Hi Richard,
VPS Hosting are indeed a good option if a
dedicated server is out of reach as yet. You get root access along with it. Morever, we completely manage it & also monitor it for you. So those head-aches do not come in at all. Depending on what kind of
VPS Hosting you want, you would get the control panels for it.
You might want to check out
http://www.eukhost.com/<a href="http...</a>_linux.php (for linux) &
http://www.eukhost.com/windows-<a hr...a>-hosting.php (for windows). Do let us know if there is something more which you would like to know.