Business backup and disaster recovery: a practical guide for UK SMEs
If you run a business with between 10 and 200 staff in the UK, thinking about business backup and disaster recovery (BDR) probably isn’t your favourite way to spend an afternoon. Trouble is, when something goes wrong — a server fails, someone opens a phishing email, or a burst water main floods the office — the alternatives to thinking ahead are painful: lost revenue, outraged customers and a damaged reputation that takes months to repair.
Why BDR matters for UK businesses
This isn’t tech for tech’s sake. It’s about staying open, keeping people paid and maintaining trust. You don’t have to be a bank to be harmed by downtime. An accountant in Manchester losing access to client files during filing season, a retailer in London unable to process orders on a Saturday, or a manufacturer halted because the ERP database is corrupted — these are real, local problems. The cost of an hour offline is far higher than the price of a sensible plan.
What business backup and disaster recovery actually mean
Keep it simple: backups are copies of your data. Disaster recovery is the plan and the actions that get you back working when something goes wrong. Together they answer two business questions: how much data can you afford to lose, and how long can you afford to be down? In BDR lingo that’s RPO (how recent the recovery must be) and RTO (how quickly you must be back online). For most SMEs the answers are pragmatic, not heroic: some data needs near-immediate recovery, other items can wait.
Common threats you should plan for
- Hardware failure — servers and storage do fail, sometimes spectacularly.
- Ransomware and malware — not a question of if, but when for many businesses.
- Human error — accidental deletions or overwrites are everyday occurrences.
- Connectivity outages — fibre ducts get cut, ISP outages affect whole towns.
- Environmental incidents — floods, fires or power issues can take premises offline.
Knowing which of these will hurt your business most helps you prioritise budget and effort.
What a practical BDR plan looks like (no jargon)
There are three sensible layers: local backups, off-site copies and a recovery plan you can actually use.
1. Local backups
Fast, frequent backups kept close to the systems they protect. These let you recover quickly from simple failures. Think of this as your first line of defence.
2. Off-site backups
Copies stored away from the primary site — whether in a cloud region, a colocation centre or even another office. This protects against fire, flood or theft at your premises. For many UK businesses a mix of on-site rapid recovery and cloud-based copies for resilience is the best balance of cost and protection.
3. A clear recovery plan
Who does what, where and when? How do staff log on, who talks to customers, and where do operations run from if the office is unusable? These non-technical steps are often the difference between a short disruption and a long crisis.
Choosing the right level of protection
There isn’t a single right answer. Your decision should be driven by the impact of downtime: lost sales, missed deadlines, regulatory fines or reputational damage. For regulated sectors — financial services, legal or firms handling sensitive personal data — consider tighter recovery objectives and documented processes to meet compliance obligations such as GDPR.
Budget sensibly. You don’t need enterprise pricing to be resilient; you need the right mix. Smaller firms often benefit from managed services that handle backups, testing and monitoring without hiring a specialist in-house.
If you want a clear place to start, our practical guide to data backup for business explains backup options and everyday choices companies like yours make.
Testing and maintenance — don’t set and forget
Backups that aren’t tested are not reliable. Schedule regular restores — a quick check once a month and a full restore drill once or twice a year — and treat them like fire drills. Record the results, fix what fails and keep the plan up to date as systems change. I’ve seen firms assume backups worked only to find key systems weren’t included when it mattered; testing avoids that painful surprise.
Staff, process and culture
Technology alone won’t save you. Train people on simple behaviours: recognise phishing, follow change controls, and store critical documents centrally. Make sure responsibilities are clear when someone is off sick or leaves the business — that continuity of knowledge is often overlooked in smaller firms.
Compliance and data protection
When dealing with personal data or financial records, you need to demonstrate control. GDPR expects reasonable measures to protect data and to be able to restore availability and access in a timely manner. Keep retention and deletion policies tidy — holding data forever isn’t protection, it’s a liability. Align your recovery approach with any industry-specific rules that apply to your customers or contracts.
Working with a provider (what to ask)
When you consider a supplier, focus on outcomes: how quickly they’ll have you operational, what levels of data currency they’ll guarantee, and how they communicate during incidents. Ask about real-world experience in the UK — have they supported businesses through local incidents like major ISP outages or regional flooding? Also check how they test restores and whether test results are shared.
Cost vs risk — the business case
Frame BDR as insurance for revenue and reputation. Estimate the likely cost of downtime for a typical working day and balance that against annual protection costs. For many SMEs, a modest increase in IT budget buys significant reductions in risk: less lost time, fewer emergency IT bills and calmer senior leadership the next time something goes wrong.
Practical first steps this month
- Identify the top five systems your business can’t operate without.
- Confirm backups exist for those systems and test a restore for at least one.
- Set RTO and RPO targets that reflect business impact, not technical aspiration.
- Document who does what during an incident and run a simple tabletop exercise.
FAQ
How often should we back up our data?
It depends on how much data you can afford to lose. For transactional systems you might need hourly backups; for less critical files, daily or even weekly may be fine. Decide based on business impact, not technology.
Is cloud backup safe enough for regulated data?
Yes — provided the provider stores data in secure UK/EU locations where required, offers encryption, and you can demonstrate control. Always check how they handle access, deletion and audit trails to satisfy GDPR requirements.
Do we need a full disaster recovery site?
Not necessarily. Many SMEs use a combination of on-site quick recovery and cloud failover for serious incidents. A full secondary site can be expensive; assess whether the cost matches the potential loss from extended downtime.
How often should we test our disaster recovery plan?
At minimum, test restores monthly for critical systems and run a full recovery drill annually. If your business changes rapidly, increase the frequency to match.
What should we do first after a ransomware attack?
Isolate affected machines to stop spread, then follow your incident plan: assess backups, determine recent clean restore points, and communicate with staff and customers. Avoid hasty decisions; having tested backups and a recovery plan makes this far less stressful.
Planning for business backup and disaster recovery doesn’t have to be a burdensome project. It’s about practical steps that save time, money and credibility when things go wrong, and — frankly — let you sleep a little better. Start with the systems that matter, test what you have, and build a simple, owned plan that your people can follow. If you’d like help turning that plan into reliable outcomes — less downtime, lower emergency costs and a calmer leadership team — take a measured next step focused on those results rather than shiny features.
