Australian businesses are grappling with rising cyber threats and a shortage of cybersecurity experts. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) especially feel the pinch when trying to hire and retain qualified security talent.
Salaries for cybersecurity roles are high, reflecting the strong demand and limited supply of skilled experts. The average annual salary for a cybersecurity specialist in Australia is about A$120,000, with entry-level security analysts starting around A$89K and experienced professionals earning A$150K–185K+ in senior roles. This does not include additional costs like superannuation, ongoing training, and retention incentives.
To staff a true 24/7 security operations center (SOC) in-house, an organisation would need multiple analysts or an on-call rotation – multiplying those salary costs. Covering nights, weekends, and holidays requires 3–5 FTEs, easily costing A$300–500K annually in salaries alone. For many MSPs and small-medium enterprises, this level of investment is prohibitive.
Even beyond salary, talent retention is an issue: cybersecurity is a high-stress field with burnout risk, and skilled staff are frequently poached by larger firms. In fact, 93% of Australian business leaders say they pay a ~19% premium for local tech talent due to competition. Despite high wages, turnover remains a challenge, making the in-house approach both expensive and difficult to sustain
That’s why many MSPs are rethinking how they approach cybersecurity delivery.
Rather than stretching already limited resources or trying to build a full SOC in-house, some are turning to managed detection and response (MDR) solutions — not just for the cost savings, but for the scale, consistency, and peace of mind they bring.
Sophos MDR Complete is one example. Through the Sophos Elevate Program for about A$36K a year (or $3K/month), it gives MSPs access to a fully staffed security team, round-the-clock threat hunting, and incident response — all without the overhead of building internal capability. It’s not just more affordable; it’s also more sustainable in today’s environment.
Table 1: Annual Cost Comparison – In-House vs. Sophos MDR Complete
| Expense | In-House Security Hire | Sophos MDR Complete |
| Salary/Subscription Cost | ~A$120,000 per year (avg) | ~A$36,000 per year |
| Coverage Hours | 8×5 business hours (single hire) | 24×7 continuous monitoring |
| Added 24/7 Coverage | +2-4 more hires for full SOC (costly) | Included – global SOC team |
| Training & Certifications | Employer-funded (continuous) | Included – Sophos trains staff |
| Turnover Risk | High – competitive market | N/A – service continuity guaranteed |
| Total Annual Estimated Cost | A$150K – 200K+ (with overhead) | A$36K (fixed subscription) |
Sophos MDR Complete – Features and Benefits
Australia is experiencing a severe cybersecurity talent shortage. A 2024 report found there are only about 11,387 cybersecurity professionals in vital roles across the entire country. That equates to roughly one cyber specialist per 240 Australian businesses – a gap that leaves many organisations struggling to find qualified personnel. While Australia has a large IT workforce (376,000+ ICT professionals), only about 3% are in specialised cybersecurity positions
The result is fierce competition for the few available experts.
Sophos MDR Complete is a fully managed detection and response service that essentially acts as an extension of your team. It combines a human-led 24/7 Security Operations Center with Sophos’s advanced threat detection technology. Key features and benefits include:
| MSP Challenge | Solution with Sophos MDR Complete |
| Talent Shortage / Hiring – Not enough skilled security staff available. Hiring is slow and costly. | Instant Expert Team: MDR gives you a team of Sophos security experts on day one, no hiring required. You gain on-demand access to analysts, threat hunters, and incident responders who are difficult to find in the job market. This bypasses the recruitment struggle entirely. |
| High Salary Costs – Six-figure salaries to get one experienced analyst; even higher for 24/7 coverage. | Cost-Effective Subscription: At ~A$36K/year, MDR Complete costs a fraction of a single salary. It provides 24/7 coverage without needing multiple hires. The flat monthly fee is predictable and drastically lower than building an in-house SOC. |
| Retention & Burnout – Hard to keep talent; risk of key staff leaving, causing knowledge loss. | Always-On Service, No Turnover: Sophos manages the staffing. If an analyst goes on leave or resigns internally, Sophos replaces that person behind the scenes, and service to you is uninterrupted. There’s no single point of failure – the MDR team operates as a unit. This eliminates the MSP’s worries about staff attrition or exhaustion; coverage is reliably sustained 24/7. |
| Breadth of Skills Needed – Single hire can’t cover all security domains or advanced threats. | Diverse Expertise Pool: The MDR team includes specialists in malware analysis, forensic investigation, cloud security, etc. They collectively cover a broader range of skills than any one person. For example, if a complex incident occurs, Sophos can assign a malware reverse-engineer or a cloud security expert as needed. MSPs benefit from a depth of knowledge that would be impractical to maintain in-house. |
| 24/7 Monitoring Gap – In-house team off-hours leave clients exposed; attacks can go undetected at night. | Continuous 24/7 Monitoring: MDR Complete never sleeps. It literally provides eyes on glass every minute of every day. Alerts at 3 AM on a Sunday? They will be seen and acted upon. This ensures clients are protected at all times, solving the off-hours coverage problem without requiring the MSP to staff graveyard shifts. |
| Alert Overload – Too many alerts from tools like firewalls or EDR, overwhelming a small IT team. | Noise Filtering & Response: The MDR service filters and prioritises alerts using AI and expert review, so you only hear about credible threats. It also responds to many issues directly. This alleviates alert fatigue for your in-house team, letting them focus on other IT work while MDR handles the security noise. MSPs have reported significantly fewer incidents to deal with after offloading to MDR. |
| Maintaining Technology – Keeping security tools updated, tuned, and integrated is complex for MSPs. | Turnkey Platform: Sophos MDR comes with its own cloud-based XDR platform and integrates with existing tools. Sophos handles all the back-end analytics, threat intel updates, and tool management. The MSP doesn’t need to manage SIEMs or analytics infrastructure – this reduces complexity and maintenance effort. |
| Compliance & Trust – Clients (especially in regulated sectors) need proof of serious security and may be hesitant to trust a small MSP’s capabilities. | Enterprise-Grade Credentials: By leveraging Sophos (ISO 27001 certified, etc.), an MSP can assure clients that their security is handled to top standards. Sophos MDR’s involvement can be a selling point: it’s a globally recognised, highly rated MDR service (4.9/5.0 by users). This helps MSPs punch above their weight and meet compliance requirements (e.g. APRA’s standards for financial institutions) by essentially renting Sophos’s expertise and credentials. |
With over 20,000 customers worldwide using Sophos MDR and more than 6,000 MSP partners on this service, it’s a mature offering. This scale means the MDR team has seen a vast array of threats and can draw on experiences from many environments. They can often detect patterns of a new attack campaign by leveraging signals across their customer base. As an MSP, you effectively join a global network of threat intelligence when you subscribe to MDR. Sophos’s large team of analysts (spread across multiple time zones) ensures continuous coverage and the ability to surge response resources if a major incident strikes one of your clients. An in-house hire, no matter how talented, simply can’t match the collective experience and bench depth of a dedicated MDR provider.
Want to see what Sophos MDR looks like in action?
Book a 30-minute discovery session with our team and get a tailored breakdown of how it compares to your current model.
We’ll also give a 2% rebate for all partners who commit to the elevate program every month – for the first three months.
