Technology should make life easier, not harder. But for the average Peterborough business (of which there are now over 9,000 of them, competing in one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities), a single morning of broken email or a frozen line-of-business app can cost more than most owners realise.
UK SMEs lose between £500 and £5,000 for every hour of downtime, and 92% take 24 hours or more to recover from a serious outage.
At Octopus Computers, that’s exactly what we deliver.
We’re not just another tech provider. We’re your reliable partners, the people who pick up the phone, roll up their sleeves, and make things work again. Fast, friendly, and always human.
For many companies, IT support means logging a ticket and waiting. We think that’s the bare minimum, not the job. The 2025 UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey found that 43% of UK businesses identified a cyber breach or attack in the last 12 months, and 85% of those affected experienced a phishing attack; making phishing the most prevalent and disruptive type of breach in the country.
If your IT provider only shows up after something has already gone wrong, you’re paying for a fire brigade, not a fire alarm. Real support means owning the outcome: keeping things working, keeping data safe, and being one phone call away when something doesn’t.
Octopus Computers started with one simple goal: to make technology less intimidating and more empowering to the businesses we work with.
We’re based in Rutland and we look after companies right across the East Midlands and East of England; including a growing number in Peterborough. The population has grown 14.2% in the last decade (twice the national average) and the jobs market has expanded by almost a quarter.
That growth has brought a wave of new businesses across Peterborough’s strongest sectors; manufacturing and advanced engineering, agri-food and drink, digital and IT, logistics, and construction.
Each of those industries has its own compliance, software, and uptime expectations. We design IT support around them, not around a generic ticket queue.
We work with Peterborough businesses across PE1 to PE9. From city-centre professional services firms near Cathedral Square to manufacturers and logistics operators on Fengate and Lynch Wood. Five things show up consistently in the feedback we get back.
Our helpdesk isn’t a faceless call centre. Tickets are owned by named engineers from open to close. We publish our average first-response and resolution times to clients quarterly; because “fast” without a number isn’t a commitment, it’s a slogan
We’re available when you need us, by phone, email, or remote access, and our average response times are among the fastest in the industry.
We don’t wait for things to go wrong. Our proactive monitoring tools keep an eye on your systems 24/7, identifying potential issues before they cause downtime. It’s IT support that prevents problems, not just reacts to them.
From server performance and security patches to software updates and network stability, we make sure everything runs as it should, quietly and efficiently in the background.
Some problems need a physical touch. That’s why our engineers are always ready to visit your office for hands-on support when it’s needed. We’re only a short drive down the A47 to get to you.
For everything else, our remote access tools mean we can jump onto your system and resolve issues instantly, no waiting around for someone to arrive.
Technology isn’t just about keeping the lights on, it’s about helping your business grow.
We offer IT consultancy that aligns your systems with your goals, ensuring every investment supports your success. Whether you’re migrating to the cloud, upgrading hardware, or planning your digital transformation, we guide you every step of the way.
Modern IT support goes hand-in-hand with strong cyber security. Octopus Computers integrates robust protection into everything we do, from endpoint monitoring and firewalls to backup and disaster recovery solutions.
Your data is your most valuable asset. We make sure it’s secure, compliant, and recoverable, always.
Our engineers don’t hide behind jargon. They explain things clearly, in plain English, and they care about your experience as much as your uptime. That matters more than it sounds.
The 2025 government breach survey notes that phishing remains the most disruptive type of attack precisely because it targets people, not machines. So the most important security control in any business is a workforce that feels comfortable picking up the phone the moment something looks wrong.
We try to be the kind of provider where that phone call feels easy. That’s the Octopus difference.
Every member of our team brings years of experience in IT support, networking, cloud services, and infrastructure management. From small start-ups to national organisations, we’ve helped hundreds of clients stay online, secure, and productive.
We hold leading industry certifications, but what really sets us apart is our attitude — calm under pressure, committed to excellence, and always eager to help.
Clients often tell us it feels like having their own in-house IT department — without the overhead. That’s exactly the feeling we aim for.
A local law firm we work with once described their IT setup as “chaos on a good day.” After migrating them to a new cloud-based system, downtime dropped by 90%, and their staff could finally collaborate seamlessly from anywhere.
A school struggling with old, unreliable hardware came to us for help. Within weeks, we replaced their infrastructure, trained their staff, and set up ongoing support; giving teachers and students technology they could depend on.
These stories aren’t just wins for us, they’re reminders of why we do what we do. Because behind every network and every server are people relying on us to keep things running smoothly.
We like to think of our approach as “support with purpose.” It’s not just about solving problems; it’s about making IT work for you.
Our team is proactive, transparent, and friendly. We communicate clearly, keep promises, and treat every challenge like it’s our own.
That’s why our clients stay with us for years — not because they have to, but because they want to.
Technology is changing faster than ever — AI, automation, hybrid work, and cloud computing are reshaping how we live and work.
Octopus Computers is right there at the forefront, helping businesses adapt with smarter, more flexible IT support. We’re investing in automation tools to predict faults before they happen, and expanding our training to keep our team ahead of every trend.
But one thing will never change: our human touch.
Because no matter how advanced technology gets, people will always need people they can rely on.
We speak your language and care about your success.
We stop problems before they start.
From cloud solutions to cyber security, everything under one roof.
We’re here for the long haul, not a quick fix.
At Octopus Computers, IT support isn’t just a service — it’s a promise.
That’s what makes Octopus Computers one of the most trusted names in IT support — not just for the technology we manage, but for the people we care for. Call us to discuss our services
Most on-site visits to PE1–PE9 are scheduled the same day for emergencies and within one working day for non-urgent visits. The vast majority of issues we handle, around 90% across our client base, are resolved remotely without an engineer needing to attend.
Yes — we already work with clients across Peterborough’s main industrial and business estates. The mix of manufacturers, logistics firms and professional-services tenants on those sites tends to need slightly different things from IT (e.g. industrial network resilience on Fengate vs. SaaS-heavy environments on Lynch Wood), and we tune our service to match.
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed scheme run by the NCSC. Certification numbers have grown roughly tenfold since 2017, from around 5,000 to over 50,000 organisations.
For a small Peterborough business, the certification itself is affordable; the cost (and the value) is in the work to bring your environment up to the required standard — and that’s exactly the kind of project we scope and deliver.
Yes. We already work with regulated SMEs across the East Midlands and East of England. We map our controls to FCA expectations, ICO/UK GDPR obligations and Cyber Essentials Plus where applicable, and we’ll happily walk through any sector-specific framework you have to evidence (e.g. SRA Lexcel, ICAEW practice assurance, NHS DSPT).
We’ve found that most people have a “personal preference” for this. It does depend on how much you like to ‘hear’ from your antivirus software. Some of them are rather ‘noisy’ with lots of alerts and pop-ups while others silently work away in the background.
For businesses we would recommend ESET or Kaspersky. Kaspersky really is at the cutting edge of security software but ESET is also very strong.
For personal or home use I would recommend Bullgard or ESET. If you are in a pinch, a good free alternative is something like Avast.
When choosing a CRM you really need to invest the time in knowing your business processes. From there, you can build a very robust user requirement and find the solution you need.
Most businesses have a couple of unique aspects to them (such as an IT Support company) which will also help steer which platform is best for you. From there, separate those requirements into “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”. This builds a scoring matrix against the platforms shortlist you will inevitably build.
Finally, early on you should distinguish between a contact management system and a customer management system. Contact management is build into most cloud hosted email solutions and, if you need something more complex, can usually be managed very well on free platforms. Customer management however often includes marketing communications, pipeline tracking and a level of process automation.
If you need to take things further than managing just the customers, you may want to look at an MRP or ERP solution which stand for Material Resource Planning and Enterprise Resourse Planning respectively.
