How we work
One contract. Senior people. Capacity that follows the work. This page explains how an engagement runs, how it is priced, and how the arithmetic compares with hiring.
The model
You contract with Codefield, not with an individual. That single fact removes most of what makes senior engineering hard to obtain: recruiting, employing, onboarding for months, and managing exits when the need changes.
What you get instead is capacity. Architects and engineers who join your team in the mode that fits the work, with a practice behind them for reviews, second opinions and specialist input. When the project grows, the team grows. When it ends, the engagement ends, with the code and documentation in your accounts.
Seven ways to engage us
Every one of them starts with the free 30-minute call and ends with a documented hand-over. The difference is the shape in between.
Structured working sessions to define scope, architecture and risks before money is committed.
Days
Enterprise and solution architecture, stack selection, standards and the first working skeleton of a new platform.
Weeks
Senior technical leadership for companies that need direction without a full-time executive.
Ongoing, part-time
Hands-on architects and developers who join your team and ship.
Months, scaled to the project
We lead delivery: planning, team, quality, stakeholders.
Project duration
Derailed projects put back on track; ownership transitions handled without losing knowledge.
As needed
Independent technical opinion on decisions that are expensive to get wrong.
Hours to days
How it works
You tell us where the complexity is. We tell you honestly whether and how we can help. No pitch, no obligation.
The call is with a founding engineer, not a salesperson. We ask about the system, the team, the deadline and what is at stake, and we say plainly when we are not the right people.
Scope, the people involved, the rate and the expected duration — in writing, in plain language, usually within a few days.
One page per person, in plain language: the mode, the hours a month, the hourly rate, whether the SLA applies, expected duration and notice.
Our engineers join your team, in your tools and repositories, in your working hours.
Your engineers are in your repositories, your tools and your rituals in the first week. We ask for the accesses and the people we need, then we get to work.
Scale up, scale down, pause or stop with short notice. When development ends, the code and documentation are yours. Keep us for support or don't — your choice.
Hours, mode or people change with a two-line amendment. Pause or stop with the notice in the SOW. A written hand-over is part of the work, not an extra.
How we charge
An hourly rate per person, set by seniority and role and by engagement mode. Invoiced at month end against a timesheet you can see at any time. The smallest engagement is four hours a month; Part-time reserves a monthly minimum of hours, billed whether used or not.
A block of hours a month, delivered around the engineer's own capacity. The block is billed each month whether used or not. Ideal for well-defined work, async collaboration and continuity or support.
A minimum number of hours a month reserved for you and billed whether used or not, with agreed overlap windows so the engineer can attend your stand-ups, reviews and planning.
A dedicated engineer, fully aligned with your team's working day and time zone. Maximum collaboration and pace.
The more of an engineer's day has to be fixed to your clock, the higher the rate. The more flexibility you give us on when the hours happen, the less you pay.
If you need guaranteed response times, for support, maintenance or a business-critical platform, add the SLA. It is one fixed add-on to the hourly rate, on every hour billed: at £50 an hour with a £10 add-on, every hour is £60. It reserves the people behind your engagement, requests are worked within the same hours, and what it covers is defined in your Statement of Work.
Roles × modes
Illustrative — priced per project| Role | FlexBest rate | Part-timeMid rate | Full-timeHighest rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| EngineerSenior developer: backend, frontend, mobile, integration, cloud. | from £50 / hour | from £60 / hour | from £65 / hour |
| Architect / LeadSolution and enterprise architecture, project leadership. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. |
| Fractional CTOTechnical leadership, a fixed number of hours a month. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. | Rate per engagementEach case is different. |
* Illustrative rates. We do not publish a price list. Every project is priced on what it actually needs — the people, the seniority, the mode and the duration — and your proposal states the rate for each person before anything starts.
For the arithmetic on this site we use an illustrative base of £60* an hour for a senior engineer. It is there to make the comparison concrete, not to quote you.
* Illustrative rates. We do not publish a price list. Every project is priced on what it actually needs — the people, the seniority, the mode and the duration — and your proposal states the rate for each person before anything starts.
You pay for the hours a senior engineer works on your project, at a rate set by how much of their day you need. Nothing else.
The cost of a hire vs Codefield
Illustrative figures for a senior engineering hire in the United Kingdom, with every assumption shown, and the Codefield side computed at the illustrative base rate.
| Line item | Assumption | Year one |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | Senior engineer / architect, UK, outside London premium | £85,000 |
| Employer National Insuranceto verify | 15% above the secondary threshold (2025/26 rules) | £12,000 |
| Employer pensionto verify | 3% statutory minimum | £2,550 |
| Recruitment | Agency fee 20% of salary (or equivalent internal time) | £17,000 |
| Equipment, licences, onboarding, training | — | £3,500 |
| Benefits, insurance, misc. | — | £4,000 |
| Total year one | ≈ 1.46× salary | £124,050 |
| Ongoing years | Without the recruitment fee, ≈ 1.26× salary | £107,050 |
Employer National Insurance is applied above the secondary threshold at the 2025/26 rate; the employer pension is the statutory minimum applied to salary for simplicity; the recruitment fee is a common agency rate. These are assumptions, not quotes, and will be confirmed against current gov.uk guidance before publication.
Costs the table does not show
A worked scenario
The work needs a senior architect for the first two months and two senior engineers for five months.
Three roles recruited (~£51k in fees), three months before anyone starts, three salaries committed for a year (~£372k fully loaded) — and the team is still there after the project ends, with nothing sized for it.
An architect for two months and two engineers for five months, starting in two weeks, billed hourly (lead Full-time, engineers Part-time, say) — then the engagement ends, the code and documentation are in the client's repos, and the client chooses what happens next.
* Illustrative rates. We do not publish a price list. Every project is priced on what it actually needs — the people, the seniority, the mode and the duration — and your proposal states the rate for each person before anything starts.
Employer NI, pension, insurance and benefits, recruitment fees, equipment and onboarding, idle months, and exit costs — none of which exist on the Codefield side.
Around 50% less than a hire. In a typical first year, once employment costs, pension, insurance, equipment and the hiring process are counted — and you only pay for the months you need.
*Illustrative. £85k base + employer NI + pension + recruitment fee + equipment and onboarding. Assumptions and sources on the How we work page.
Your numbers
Both sides of this calculator are illustrative. The hiring side uses the assumptions above; our side uses an example rate, not a price list. What you would actually pay depends on the people, the mode and what the project needs, and we put it in writing after the first conversation.
* Illustrative rates. We do not publish a price list. Every project is priced on what it actually needs — the people, the seniority, the mode and the duration — and your proposal states the rate for each person before anything starts.
Want this arithmetic for your own project?
Thirty minutes with a founding engineer. If we're the right fit, a written proposal follows within days.
With every engagement
Reviews, design sessions and specialist input from the wider team are part of every engagement. In practice, a backend developer on your project gets an integration architect's view of a SAP interface without a separate contract, and a second pair of eyes on any decision that is expensive to get wrong.
When development moves into support, you choose: keep us, take it in-house, or bring in someone else. All three are fine with us.
How capacity scales
Most engagements start with one person: an architect for a discovery, or a lead for a foundation. Engineers join in the modes the work needs; the team grows to two, three or five, then shrinks back to whoever the support needs, or to nobody. Each change is a one-page amendment, and we plan the ramp-down with you so knowledge never leaves in a hurry.
The paperwork
A Master Services Agreement is signed once and holds what never changes. Each engagement is a one-page Statement of Work. Scaling up or down is an amendment, never a new contract.
What we don't do
This is about conduct, not capability. If the right person isn't on the team, we find them.
Start here
Thirty minutes, free, no pitch deck. Tell us where the complexity is and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people to help.