Web consultant in London — the advisor your build does not have, working independently of it

A web consultant works alongside your team rather than instead of it. The four things I get hired for, in order of frequency. (1) Architecture review — what your stack should be, what to build vs buy, where the technical debt is. (2) Agency selection — paid review of shortlist responses, RFP shape, contract red flags. (3) SEO and Core Web Vitals strategy — what is actually moving traffic, what is noise. (4) Migration planning — redirect maps, SEO continuity, vendor selection. The output is written deliverables (architecture docs, RFP feedback, prioritised roadmaps), not code commits.

A developer or agency executes — they ship the site. A consultant advises — they help you decide what to ship, who should ship it, and how to evaluate the work. The two roles are complementary; the mistake is hiring an agency to "consult" when they have a financial interest in the answer. Independent consulting separates the strategy decision from the execution contract.

Three engagement shapes. (1) Hourly senior consulting: 200-400 GBP / 300-500 USD per hour. Typical use: ad-hoc advisory, RFP review, second opinion on a quote. (2) Fixed-scope advisory project: 5,000-25,000 GBP for a 4-8 week engagement (architecture audit, migration plan, agency selection support). (3) Retainer: 3,000-10,000 GBP per month for ongoing advisory across multiple projects. Anyone billing below 150 GBP per hour for senior web consulting is either junior-passing-as-senior or has a hidden incentive (sales-of-service, affiliate, agency referral).

Hire a consultant first when (a) the project is over 50,000 GBP and you have not run a build of that scale before, (b) you have three quotes that vary by 3-10× and cannot tell which is right, (c) you are about to commit to a stack choice (headless, CMS, hosting) that locks you in for 3-5 years, or (d) a previous agency engagement went badly and you do not want to repeat the mistake. Go direct to an agency when the project is small, the stack is obvious, and you trust the agency from past work.

I co-founded Seahawk Media. That is an obvious conflict of interest, and I disclose it on every engagement before the first paid hour. The way I handle it: for agency selection work, I shortlist 3-7 agencies based on fit and explicitly include 2-3 competitors of Seahawk in any short list. You see all responses, including any I asked Seahawk to submit. If Seahawk is not the right answer for your project, I will tell you. The work is the consulting fee — Seahawk winning the build is upside, not the goal.

Depends on the scope. Architecture review: a written technical document covering current state, recommended stack, build-vs-buy decisions, prioritised roadmap. Agency selection: a comparison matrix of responses against your scoring criteria, plus a written recommendation. Migration planning: a redirect-map preview, SEO continuity plan, vendor-evaluation criteria. Retainer: monthly written check-ins on whatever is open, plus standing async availability. All written, all yours to keep regardless of where the build lands.

Ad-hoc hourly: a single 60-90 minute call plus written follow-up. Architecture audit: 2-4 weeks, 6-12 hours of focused work plus interviews with your team. Agency selection support: 4-6 weeks running alongside your RFP timeline. Migration planning: 3-5 weeks before the build kicks off. Retainer engagements run 3-12 months — set a 3-month minimum so the advice has time to land.

Both. I am based in London. Discovery sessions and stakeholder workshops in person where it helps; weekly check-ins async on Slack or Loom. Outside London — calls on UK or US-east-coast hours, with travel for high-stakes onsite work when the engagement justifies it. Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland clients are covered on staggered hours — UK morning lines up with AU and NZ evening, which usually works for 30-60 minute strategy calls. Rest of the world async.

Yes — Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland are the three APAC bases where this kind of senior web consulting is in demand and where the time-zone overlap works (UK morning, AU and NZ evening). A London-based independent consultant has an arbitrage angle in the AU and NZ markets where local senior rates have run high since 2024. Engagement shapes are the same as UK clients; pricing is in GBP with AUD or NZD conversion noted on the SOW.

Overlap, not synonym. SEO consulting focuses narrowly on organic search — technical SEO, content strategy, schema, link profile, Core Web Vitals. Web consulting is broader — stack choice, agency selection, build vs buy, architecture, performance, plus SEO where it intersects. Most web consulting engagements include an SEO conversation; most SEO consulting engagements do not include a stack conversation. If the project is "should we replatform from WordPress to Webflow", that is web consulting. If it is "why is our ranking dropping", that is SEO consulting.

I do both, but I separate them on paper. Strategy: independent advisory under my own consulting LLC. Execution: through Seahawk Media as a delivery agency. Clients can hire either or both — and a portion of clients explicitly hire me for advisory while engaging a different agency for execution. The two are deliberately on different invoices to keep the conflict surfaced rather than hidden.