How Much Your Company Actually Wastes On Windows (Real 2025 Wages & TCO)

Bottom line first: Windows costs £2,708 per device over 5 years, Mac costs £1,443

You save £1,265 per device by switching to Mac.

• 50 employees: Save £63,250 over 5 years
• 100 employees: Save £126,500 over 5 years
• 500 employees: Save £632,500 over 5 years
• 1,000 employees: Save £1,265,000 over 5 years

All numbers below use real 2025 UK and US wage data from Indeed, Glassdoor, PayScale, and BLS.

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Current Mac pricing (February 2025)

Equivalent Windows business laptops:

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Real IT support wages (2025 market data)

UK IT Support Engineer

Base salary: £30,000/year (Indeed £29,015 | Glassdoor £30,380 | CV-Library £29,000)

Base salary:                     £30,000
Employer NI (15% on £25,000):    £3,750
Workplace pension (3%):          £900
────────────────────────────────────────
Fully loaded cost:               £34,650/year

US IT Support Engineer

Base salary: $72,000/year (Glassdoor $68,242 | Salary.com $79,715 | ZipRecruiter $65,871 average)

Base salary:                     $72,000
Social Security (6.2%):          $4,464
Medicare (1.45%):                $1,044
FUTA (0.6% on $7k):              $42
SUTA (2% average):               $1,440
Health/benefits (25%):           $18,000
────────────────────────────────────────
Fully loaded cost:               $96,990/year

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Real cost per ticket (2025 industry data)

Industry benchmarks:

• MetricNet 2021: $15.56 average (range $2.93-$46.69)
• BMC 2018: $20 per ticket recommendation
• HDI benchmarking: $6-$40 range

We use: £17 (UK) | $22 (US) for 2025

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Where your money goes

1. IT staffing ratios (IBM/Forrester verified data)

Mac support:

• 1 IT person supports 600 Macs
• Cost per device: £34,650 ÷ 600 = £58/year | $96,990 ÷ 600 = $162/year

Windows support:

• 1 IT person supports 300 PCs
• Cost per device: £34,650 ÷ 300 = £116/year | $96,990 ÷ 300 = $323/year

Difference: £58/year per device (£290 over 5 years)

2. Support tickets (Forrester/IBM data)

• Mac users generate: 2.4 tickets/year × £17/ticket = £41/year | $53/year
• Windows users generate: 6 tickets/year × £17/ticket = £102/year | $132/year

Difference: £61/year per device (£305 over 5 years)

3. Software licensing (per device per year)

Windows requirements:

Windows 11 Enterprise:           £90/year | $120/year
Endpoint security (CrowdStrike): £60/year | $80/year
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total:                           £150/year | $200/year

Mac requirements:

macOS (included):                £0/year
Built-in security:               £0/year
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total:                           £0/year

Difference: £150/year (£750 over 5 years)

4. Device lifespan

• Mac: 6-8 years optimal (we use 7 years)
• Windows: 3-5 years (Microsoft says 4.4 years, we use 4 years)

Over 5 years:

• Mac: Buy once £1,199, still working in year 5
• Windows: Buy £1,050 year 1, replace after year 4 (20% of new device) = £210

Difference: £210 extra Windows hardware cost over 5 years

5. Resale value (after 4 years)

• Mac: £1,199 → £390 (32.5% residual value)
• Windows: £1,050 → £132 (12.5% residual value)

Difference: Mac recovers £258 more

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Complete 5-year TCO per device

Mac TCO (5 years):

Hardware purchase:               £1,199 | $1,499
IT staffing (£58 × 5):           £290   | $810
Support tickets (£41 × 5):       £205   | $265
Software licensing:              £0     | $0
Resale value (year 4):           -£390  | -$487
────────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL MAC:                       £1,304 | $2,087

Windows TCO (5 years):

Hardware purchase:               £1,050 | $1,312
IT staffing (£116 × 5):          £580   | $1,615
Support tickets (£102 × 5):      £510   | $660
Software licensing (£150 × 5):   £750   | $1,000
Hardware replacement (20%):      £210   | $262
Resale value (year 4):           -£132  | -$165
────────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL WINDOWS:                   £2,968 | $4,684

You save: £1,664 per device | $2,597 per device

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What this means for your company

50 employees

That's 1.5 mid-level developers

100 employees

That's a 4-person engineering team

200 employees

That's 5 senior engineers or a satellite office

500 employees

That's £832k or $1.3M back in your business

1,000 employees

That's £1.66 million or $2.6 million. On laptops.

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CrowdStrike: £10 billion lesson Windows can't forget

July 2024: One CrowdStrike update crashed 8.5 million Windows machines globally.

• Airlines grounded
• Banks offline
• Hospitals on backup
• Manual USB recovery for every machine
• Total damage: $10+ billion

Macs affected: Zero.

Why? macOS doesn't allow security software to access the kernel. Windows does.

That's not in the TCO numbers above. But it should be.

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Software compatibility

Works perfectly on Mac:

• QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct
• Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams)
• Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Zoom, Google Workspace

Actually Windows-only:

• Sage 50 desktop (use cloud version instead)
• QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise (discontinued Sept 2024, use QBO)
• Microsoft Access, Publisher, Visio
• SAP GUI client

Need Windows? Parallels Desktop runs Windows 11 on Mac for £99/year ($99/year).

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Real companies using Mac at scale

• IBM: 290,000+ Macs (largest corporate Mac deployment)
• SAP: 24,000 Macs across 90,000 employees
• Cisco: 130,000 Macs in 99 countries
• GE: 330,000 employees with Mac rollout
• Capital One: Employee choice, overwhelming Mac preference

If IBM runs 290,000 Macs, you can run 50.

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The research bias

Every Mac TCO study is Apple-commissioned. Does that make it wrong? No. But it means:

• These are best-case numbers
• Your results will vary
• Selection bias is real

Even knocking 30% off these savings, Mac still wins decisively.

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When Windows makes sense

• Genuine Windows-only software you can't migrate
• Deep Windows infrastructure investment
• Short-term contractors or high-turnover roles
• Specialised hardware requirements (touchscreens, ruggedised)

That's it.

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What to do next

1. Audit your Windows support costs (pull 6 months of ticket data)
2. Pilot 10-20 Macs with technical users
3. Measure actual support burden vs Windows baseline
4. Calculate your TCO using your real numbers
5. Roll out employee choice if pilot matches industry data

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Bottom line

For 100 employees:

• Windows: £296,800 over 5 years
• Mac: £130,400 over 5 years
• You're wasting £166,400

For 500 employees:

• Windows: £1,484,000 over 5 years
• Mac: £652,000 over 5 years
• You're wasting £832,000

The upfront price is irrelevant. What matters:

• ✅ 50% lower IT staffing requirements
• ✅ 60% fewer support tickets
• ✅ 3 years longer device life
• ✅ 3× better resale value
• ✅ Zero software licensing costs
• ✅ No catastrophic failure risk

The only reason not to switch? Inertia.

Need help calculating your specific TCO or planning deployment? Get in touch — this is exactly what we do.

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Sources & methodology

Wage data:

• UK: Indeed (£29,015), Glassdoor (£30,380), CV-Library (£29,000)
• US: Glassdoor ($68,242), Salary.com ($79,715), ZipRecruiter ($65,871)

Cost per ticket:

• MetricNet 2021 benchmark: $15.56 average
• BMC 2018 recommendation: $20
• HDI range: $6-$40

TCO data:

• Forrester TEI 2024 (Apple-commissioned)
• IBM Mac@IBM 2019-2024 data
• Jamf enterprise deployment data

Employer costs:

• UK: 15% NI on earnings >£5,000, 3% minimum pension
• US: 7.65% FICA, 0.6% FUTA, 2% SUTA average, 25% benefits