How much does an AI consultancy cost in the UK?

AI consultancy pricing in the UK is opaque because most engagements are scoped individually. But the shapes are consistent, and knowing them puts you in a stronger buying position.

The four pricing shapes

Day rates. Freelance AI engineers and small consultancies run roughly £500–£1,200 a day; big-name firms charge multiples of that. Day rates suit exploratory work but give you no certainty about what you'll end up with.

Fixed-fee diagnostics. An audit of where automation pays in your business typically lands between £3,000 and £15,000 depending on the size of the operation. The deliverable matters more than the number: you should leave with a priced, ranked plan you own, whoever builds it.

Fixed-fee builds. A focused workflow automation might be £5,000–£25,000. Bespoke platforms — the software a business runs around — range from £25,000 to well into six figures. The honest variable is integration: connecting cleanly to your existing tools is often more work than the AI itself.

Retainers. Running, monitoring and improving live automation is usually a monthly retainer, commonly £1,000–£5,000 depending on how much is running. Automation without monitoring degrades quietly; budget for this from the start.

The only question that matters

A £20,000 build that removes £8,000 a month of manual work is cheap. A £5,000 build that saves an hour a week is expensive. Price means nothing without the return next to it — which is why the first thing to buy is the analysis, not the build. Any consultancy worth hiring will show you the ROI maths and let you check it.

Red flags in pricing conversations

• A price before they've seen your operation. Real scoping requires looking.
• No mention of who owns the system. You should own what you pay for.
• "Pilot" pricing with no path to production. Pilots that never ship are the industry's quiet scandal.
• Vague deliverables. "AI strategy" is not a deliverable. A costed build plan is.

For what should be inside a good diagnostic, see how to run an AI audit on your own business — it's the same framework we sell, and you can run a version of it yourself.

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