Mundane tasks such as resetting passwords and email management are putting increasing stress on skilled IT department staff, according to new research.

Desktop-on-demand firm Nasstar said that support staff are spending too much time on the IT equivalent of "vacuuming and washing the dishes".

One respondent said that his company's IT support staff spend as much as 70 per cent of their time "just keeping the lights on" rather than performing more useful tasks.

The top bugbears were password resets, email management, end-users in general, broken printers, remote working support and applying patches.

"It seems incredible that talented IT resource is still being spent on basic maintenance tasks," said Charles Black, chief executive at Nasstar.

"I don't suppose for one minute that the CEO of these companies runs around with a vacuum cleaner, ot the CFO collects dirty plates and mugs from people's desks at the end of the day.

"So why are well-paid and well-skilled IT professionals still losing sleep over patching and upgrades which should be pushed out centrally?"

Black suggested that companies need to look at more automated systems or outsource to a hosted service in order to help IT professionals focus on innovation and delivering better value to the business.