How to Choose a Software Development Company in London

To choose a software development company in London, start with what you need built and who will actually build it, and treat the postcode as the least important fact. Shortlist by supplier type first. Then test each firm on five things: proof of similar work, the people on your project, the contract, who owns the code, and what happens after launch.

This guide covers each of those, with the sources we checked and the prices we publish: scoping starts from £4,000 and a build from £15,000. We are one of the firms you might shortlist, so the last section says plainly where we fit and where we do not. We name no competitors and rank nobody.

Key takeaways

• A freelancer, a small studio, a mid-size agency, a large consultancy and an offshore team suit different jobs, so choose the type before you compare firms.
• “London-based” can mean where a company is registered, where its leaders sit or where its engineers sit. Ask which one a supplier means.
• UK government guidance says the creator of a work is its first owner unless you agree otherwise in writing, so the contract should assign the code and IP to you.
• A quote tells you little until you know what it includes. Ask what is left out, who builds it and when you pay.
• A supplier that cannot name the team, show live work or put scope and price in writing before you pay is not ready to hire.

Which type of software development company do you need?

The right type depends on the size of the job and on how much of the thinking you want a supplier to do. None of the five common types is best for everything.

Supplier	Suits	Watch for
Freelancer	A defined task, a missing skill	One person: illness, holidays, leaving
Small studio	A first product, a bespoke system	Cover for specialist skills
Mid-size agency	Larger builds, several disciplines	Who delivers after the sales team
Large consultancy	Programmes with heavy governance	More process than one system needs
Offshore team	A detailed, fixed brief	Time zones, governing law

Freelancers suit a clearly defined task. If you engage an individual through their own limited company, the off-payroll working rules, sometimes known as IR35, may apply. GOV.UK says that in most cases the client decides the worker’s employment status, but for a small client outside the public sector the worker’s intermediary decides (GOV.UK, updated 26 February 2026). That is a question for your accountant, and this is not legal advice.

If what you need is extra capacity inside your own team rather than a finished product, you are buying something different. Staff augmentation and dedicated teams exist for that, and the contract and the risk sit differently from a project build.

Studios and agencies are where most buyers of a first custom system end up. The useful difference between a small studio and a mid-size agency is who you deal with after the sales call and who writes the code. Ask for names.

Large consultancies make sense when procurement rules, governance or sheer scale dominate the decision. They can be more than a single system needs.

Offshore teams can work well for a precisely specified build. They suit loose briefs less well, because every gap in the specification costs a round trip across time zones.

What does “London-based” mean for a software company?

It can mean three different things, so ask which one a supplier means: where the company is registered and led, where the people writing the code sit, and where you can meet them. An address in London on a website proves only the first.

London does help in practical ways. You can meet in person if you want to, you share working hours, and the company is a UK entity that you can look up. It does not tell you how good the engineers are, or whether they are employees.

We are led from London and were founded in 2019. Our team is remote and global, around 28 people with leadership in London. The accurate description of us is a London-led studio with a remote team, and we do not claim that every developer sits in one office.

Ask every firm on your shortlist the same three questions:

• Who is on my project, by name?
• Where are they based, and are they employees or subcontractors?
• Who is accountable for delivery, and can I meet them?

Subcontracting is common and acceptable when it is disclosed, so ask for the answer in writing.

How do you check a portfolio and reviews?

Check three things on every portfolio piece: that it is live, that this supplier built it, and that someone will talk to you about it.

Is it live or a prototype? Open the product. Both are legitimate, but they are different deliverables, and a good supplier labels them. We do. Fix My House is an interactive prototype we delivered in weeks, so the client could validate the idea with users and investors before funding development. Simple PT is a booking-and-payments app that went live on both app stores two months from kick-off.

Who built it? Ask which of the people proposed for your project worked on it. A strong portfolio from a different team is a weak reference for yours.

Will the client talk to you? Many projects are under NDA, so anonymised case studies are normal. Ask for a reference call instead of dismissing them.

Review sites help within limits. Clutch says it verifies reviews using reviewer-provided information and online research, and that it does not provide specifics about its methods. It also says that when it cannot verify the reviewer’s identity or project details, a review can still be published, marked Not Verified (Clutch Help Center). So look for that marker. Treat verification as a check on who reviewed and which project, and read the text for the quality.

Read the three-star and four-star reviews as well as the five-star ones, and look at how the supplier handled a problem. Count matters too. We are rated 4.9 on Clutch from nine reviews, which is a small sample, so read the reviews rather than relying on the number.

Then look the company up. GOV.UK’s company information service gives free details including a company’s current and resigned officers, registered address, date of incorporation, previous names, document images and insolvency information (GOV.UK). A website that contradicts the public record deserves a question.

What does a software development company in London cost?

The scope drives the price far more than the postcode, but two numbers give you a sense of scale. For one person’s time, London contract adverts for software developers quoted a median day rate of £543 in the six months to 22 October 2026. The 10th percentile was £312 and the 90th percentile £718, from the 54 adverts that quoted a rate (ITJobsWatch).

That is a day of one developer’s time. It does not include design, testing or project management, which a studio’s price usually bundles in. As an illustration only, ten days of one developer at the median is £5,430 (10 days × £543). A quote for a whole system should sit well above that, and a quote far below the day-rate arithmetic for the same scope usually means a different scope was priced. Ask what was left out.

We publish our prices:

• Discovery & design for a bespoke system, scope and blueprint with a fixed build quote, starts from £4,000.
• A Bespoke build, design to live system, starts from £15,000.
• Ongoing maintenance and support starts from £400 a month.

Scope and price are fixed and agreed before work starts. Our software development cost guide explains what moves a quote and how to compare quotes line by line, so we will not repeat it here.

What should the software contract say?

A good contract answers five questions in plain words. What is being built? What does it cost, and when do you pay? Who owns the result? How is personal data handled? What happens if either side stops?

Term	Good sign	Warning sign
Scope and price	Written scope, fixed or capped price	An estimate with no cap
Payment	Milestones tied to delivered work	A large deposit up front
Code and IP	Written assignment on payment	Silence, or a licence back to you
Personal data	A data processing agreement	Nothing in writing
Exit	Notice period, code handover	Locked in, no handover

Price and payment

A fixed price suits a settled scope, and time and materials suits work that is still uncertain. Our cost guide compares the models. Whichever you choose, tie payments to delivered stages.

Ours work like this. Scope and price are fixed before work starts, and you pay by milestone as each stage is delivered, never a large sum up front. You can cancel within the first 21 days of a build and get your money back in full.

Who owns the code

GOV.UK says the first legal owner of copyright is the person or organisation that created the work. It adds that where the contract does not deal with copyright, a court may find an implied licence, and the commissioner may only get a limited non-exclusive licence. Copyright can also be transferred (GOV.UK). In practice, commissioning software and paying for it does not by itself make you the owner.

So look for a clause that assigns the code and IP to you on payment. Ask also for the repository to sit in an account you control, a list of the open-source licences used, and handover notes. With us, all code and IP are yours once the work is delivered and paid for. Have a solicitor read any contract of consequence, because this is not legal advice.

Personal data and security

If the supplier will handle personal data for you, the ICO says that every time a controller uses a processor there must be a written contract (ICO). Its list of required terms includes processing only on your documented instructions, security measures, controls on sub-processors, deletion or return of the data at the end, and audits (ICO). The ICO notes that this guidance is under review because of the Data (Use and Access) Act, so check the current version.

It is also fair to ask whether a supplier holds Cyber Essentials. The NCSC says a growing number of organisations require suppliers to be certified to bid for work (NCSC). Certification is one signal and not a guarantee, and you should expect a plain yes or no.

Which questions should you ask, and what are the red flags?

Ask every shortlisted firm the same questions, in writing, and compare the answers side by side. Put the red flags below next to what you get back.

Eight questions for every supplier

1. Who will work on my project, by name, and are they employees?
2. Which of your live products is closest to mine, and may I speak to that client?
3. What exactly does the quote include, and what is left out: design, testing, project management, hosting?
4. How and when do I pay, and what will I have in hand at each payment?
5. When will I first see working software?
6. Who owns the code, and where will it live from day one?
7. What happens if the plan changes halfway through?
8. What happens after launch, and what does support cost?

If the project is AI or automation work, our guide to choosing an AI automation agency adds the questions specific to that.

Red flags

• A fixed price quoted on a vague brief, with no scoping stage to firm it up.
• A large deposit before anything is delivered.
• Nobody will say who will build it.
• Portfolio pieces that cannot be opened, or prototypes presented as live products.
• Ownership “to be discussed”, or a licence back to you instead of an assignment.
• A rush to sign before the scope is written down.

Where we fit, and where we do not

We are a London-led studio with a remote, global team of around 28, founded in 2019, with more than 50 projects since then and a 4.9 rating on Clutch. Here is where that fits.

We fit when a process or product has outgrown off-the-shelf tools and you want a fixed price before you commit. That starts with Discovery & design from £4,000 and continues to a Bespoke build from £15,000 (bespoke software).

We fit when you are not yet sure what to build. A discovery sprint runs one to two weeks, starts from £4,000, and gives you a costed product plan that is yours whoever builds it.

We fit when you already have software and need an independent view of it. Technical due diligence starts from £4,000. It is a review of your own codebase and architecture only. Our guide to technical due diligence explains what it covers.

We do not fit when an off-the-shelf product already does the job. Buy it, and we will tell you so.

We do not fit when you need engineers in your office every day, because our team is remote.

We do not fit when you want the lowest day rate on a loosely defined brief. We scope first and price after.

Your next step

Write a one-page brief: the problem, who will use the system, what it must connect to, and what happens if it is not built. Send the same brief and the same eight questions to three suppliers, and compare what comes back as well as what it costs.

If you want a fixed-price answer from us, our bespoke software page sets out the two stages, and a free 20-minute consultation will tell you which one fits.