UK software consultancy
Software that fits the business you actually run.
We design, build and run bespoke systems, integrations and automation for established UK businesses. When the connection you need doesn’t exist off the shelf, we build it.
£100M platform — Technical leadership on a greenfield commerce system at The Hut Group, from first commit to live operation.
25 years — From repairing machines on a shop counter to distributed, fault-tolerant systems handling serious volume.
PCI-DSS regulated — Insurance software built to compliance, including a system penetration tested annually for four years.
What we do
Five disciplines, one engineering team.
Most engagements use more than one. The problem rarely respects the boundaries between them.
Engineering
Bespoke software
Systems built for how your business actually works, not how a vendor assumed it would.
Read moreApplied AI
AI & automation
Automating the repetitive work — including the conversations — with something that measurably holds up.
Read moreInteroperability
Systems integration
Connecting the systems you already pay for — including the ones with no integration to buy.
Read morePlatform
Cloud & infrastructure
Infrastructure that is understood, documented and owned — by you, not by a supplier.
Read moreProduct
Web applications
Customer portals, internal tools and the interfaces your business runs through every day.
Read moreNot sure which of these you need? That’s a normal place to start — describing the problem is enough.
Talk it throughWhy IR4
We build the part everyone else says is impossible.
When the integration doesn't exist, we write it
Most suppliers assemble off-the-shelf connectors and stop where the catalogue ends. That boundary is usually exactly where your competitive advantage sits. We carry on past it.
We run our own infrastructure
IR4 operates its own Kubernetes cluster, CI/CD and databases in production. We are not reselling someone else's platform with a margin — we run the same discipline we'd ask of you.
Engineering built at scale, applied at your size
Our background is high-availability, fault-tolerant systems handling serious volume and serious money. That rigour does not stop being useful when the system is smaller.
We will tell you not to build it
If an off-the-shelf product would do the job, that is what we will say — including when it costs us the work. A supplier who has never talked you out of anything is not advising you.
The obvious question
“What happens if you disappear?”
It is the right question to ask a small supplier, and most dodge it. We are deliberately small — that is what lets the person who scopes your work also build it — so the answer has to be structural rather than reassuring noises.
Everything below is a design decision rather than a reassuring noise, and all of it is written into our engagement terms. If we disappeared tomorrow, another engineer could take your system on, change it and keep it running — and that is a licence you hold, not goodwill you are relying on.
Your licence does not expire
Everything we deliver comes with a perpetual licence to use it, change it and have somebody else maintain it — including a supplier who isn't us, and including long after you have stopped paying us anything. Leaving does not take your tools away.
Your data is yours, and it leaves with you
Your data, content, branding and configuration are yours throughout. Ask at any point, or stop the monthly service, and we export the lot in a format you can actually use.
The infrastructure is written down, not remembered
Servers and services are defined as code and held with the source rather than in someone's head, and the architecture notes and runbooks are handed over as part of the work — so picking it up does not mean starting from an empty room.
Nothing is retired out from under you
If we ever needed to stop running a service, that is ninety days' written notice, kept working properly until the last day, with your data exported. What happens next is not left to goodwill.
What it costs
A fixed price, agreed before anything starts.
We can’t quote a build we haven’t seen, and anyone who does is guessing. What we can tell you is exactly how the money works, which is usually the thing you actually want to know.
Terms §1.1
One page, one price
Every piece of work is described on a single page before it starts: what will be built, what “working” means, and the price. You approve it by replying to an email. There is no hourly meter and no open-ended project.
Terms §2.1, §2.5
You pay when it works
The price is invoiced once the deliverable does what the page said it would — not up front, and not against milestones that mean nothing to you. If it is finished and waiting on you, we say so in writing and can invoice thirty days later. Payable within seven days, plus VAT.
Terms §3.1, §2.2
The monthly keeps it running
Where there is something to host and look after, a monthly charge covers running it, monitoring it, fixing anything that breaks, and small tweaks. Cancel whenever you like — it stops at the end of the month you have paid for. No exit fee, no notice period.
Terms §1.3, §3.2
New ideas get a price first
Small changes are included. A genuinely new capability is a new piece of work, which means another one-page description and another price before anything is built. Nothing arrives as a surprise invoice.
Some pieces of work are a day. Some are months. Both start the same way, and neither needs you to have a budget worked out first. Our engagement terms are published in full, so you can read what you would be agreeing to before you ring.
AvailabilityWe usually start new work within two to three weeks of agreeing scope.
Selected work
Onramp
A conversational AI that answers enquiries, qualifies them and books work for service businesses — over WhatsApp, where their customers already are. Designed, built and operated by IR4 on our own infrastructure.
It is a complete product rather than a proof of concept: live on a real number, handling real traffic, with the monitoring, failure handling and cost control that implies. Because we own it, we can show you the inside of it — architecture, decisions and the mistakes — in as much detail as you want.
How it was builtTell us what isn’t working.
You don’t need a specification or a budget to start a conversation. A clear description of the problem is enough for us to tell you whether we can help — and we will say if we can’t.
Start a conversation