About

A bit about me, and how I got here.

I started my career in IT in August 2021, when I was given the chance to do an IT apprenticeship after leaving an economics degree at the University of East Anglia. It was my first real exposure to IT of any kind. For the first 18 months I spent my time learning the core foundations: networking, infrastructure, hardware and software, email and DNS, operating system concepts, Active Directory and Microsoft 365, and cloud architecture and workloads. Alongside that I got to grips with the platforms an MSP runs on day to day, including PSA/ITSM, RMM and EDR/XDR tooling, as well as the operational basics of meeting SLAs, delivering good service and building stronger soft skills.

I've always been fairly critical by instinct. So across those 18 months I found myself interested in the operational side as much as the technical one: how we managed internal documentation, how well we were using our platforms, and what we could improve both for customers and for the team. Some of that was about strengthening the team's productivity, and some of it was about aiding my own development and, in turn, theirs.

For me the most interesting part of working in an MSP is seeing how an operationally efficient IT function can manage each individual part of a customer's IT, and do it across so many different ecosystems at once. That is really the whole reason a business uses an MSP instead of building an internal IT department. It is cost effective, and there is a broad base of expertise across the team. Approaching the work this way helped me see that for most customers it is not rocket science. It is about treating each one individually and making sure everyone is on board.

Soon after the apprenticeship I spent around a year working part-time on-site with a large global manufacturing firm in York. This was a great way to get hands-on experience supporting staff, and to work across parts of the IT stack I would not otherwise have touched. The estate was hosted both on-premise and in Microsoft Azure, running an Active Directory multi-site forest with domain controllers across six countries. On top of this there was a large-scale Azure Virtual Desktop environment, a global ERP system, and rigorous internal GDPR requirements. None of these were things I had been exposed to working with SMEs.

Over the next three years, working across first and second line support, I built up my technical foundations properly. I became genuinely adept at managing Microsoft 365 tenants, including the core parts of the stack: Intune device management, Entra identity and access, Defender security, and Purview compliance. This was the stretch where the depth came from.

Over the past six months I have moved into a systems engineer role, putting myself in a stronger position to work directly with customers. I now act as a technical lead, advising on specific security recommendations, and tailoring our service so IT actually works for them. I have also been working on large-scale projects such as Microsoft 365 tenant migrations, mostly tied to acquisitions. I am hoping to keep building on this, both professionally and personally.

The thing I am most curious about is where customers will sit in five years. Generative and agentic AI are already shifting what people expect, and I think that will reshape employment across the industry and change what customers expect to pay. IT does not directly generate revenue, so businesses will keep looking for ways to lower its cost. In some ways an MSP is already a good way to do that, which works in its favour, but service requirements are changing. There may be less reliance on a helpdesk and more on AI agents. This could land hardest on first line roles and apprenticeships. That is difficult, because it would risk removing the same entry point into the industry that gave me my own start five years ago.

Get in touch

You can reach me at hello@morrisjb.com, or find me on LinkedIn. If you're working on something interesting in the MSP space or in applied AI for IT, I'd genuinely like to hear from you.