The Unite Group News and Updates
Leased Line vs Business Broadband: A UK Buyer’s Guide (2026)
Business broadband and leased lines look similar on a price sheet and behave very differently under load. In this post, we'll compare leased line vs business broadband to help you understand the differences. The short version is this. Business broadband is a shared...
One-Provider IT, Phones and Mobiles for Newcastle SMEs: What Consolidation Delivers
The typical Newcastle SME running 20 to 50 staff is paying four different suppliers for what one supplier could deliver: IT support from one company, phones from another, mobiles from a third, business broadband from a fourth. Four contracts, four SLAs, four...
Passkeys in Microsoft 365: How UK SMEs Roll Them Out in Q3 2026
Microsoft is turning passkeys on for every Entra ID tenant through 2026. General availability of passkey profiles landed in March. Auto-enablement across tenants that have not opted in is rolling through Q3. For UK SMEs on Microsoft 365, the decision is not whether to...
AI Quick Wins: 10 Ways to Save Time in Microsoft 365 Without Creating New Risk
Half the UK SMEs we work with have paid for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Automate and the AI features built into Outlook, Teams and SharePoint. The other half are about to. Most organisations still aren't seeing the time savings promised in the licence brochure...
2026 IT Policy Checklist: The Essentials You Are Missing (and Why Auditors Care)
An insurer asks for your acceptable use policy. A new client wants to see your incident response plan before signing the contract. Your accountant flags during the year-end audit that there is no documented joiner-mover-leaver process. Each of these moments is the...
Microsoft 365 Licence Audit: Where UK Businesses Overpay in 2026
A Microsoft 365 licence audit for a UK business in 2026 typically finds three things: licences assigned to staff who left, users on heavier plans than they need, and add-on subscriptions nobody can name the owner of. The total overspend is rarely catastrophic. For a...
Beyond MFA: Why UK Businesses Need Phishing-Resistant Identity in 2026
Multi-factor authentication is the floor, not the ceiling. Over the last three years, UK SMEs have strengthened MFA across email, Microsoft 365 and remote access. As a result, Cyber Essentials, insurance questionnaires and high-profile breaches have pushed MFA higher...
BYOD Without the Backlash: A Practical Intune Setup for UK Businesses in 2026
Bring your own device is already happening at most UK SMEs. Staff read work email on personal phones, join Teams calls from the car, and check Outlook on the same handset they use for everything else. The question is rarely whether to allow it. It is how to bring...
Retention Is Not Backup: Where Microsoft 365 Stops and Backup Starts
Microsoft 365 backup is not bundled into any Microsoft 365 subscription. However, Microsoft bundles retention instead: it holds deleted items for a defined window, replicates data across data centres, and protects the platform from its own failures. None of that is...
PSTN Price Hike on 1 July 2026: Why UK Businesses Should Migrate Before Legacy Lines Double
The PSTN price increase in 2026 lands hardest on 1 July, when Openreach’s wholesale rental on legacy voice-only PSTN linesrises by a further 40% on top of April’s 20% rise. A third rise of 40% follows on 1 October. By the autumn, the published Openreach pricing...
Microsoft Agent 365: A Governance Starter Pack for Copilot Agents
Four key controls govern Copilot Agents: who can create agents, what data they can access, who can share them, and what actions they can perform externally. Get those four right and Microsoft Agent 365 becomes a useful productivity layer for your business. However,...
Out of Office, Out of Pocket: How UK Businesses Stop BEC and Invoice Fraud This Summer
Invoice fraud prevention is a seasonal problem for most UK SMEs, and the worst season is summer. Two of the three approvers are out, one new starter is covering the inbox, and the finance lead’s out-of-office reply tells anyone who emails that they are walking the...
AI Governance: The 10-Point Policy You Need Before Staff Use AI Tools at Work
Your staff are already using AI tools. Whether it is ChatGPT for drafting emails, an AI image generator for social media, or a browser extension that summarises documents, generative AI has entered most workplaces without a formal decision being made about it. The...
Microsoft Purview Starter Pack: 3 Labels, 2 DLP Rules and a Monthly Audit Routine
Most SMEs have no data classification in place. Microsoft Purview for SMEs can provide essential tools to address these challenges. Files sit in SharePoint and OneDrive with no labels, no restrictions on sharing, and no visibility into what is leaving the...
Social Engineering in 2026: A 30-Second Script Your Team Can Use Today
The phishing email is no longer the only threat your team needs to worry about. The reality is that social engineering UK business threats are rapidly evolving. Social engineering attacks in 2026 are multi-channel: they start with a Teams message, follow up with a...
AI Readiness Check: The Infrastructure Gaps Stopping SMEs from Using AI Properly
Most businesses that try AI tools hit the same problem. The tools themselves are ready. The infrastructure underneath them is not. Microsoft Copilot is powerful, but it is only as useful as the data, permissions and device estate it sits on top of.If your business has...
Cyber Essentials v3.3: What Changed and How to Pass First Time
Cyber Essentials v3.3 took effect on 27 April 2026. All new assessment accounts created after that date use the updated requirements and the new Danzell question set. If your certification is due for renewal or you are certifying for the first time, v3.3 now...
Making Tax Digital April 2026: What Your IT Setup Needs to Be Ready
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax went live on 6 April 2026. If you are a sole trader or landlord with gross income above £50,000, you are now required to keep digital records and submit quarterly updates to HMRC using compatible software. The threshold drops to...