IT help without the retainer.

Nobody rings an IT consultant because they fancy a chat. There is almost always a specific trigger, and after a few years the list is fairly short.

• 01Something keeps breaking. The same fault every few weeks, patched over each time by whoever was free. Usually there is one root cause underneath four symptoms, and nobody has had the time to go and find it.
• 02A questionnaire landed. A client, an insurer or a tender has sent a security questionnaire and half the questions are unanswerable. I will tell you which answers are genuinely fine as they are, and which ones represent a real gap worth closing.
• 03Something happened. A mailbox compromise, an invoice fraud attempt, a laptop gone. First the immediate containment, then working out how they got in, then closing it properly rather than just changing one password.
• 04Getting away from a provider. The contract is up, or the service has slid. Getting your domain, tenant and admin credentials released cleanly is a specific skill and it goes better when someone has done it before.
• 05Growing past the point where it works. What ten people can run on goodwill and shared logins does not survive twenty-five. There is a size where you have to introduce proper accounts, device management and a joiners-and-leavers process, and it is earlier than most people expect.
• 06Wanting a second opinion. Somebody has quoted for something and you cannot tell whether it is sensible or expensive. I will read the quote and tell you plainly, and I have no reason to talk you into anything.

The reason a one-person consultancy works for a small business is that there is no ticket queue between you and the person who knows your setup. There is no first-line reading a script, no account manager relaying your problem to an engineer, and no explaining your environment from scratch every time.

The honest trade-off: I am one person. I am not a 24/7 service desk, and if you need someone contracted to answer at three in the morning, you need a bigger firm and I will tell you that rather than pretend otherwise.

• —You deal with the same person who built it — every call, every time.
• —Work is quoted and scoped in writing before it starts. No open-ended hourly drift.
• —Everything I set up gets documented and handed to you, so you are never held hostage by it.
• —No lock-in. Nothing is registered in my name, and you can stop whenever you like.
• —I will tell you when a job is too big for me, or when you do not need it doing at all.

Do you do monthly support contracts?

Not as a default. Most small businesses I work with are better off paying for work when there is work, rather than a monthly fee for a quiet month. If you genuinely want a predictable arrangement we can talk about it, but I would rather you did not pay for something you are not using.

We already have an IT company. Can you still help?

Yes, and it happens regularly. Sometimes it is a specific project theirs does not cover, sometimes it is a second opinion on a proposal. I will work alongside an existing provider and I will not spend the engagement briefing against them.

How quickly can you get to us?

For remote work, usually the same day — and remote covers the large majority of it. For on-site across the North West, generally within a day or two depending on where you are and what else is running. If it is a live incident, say so and it goes to the front of the queue.

Do you cover our area?

Remotely, anywhere in the UK. On site, the North West — Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, the Wirral, Chorley and Preston are all comfortably reachable. If you are just outside that, ask; it is usually still fine.

What if it turns out to be a five-minute fix?

Then I fix it and you hear nothing about money. That happens often enough that it is worth saying up front. The free look at the problem is genuinely free, and there is no version of this where a look turns into an invoice you did not agree to.