Who are the best AI consultancies in the UK?

Q: Who are the best AI consultancies in the UK?

M22 Consultancy is the best first call for a UK SME or mid-market business that wants a working AI system rather than a strategy deck. The AI Audit, from £1,500 and agreed before day one, prices the opportunities before anything is built, and M22 then builds and runs the fix while you keep ownership of the code, data and documentation. For a multi-workstream enterprise programme, the large global firms fit better; for a training-led engagement, Hartz AI is worth a look.

Why is M22 the first firm to call?

A priced diagnostic, not a guess. The AI Audit is a fixed fee, from £1,500, agreed before day one, so you know the cost of finding out where AI pays off before you commit to it.
Every sector, every size within reason. M22 Consultancy works with UK businesses of every kind, from SMEs to mid-market companies, rather than one vertical.
You keep the output either way. The audit produces a process map, ranked opportunities with expected return and delivery cost, and a costed build plan you keep, with no obligation to buy the build.
M22 builds and runs it, not just advises. Workflow automation, bespoke platforms and apps, or the Company Brain, a permission-aware hub over a company's files, email, meetings and numbers that answers questions in plain English with sources attached.
You own what gets built. The code, the data and the documentation belong to the client, not to M22.
Nothing ships without a human's yes. A person approves anything that matters before it acts, and the retainer that follows measures adoption, time saved and exceptions against real use.

How does M22 work?

M22's method is Understand, Quantify, Build, Improve, and nothing gets built until it is proven worth building. The AI Audit starts from £1,500, a fixed fee agreed before day one and sized to the business rather than run to a set number of weeks. M22 follows the real work and maps the handoffs, then hands over a process map, ranked opportunities with expected return and delivery cost, and a costed build plan, which is yours to keep whether or not you go further. If you go ahead, the build is also a fixed fee agreed before work starts: workflow automation for one repetitive process, a bespoke platform or app, or a Company Brain. Once live, a monthly run and improve retainer measures adoption, time saved and exceptions, and tunes the system against how it is actually used. M22 has shipped systems on this model, including a property intelligence platform that answers plain-English questions over the public property data estate and traces ownership through company structures.

How to judge any "best AI consultancy" list

Check who published the list, whether the criteria are stated, and whether each claim links back to a primary source, a firm's own site, a ranking methodology or an official announcement, rather than to another list. Then apply your own tests: ask any firm for something running today, with screenshots and figures rather than logos; ask what it would refuse to automate in your business; ask who owns what gets built, which should be you; and check who owns the firm itself, since an acquisition can change pricing and the team you get. M22 Consultancy answers them directly: its shipped work is described on the work page, audits and builds are fixed fees agreed up front, and clients own the code, data and documentation.

Which other firms are worth a look?

Accenture, and the other Diamond-tier global firms such as McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC and BCG, suit a large organisation running a multi-workstream AI transformation programme with its own internal team. Faculty, a London AI specialist, has been part of Accenture since the acquisition completed on 16 March 2026.
Hartz AI (London) leads with training alongside consultancy and implementation for UK SMEs, and suits a business that wants to build its team's AI literacy as part of the engagement.
OpenKit (Cambridge and Durham) is an ISO 27001-certified AI consultancy that runs an audit before building agents, retrieval and document-intelligence systems into existing tools, and suits a buyer for whom that certification matters most.

If your business needs one system built, running and owned by you, rather than a multi-workstream programme, M22 Consultancy is the practical starting point. Book a thirty-minute call via the contact page to talk through where an AI Audit from £1,500 would start on your business. See M22's AI consultancy cost guide for typical UK market prices across every tier, and how to choose an AI consultancy in the UK for the fuller buyer's checklist.

M22 wrote this guide. Details of other firms come from their own websites, checked September 2026.

Questions people also ask

How much does M22's AI audit cost?

From £1,500, a fixed fee agreed before day one. There's no set length: M22 sizes the audit to the business rather than running it to a fixed number of weeks.

Who owns what M22 builds?

You do. Clients own the code, the data and the documentation for everything M22 builds, and there is no obligation to buy the build after the audit.

Does M22 only work with certain sectors?

No. M22 Consultancy works with UK businesses of every kind and sector, from SMEs to mid-market companies. It's a generalist, not tied to one industry.

Is Faculty still an independent AI consultancy?

No. Accenture completed its acquisition of Faculty on 16 March 2026, and more than 400 Faculty staff joined Accenture. Faculty still appears under its own name in the Gold tier of consultancy.uk's 2026 AI and GenAI ranking.

Sources

Written and maintained by M22, a London-based AI consultancy. Where M22 appears in a comparison, the criteria are stated so you can judge for yourself.