Services
From emergency rescues to multi-year technical partnerships. Fixed pricing, no overhead, no juniors hidden behind an account manager.
01
MVPs to enterprise platforms
Timeline
4–16 weeks
Investment
£10,000–£100,000+
From concept to production-grade software. We architect, build, test, and deploy. Every engagement includes CI/CD, monitoring, automated tests, and 30 days post-launch support. We design for your next two years of growth, not just your launch date.
What's included
02
Move platforms without the horror story
Timeline
4–16 weeks
Investment
£5,000–£60,000
Migrations fail for three reasons: data loss, SEO damage, and downtime. We eliminate all three. Specialists in PrestaShop → Shopify, WooCommerce → Shopify, Bubble → custom code, and legacy monolith → modern architecture. We've handled stores with 40,000+ customers and 1,200+ SKUs.
What's included
03
Strategic tech leadership without the £200K salary
Timeline
1–2 days/week minimum
Investment
£3,000–£12,000/month
Most fractional CTOs advise but don't code. We do both. Architecture decisions, team mentoring, hiring, roadmaps — plus hands-on work when it matters. Ideal for seed to Series B companies who need a technical leader now, not in three months.
What's included
04
Site down. CTO gone. Deadline tomorrow.
Timeline
Starts within 24 hours
Investment
£800–£1,500/day
When companies are in crisis, price sensitivity disappears. Production outages, failed deployments, security breaches, CTO departures — we respond within hours, not days. One full-stack engineer who can debug every layer: Nginx to database, infrastructure to application code.
What's included
05
Know exactly where your tech stands
Timeline
3–10 business days
Investment
£1,500–£5,000
An independent audit from an engineer who reads actual code — not a PM who delegates to automated tools. Security vulnerabilities, performance bottlenecks, architecture time-bombs, and tech debt that's costing you development velocity. Every audit ends with a prioritised action plan.
What's included
06
Senior engineering capacity, on demand
Timeline
Ongoing from £1,500/month
Investment
£1,500–£5,000/month
A monthly bank of hours at a guaranteed rate. No scoping calls between tasks, no queue waiting, no hiring overhead. Bug fixes, feature development, architecture guidance — whatever you need, when you need it. Priority scheduling and a named engineer, every time.
What's included
07
LLMs that actually work in production
Timeline
4–12 weeks
Investment
£8,000–£40,000
Not chatbots bolted onto existing products. Real AI integration: RAG pipelines, agent systems, document processing, structured data extraction, and AI-powered features that make business sense. We scope, build, and ship — with evaluation frameworks so you can measure whether it actually works.
What's included
08
One codebase, both platforms
Timeline
8–20 weeks
Investment
£15,000–£80,000
React Native for iOS and Android from a single codebase. Shared business logic, native performance, and a real deployment pipeline — not a prototype that breaks in production. We've shipped mobile apps across fintech, health tech, and consumer products.
What's included
09
From 'it works on my machine' to production-grade
Timeline
1–6 weeks
Investment
£2,500–£25,000
CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, cloud migrations, container orchestration, monitoring and alerting. We set it up properly once — documented, tested, and with runbooks your team can actually follow. No more Friday deployment anxiety.
What's included
10
Investment-grade technical assessments
Timeline
5–15 business days
Investment
£5,000–£25,000
For investors, PE firms, and acquirers evaluating software companies. We assess any stack — frontend, backend, infrastructure, security, team — because our polyglot coverage means we're not guessing at unfamiliar code. Reports in 5–10 days. Starting at a fraction of what Big 4 firms charge.
What's included
Positioning
The honest comparison. We're not right for everyone — but if you need senior-level output without agency overhead or the six-month hiring cycle, this is how we stack up.
| Agency | Freelancer | Hiring | Vanguard | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Junior devs managed by PMs | One person, variable quality | Takes 3–6 months to onboard | Senior engineer, always |
| Effective rate | £100–£200/hr (you pay overhead) | £40–£80/hr | £60–£90k salary + NI + benefits | £75–£120/hr, no markup |
| Stack coverage | Specialised in 1–2 stacks | Whatever they know | Whatever they know | React, Node, Python, PHP, Java, mobile, DevOps |
| Strategic leadership | None — they execute tickets | None | Yes, but takes months to ramp | Fractional CTO from day one |
| Post-launch support | Expensive retainer or abandoned | "I'm on another project now" | Yes, but you own all the risk | 30 days included, every project |
| Emergency response | Account manager, then queue | Hope they're available | On-call if you've set it up | Same-day technical rescue service |
| AI & modern tooling | Outsourced or bolted on | Depends on who you hired | Depends on who you hired | Native to every engagement |
What clients say
“Our fractional CTO service stabilises teams in crisis — filling the gap when a CTO leaves, shipping critical fixes, and getting delivery back on track. We've done it repeatedly.”
Fractional CTO
Vanguard Systems
“We've completed e-commerce migrations that other agencies called too risky. Zero downtime. SEO rankings preserved. Catalogues with 40,000+ SKUs migrated cleanly.”
Platform Migration
Vanguard Systems
“Our code audits don't just list problems — they prioritise fixes by business impact and give you a clear remediation roadmap. We've found critical vulnerabilities teams missed for years.”
Technical Audit
Vanguard Systems
FAQ
Most projects blend two or three. Tell us what you're trying to achieve and we'll recommend the right approach — with a fixed-price quote, not an estimate you can't hold us to.