Services

Four ways to engage

From a quick diagnostic to a full transformation sprint to ongoing fractional CTO work. Pick the depth that fits.

Entry point

Technical Due Diligence

£5,000–12,000fixed fee
5–10 days · Fixed scope
See details
Core offering

Fractional CTO

£8,000–15,000per month
3–12 months · ~2 days/week
See details
High impact

AI Transformation Sprint

£25,000–45,000fixed fee
6–8 weeks · Defined deliverables
See details
By referral

Board Advisory

£3,500–6,000per month
Rolling monthly · Light touch
See details

Most technology advisors give you strategy. What you actually need is someone who has been in the founder seat, built the team, made the architecture calls under pressure, and shipped AI that works in production. More about my background.

That's a different service. Here's how it's structured.

Entry point

Technical Due Diligence

£5,000–12,000fixed fee5–10 days · Fixed scope

Your first step. A deep, independent review of your technology situation, delivered as an investor-ready assessment you can use for board meetings, fundraise preparation, or internal alignment.

What's included

  • Stack and architecture review. Is your current architecture fit for purpose? What are the scaling risks? Where are the decision points coming up?
  • AI approach assessment. Are you building with the right AI stack for your use case? Where are the gaps between what you're building and what's production-ready?
  • Team and process diagnostic. Is the engineering team structured correctly for this stage? Where are the capability gaps?
  • Risk identification. Technical debt, vendor lock-in risks, security considerations, and EU AI Act compliance posture
  • Investor-ready summary document. Clear, honest, jargon-free. The kind of document that gives investors confidence

For investors and operating partners

If you're a PE firm, VC, or operating partner evaluating AI readiness across a portfolio company, this is the same engagement, tuned for your lens. You'll get: portfolio company AI maturity assessment, technical debt quantification, transformation potential evaluation, and a clear-eyed view of what's real versus what's demo.

Who it's for

  • Founders who have just closed a round and want to validate technical direction before scaling
  • Founders preparing for a Series A or Series B who need to answer hard technology questions
  • PE firms and operating partners evaluating AI readiness of portfolio companies
  • Boards or investors who want an independent technical assessment

What you'll have at the end

A board-ready document that answers every investor question about your technology, and a clear view of what to prioritise next. No ambiguity, no filler.

Why it works

Most engagements start here. A Technical Due Diligence gives you a clear picture of where you are, what to prioritise, and whether a deeper engagement makes sense. There's no better way to de-risk the next 12 months of engineering investment.

"The entry point is deliberately low-commitment. One of us should know whether this is a fit before we go further."

Get in touch about Technical Due Diligence →

Core offering

Fractional CTO

£8,000–15,000per month3–12 months · ~2 days/week

This is the core offering. CTO-level capability without the full-time cost, equity, or six-month hiring process.

The range exists because scope varies: a 5-person team building a first AI product needs different support than a 50-person organisation deploying AI across operations. The right number is agreed upfront, with scope defined clearly.

Currently: accepting one new client alongside existing commitments. Second slot opens Q3 2026.

What this looks like week-to-week

  • Architecture decisions. The calls your engineers escalate because they need a senior voice. You get a clear recommendation, not a committee process.
  • AI roadmap. What to build, in what order, with what approach. Built around your business model and runway, not the latest benchmark.
  • Hiring and team. Job specs, interview process, offer framing, team structure decisions. The engineering hiring mistakes at this stage are expensive.
  • Investor and board readiness. I attend board calls, investor updates, and due diligence sessions as your technical leadership voice. Your investors get a credible CTO presence without you hiring one.
  • Vendor selection. Cloud, tooling, AI infrastructure. Honest evaluation, no vendor relationships to protect.
  • Team mentoring. Your senior engineers get access to someone who can push their thinking and accelerate their development.

Who it's for

  • Post-Seed or Series A founders with 3–30 engineers and no technical co-founder
  • Founders whose technical co-founder has left or is stretched
  • Growth-stage companies (50–500 employees) building AI into their operations for the first time
  • PE-backed businesses that need senior technical leadership during transformation

What you'll have at 90 days

Your first AI system in production with measured KPIs, an architecture that scales, a team that knows where it's going, and investor updates that land. Not a strategy document. A working system. See what this looks like: 67% autonomous case resolution at an insurance brokerage and £20M+ in savings identified at NHS Wales.

The commitment model

A minimum 3-month engagement ensures there's enough time to understand the business and deliver meaningful direction, not just observations. After the initial term, engagements run on a rolling monthly basis.

Maximum 2 concurrent clients at this tier. This is not a scalable model by design.

Get in touch about a Fractional CTO engagement →

High impact

AI Transformation Sprint

£25,000–45,000fixed fee6–8 weeks · Defined deliverables

A bounded engagement for organisations that have invested in AI but haven't seen the return. In 6–8 weeks, we go from "we have some pilots" to "we have a production system with governance and a plan."

What's included

  • Shadow AI audit. Map every AI tool in use across the organisation, approved or not. You'll know what your employees are actually doing with AI, and where the risks sit.
  • Process diagnostic. Identify the highest-ROI processes for AI deployment using a decision delegation architecture. Not every process should be automated. We find the ones that should.
  • Data readiness assessment. Is your data infrastructure ready for production AI? Where are the gaps? What needs to happen first?
  • First production deployment. One AI system, fully deployed, with governance, monitoring, and measured KPIs. Not a demo. A system your business runs on.
  • Governance framework. EU AI Act compliance posture, data handling protocols, human oversight structure. The framework that turns shadow AI from a risk into a managed capability.
  • 90-day action plan. What to build next, in what order, with what resources. Prioritised by P&L impact, not technical novelty.

Who it's for

  • Mid-market companies (50–500 employees) stuck in pilot purgatory
  • PE portfolio companies where the operating thesis includes AI transformation
  • Organisations with 3+ AI pilots that haven't reached production
  • Leaders who have been burned by consulting engagements that delivered decks, not systems

Kill criteria

If a system can't scale or can't deliver measurable ROI, we kill it early. The goal is production AI that moves numbers, not sunk-cost persistence on a failing pilot.

Fee structure

The Sprint's fixed scope and defined KPIs make it well suited to results-based arrangements. If we can agree the metrics upfront, part of the fee can be tied to outcomes delivered.

What you'll have at the end

One production AI system delivering measured results. A governance framework that satisfies your board and your regulators. And a prioritised plan for the next 90 days, so you know exactly what to do after the sprint ends. Read more about why most AI transformations fail and how I approach production deployment.

Get in touch about the AI Transformation Sprint →

By referral

Investor / Board Advisory

£3,500–6,000per monthRolling monthly · Light touch

A lighter-touch engagement for founders and boards who have an engineering team and technical direction, but need a senior external voice for credibility at board level, or a trusted advisor for the big technology decisions.

What's included

  • Quarterly technology strategy review (half-day session)
  • Investor call preparation: framing technical progress in commercial language
  • Technical risk assessment for board packs
  • On-call availability for urgent decisions (1–2 hours/month)
  • Ad hoc review of major technology decisions: architecture changes, AI stack, major vendor contracts

Who it's for

  • Founders who have a CTO or senior engineer but want an independent external perspective
  • Boards that want a credible technical voice on quarterly calls
  • Founders at a later stage (Series B+) who need a strategic sounding board, not hands-on direction
  • PE operating partners who want ongoing technical oversight of portfolio companies

What you'll have

Confidence at the board table, with a credible technical voice and quarterly progress backed by metrics, not slides.

Application process

This tier is by referral or application. If you found your way here through a recommendation, reach out directly. If you're applying cold, include a brief note on your company, stage, and what you're looking for.

Get in touch about Board Advisory →

Common questions about fractional CTO engagements

What does a fractional CTO actually do?
A fractional CTO is a senior technology leader, typically with multiple CTO tenures, who works with you part-time on a defined scope. The remit covers architecture decisions, AI roadmap, engineering hiring, vendor selection, investor and board readiness, and senior team mentoring. The work is strategic and decisional rather than hands-on-keyboard. The point is to have CTO-calibre judgement in the room when the calls that matter get made, without the cost or hiring risk of a full-time hire.
How much does a fractional CTO cost in the UK?
A typical UK fractional CTO engagement runs £8,000–15,000 per month for roughly two days a week, with a minimum commitment of three months. The range depends on scope: a 5-person team building its first AI product needs different support than a 50-person organisation deploying AI across operations. Outside the UK, day rates vary, but the structure is broadly similar. Anyone quoting materially below this band is either inexperienced for the role or planning to be present in name only.
When does a business need a fractional CTO?
Three signals: you have engineers but no senior technical leader, you are about to make architectural or vendor decisions that will be expensive to reverse, or you have an investor or board interaction coming up where technical credibility matters and there is no one in your org to provide it. Post-Seed and Series A founders without a technical co-founder are a common fit. So are mid-market and PE-backed companies entering serious AI deployment for the first time.
What is the difference between a fractional CTO and an interim CTO?
A fractional CTO works two days a week alongside other commitments, over a multi-month engagement, on strategic and decisional work. An interim CTO is essentially a full-time CTO on a fixed-term contract, usually filling a gap after an unexpected departure or carrying the role through a specific phase like a fundraise or an exit. Fractional is the right call when you need senior judgement on tap. Interim is the right call when you need someone running the engineering function day-to-day.
How is a fractional CTO different from an AI consultant?
An AI consultant typically delivers a strategy deck, a roadmap, or a specific technical workstream, then leaves. A fractional CTO carries the technology function over time: setting direction, making decisions under pressure, working with the team week to week, and being accountable for the outcomes. Consulting outputs are documents. Fractional CTO outputs are systems in production and teams that improve.
Do fractional CTO engagements really deliver, or is this glorified advisory?
The work has to deliver systems and decisions, not opinions. Production AI shipped, engineering hires made, architecture changed, vendor contracts negotiated, investor questions answered. If the engagement is not producing decisions and shipping outcomes within the first 60 days, it is the wrong fit and should be cut early.

Common questions about working together

Can I start with Due Diligence and move to Fractional CTO?
Yes, and it's the most common path. Due Diligence gives us both a clear picture of what's needed, which makes scoping a Fractional CTO engagement much more accurate.
What about the AI Transformation Sprint?
The Sprint is designed as a standalone engagement, but it can lead into a Fractional CTO or Board Advisory arrangement if there's a fit. Many organisations discover they need ongoing technical leadership once they've seen what production AI actually looks like.
What's the realistic timeframe to get started?
For Due Diligence: I can usually start within 2 weeks of an agreement. For Fractional CTO: subject to current capacity, so apply and we'll discuss timing. For the Transformation Sprint: typically 2–3 weeks lead time.
Can you work with my existing technical team rather than around them?
That's the goal. A Fractional CTO adds a layer above the team, not beside them. Your senior engineers get better, not sidelined.
Do you take equity?
No. Fees only. That keeps incentives clean and the relationship straightforward.
What if I'm not in the UK?
Most engagement is remote. Time zones within Europe work well. North America is possible for the right client, with some schedule adjustment.
Are outcome-based fee structures available?
For the right engagement, yes. If we can define clear, measurable KPIs upfront, I'm open to structuring part of the fee around results delivered. The AI Transformation Sprint is particularly suited to this: fixed scope, defined deliverables, measurable KPIs from day one. For longer engagements, we can build outcome-based components into the fee structure once the metrics are established. That alignment of incentives tends to produce better outcomes for everyone.
Get in touch

Ready to make AI actually work?

Tell me what you're working on. I'll respond personally. If there's a fit, we'll take it from there.

Start a conversation See the engagements first Free AI readiness assessment
Accepting one new client · second slot opens Q3 2026