeline runs the same play continuously: the watch adds new matching companies as they appear on the public record, each one gets the intro and one chaser from your own mailbox, and a reply ends that sequence and lands with you. The IT and managed services page shows what that looks like set up.
Try it on your own patch
Pick your three most common client codes, your service radius and a company-age band, and see what comes back before you commit to anything. Start free with 25 leads and 25 free emails, no card. Pricing starts at £29 a month for 900 leads if the replies are worth having.
Common questions
Which Companies House signals are best for IT support companies?
New incorporations, because a brand-new company has no incumbent provider, and first accounts coming, which marks a company roughly 9 to 21 months old whose original setup has stopped coping. Accounts and confirmation statement deadlines are strong signals for accountants rather than for managed IT.
How do I find newly incorporated UK companies for IT services?
Filter the public record by incorporation date, your service radius and the SIC codes your existing clients file. Note that a company registered this month usually has no website or published email yet, so a usable list is of new companies that have started trading rather than of names filed last week.
Which SIC codes should an MSP target?
Not its own. Read the Companies House records of your five best clients and note the codes they filed themselves. Most MSP client bases cluster into professional services, trades, healthcare, wholesale and agencies rather than into one code.
What should the first email to a new company say?
Open with the dated public fact you know, such as the incorporation date, keep the offer small enough to say yes to, and never write anything that reads as an accusation about their filings. A date is helpful, a telling-off is not.