PHP Development Company for United Kingdom Businesses

Post-launch support SLA

Support is optional, month-to-month and invoiced in GBP with no minimum term or lock-in. Every tier below states the response time you can hold us to, exactly what is included, and how an issue escalates if it is not moving. Business-hours response is measured against 09:00–17:30 GMT/BST, Monday to Friday; emergency cover for confirmed production outages runs outside that window on the Priority tier.

Essential — £75 / month

Response time: Next business day (within 1 business day). Work starts within 2 business days; critical security patches same week.

• PHP, WordPress core, framework and dependency security updates
• Daily automated backups with a monthly restore test
• Uptime and error monitoring with alerting
• Vulnerability patching as advisories are published
• Monthly health report: uptime, errors, updates applied

Growth — £250 / month

Response time: 4 business hours during 09:00–17:30 GMT/BST, Monday to Friday. Fix work begins the same business day; production bugs triaged on receipt.

• Everything in Essential
• A monthly block of development hours for small changes and improvements
• Prioritised bug fixes ahead of new-build queue
• Performance tuning: slow queries, caching, image and asset delivery
• Staging environment kept in sync for safe testing

Priority — £560 / month

Response time: Same day, and within 1 hour for a confirmed production outage. Emergency work starts immediately and continues until service is restored.

• Everything in Growth
• Out-of-hours emergency cover for outages and security incidents
• Named engineer plus a documented backup contact
• Quarterly performance, dependency and security review with a written action list
• Documented rollback and disaster-recovery runbook, tested annually

How an issue escalates

1. 1. Report Raise the issue by email, WhatsApp or your shared Slack channel — whichever is fastest. Include the URL, what you expected and what happened. Every report is logged with a timestamp so response time is measurable, not a matter of opinion.
2. 2. Acknowledge and classify You get a human acknowledgement inside the response window for your tier, with a severity: P1 site down or data at risk, P2 a core flow broken, P3 a bug with a workaround, P4 a cosmetic or change request. The severity, not the plan alone, drives the queue.
3. 3. Triage and workaround For P1 and P2 we reproduce on staging, apply a safe workaround or roll back to the last known-good deploy so you are trading again, then fix the root cause properly rather than leaving a patch in production.
4. 4. Fix, test and deploy The fix ships through the same pipeline as normal work: tested on staging, reviewed, then deployed to production in an agreed window with a rollback point ready. You are told what changed.
5. 5. Escalate if stalled If a P1 is not moving within 2 hours, or any ticket misses its response window, it escalates to the founder directly — contactable by phone — who takes ownership and gives you an hourly update until it is resolved.
6. 6. Review and prevent Every P1 gets a short written post-incident note: what broke, why, what was changed, and the monitoring or test added so it cannot recur silently. No charge for the note.

Support is never required to keep your project. Ownership transfers on final payment and you can take the code, the runbook and the environment in-house at any time — we hand over rather than hold hostage. Missed response windows are credited against the following month's GBP invoice.

PHP services we deliver for British clients

PHP still runs most of the web, and most of what reaches us is an existing system that needs to be safer, faster or extended — not a rewrite for its own sake. We work across modern PHP 8.3, Laravel, WordPress and older core-PHP or CodeIgniter estates, and we recommend the smallest change that actually solves the problem.

• Custom PHP web applications — client portals, dashboards, booking and quoting systems
• WordPress and WooCommerce: custom themes, plugins, checkout and speed work
• Legacy modernisation: PHP 5.x/7.x → 8.3, mysql_* removal, SQL-injection and XSS fixes
• CodeIgniter, CakePHP and core-PHP rebuilds or staged migration to Laravel
• REST API development and third-party integrations (Stripe, PayPal, QuickBooks, Xero, HubSpot, ERP and CRM)
• Database work: MySQL/MariaDB schema cleanup, indexing and slow-query tuning
• Ongoing maintenance: security patches, backups, uptime monitoring and small changes

Zero advance payment — approve first, pay after

You do not send money to start. We agree the scope in writing, build on a staging URL you can open any time, and invoice only once you have used the working system. On engagements above the equivalent of US$1,500 we split delivery into 4–5 milestones, each reviewed and invoiced separately, so no one is ever carrying weeks of unreviewed work.

• No deposit, no retainer and no card on file to begin
• Live staging link from the first working build
• Milestone invoicing on larger projects, paid only after each approval
• Full source code, database and documentation handed to your own accounts

How a project runs, step by step

A predictable five-step process is the reason we can work without a deposit — nothing large is built before you have seen and signed off on the piece before it.

• 1. Discovery call (30–45 min) — we review your current code, hosting and the outcome you want
• 2. Written scope and fixed quote in GBP with a delivery timeline, sent within 48 hours
• 3. Build on staging with a named PHP developer and daily written progress notes
• 4. Your review and UAT — you test on staging, we fix, and the round trip repeats until you sign off
• 5. Launch, handover and invoice — code, credentials and a deployment runbook transfer to you

Working with United Kingdom teams

Our engineers work from India and hold a 09:00–14:00 GMT/BST overlap — a full shared morning with London, so reviews usually close the same day. You get a named developer and a single point of contact rather than a ticket queue, and deployment targets AWS eu-west-2, DigitalOcean London, Krystal, Cloudways or your existing UK host.

Contracts, compliance and security

A written statement of work before kickoff, mutual NDA on request, and IP assignment on final payment. We invoice from India as an export of services, so no UK VAT is charged and reverse-charge rules apply on your side. Technically we cover UK GDPR and ICO-aligned data handling, UK or EU hosting regions, cookie consent that stands up to an ICO check, and WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility. Every legacy project also gets a written security pass: dependency and PHP version audit, input validation, prepared statements, password hashing, file-upload hardening and HTTPS/HSTS configuration.

Recent British project

A Leeds training provider had a CodeIgniter 3 booking system nobody dared deploy. We patched the security holes, migrated it to PHP 8.3, added VAT-correct invoicing and a GoCardless direct-debit flow, and documented the deployment. £2,100, invoiced after sign-off — no deposit taken.

Why clients pick us over a cheaper marketplace hire

Marketplace pricing looks lower until the handover. We quote fixed scope in writing, ship to a staging URL you can inspect at any point, hand over the repository and a runbook, and take payment only once it works. If we think your problem does not need custom PHP at all, we will say so in the first call rather than quote for it.

• 900+ projects delivered since 2022
• Fixed written quotes — no hourly drift
• Code in your GitHub organisation from day one where possible
• Optional maintenance retainer with no lock-in and no minimum term

Frequently asked questions

Do I pay anything before you start a PHP project in United Kingdom?

No. We begin after a written scope, not a deposit. You review the running system on a staging link and only then do we invoice in GBP. Larger builds are split into 4–5 milestones, each invoiced after you approve that stage.

Can you take over a PHP project another developer abandoned?

Yes. We start with a short audit of the code, database, hosting and dependencies, send you a written findings note with risks and effort, and then quote the fix. If the codebase is genuinely not worth saving we will tell you before you spend anything.

My site runs an old PHP version and my host is forcing an upgrade. Can you help?

That is one of our most common jobs. We migrate PHP 5.x and 7.x applications to PHP 8.3 — replacing removed functions and mysql_* calls, fixing deprecations, updating dependencies, patching SQL injection and XSS issues, and testing every critical flow on staging before we touch production.

Do you work with WordPress and WooCommerce, or only custom PHP?

Both. Roughly half our PHP work is WordPress and WooCommerce — custom themes, custom plugins, checkout changes, payment and shipping integrations, malware cleanup and Core Web Vitals work. The other half is custom PHP or Laravel applications where a CMS would get in the way.

Should I rebuild in Laravel or keep the existing PHP code?

It depends on how much of the current logic still matches the business. If the code is structurally sound we modernise in place, which is cheaper and lower risk. If it is unmaintainable we migrate to Laravel in stages — new modules in Laravel alongside the old app — so you are never facing a single high-risk switchover.

How do invoicing and payments work from United Kingdom?

We invoice in GBP and accept Faster Payments, BACS, Wise or card in GBP. A written statement of work before kickoff, mutual NDA on request, and IP assignment on final payment. We invoice from India as an export of services, so no UK VAT is charged and reverse-charge rules apply on your side.

Who owns the code, database and hosting accounts?

You do. Ownership transfers on final payment and is written into the scope document. We work in your GitHub organisation and your hosting accounts wherever possible, and hand over environment variables, database dumps and a deployment runbook at the end.

How long does a typical PHP project take?

A WordPress or WooCommerce build is usually 2–4 weeks. A custom PHP application is typically 4–8 weeks depending on the number of workflows. A PHP version migration or security cleanup is usually 1–3 weeks. Every quote carries a written timeline.

Do you offer ongoing maintenance after launch?

Yes — an optional monthly retainer covering security patches, PHP and plugin updates, backups, uptime monitoring and a set number of small change requests. It is month to month with no minimum term, and you can also take the code and run it entirely in-house.

How fast can you deliver a PHP project for a UK client?

A WordPress or WooCommerce build runs 2–4 weeks. A custom PHP application is 4–8 weeks depending on how many workflows it carries. A PHP 8.3 migration or security cleanup is usually 1–3 weeks, and an emergency fix — a hacked site, a broken checkout, a host forcing a version upgrade — is often handled inside 48–72 hours. With a full shared morning on GMT/BST, most approvals happen the same working day. Every quote includes a written timeline with milestone dates in UK time.

Our UK host is dropping our PHP version next month. Can you migrate that fast?

Usually yes. We clone the site to staging, run an automated compatibility scan, fix removed functions, mysql_* calls and deprecations, update dependencies, test every critical flow, then cut over during a low-traffic UK window with a rollback point ready. Most PHP 7.x to 8.3 migrations complete in 5–10 working days, and you pay after the migrated site is running clean in production.

What tiered post-launch support do you offer UK clients?

Month-to-month maintenance in GBP with no lock-in, in three tiers: Essential (PHP, WordPress core and plugin updates, security patching, daily backups with restore testing, uptime and error monitoring, next-business-day response), Growth (adds a monthly block of change-request hours and 4-hour response during UK business hours), and Priority (same-day response, emergency production and security incident support, and a quarterly performance and security review). Cancel any time.

Which UK platforms and services do you integrate with PHP?

Payments: Stripe, GoCardless direct debit, Worldpay, Opayo, Barclaycard, Square and PayPal. Accounting and ERP: Xero, QuickBooks UK, Sage Business Cloud and FreeAgent, with UK VAT rates and HMRC Making Tax Digital-compatible submissions. CRM and marketing: Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp and Klaviyo. Shipping: Royal Mail, DPD, Parcelforce, Evri, ShipStation and UPS/FedEx rates. Plus Twilio, SendGrid, DocuSign, Zapier and GA4/GTM with UK-consent-compliant tag loading. For WooCommerce we prefer official extensions and build custom only when an extension genuinely does not fit.

Can you connect our PHP site to an in-house or legacy database?

Yes — through a read-only replica, a scheduled sync over SFTP or a VPN, or a small PHP API layer exposing only the endpoints the website needs. We document the data contract first, build against sample data on staging, and add retries and failure alerts so a legacy outage degrades gracefully instead of taking the site down. UK or EU data residency can be maintained end to end.

Do you handle PCI, UK GDPR and accessibility requirements?

We keep card data off your server by routing payments through Stripe, Worldpay or Opayo hosted fields, which keeps you in the simplest PCI SAQ category. Privacy work follows UK GDPR and ICO guidance: lawful-basis records, a PECR-compliant cookie banner that blocks non-essential tags until consent, retention and deletion routines, and signed data-processing terms. On accessibility we build to WCAG 2.2 AA and audit before launch. We deliver the engineering work; formal certification is your auditor's call.

Can you work alongside our existing in-house developer or agency?

Often, yes. We work in your repository with pull requests and code review, follow your branching and deployment conventions, and stick to an agreed slice of the codebase. Many UK clients bring us in specifically for the PHP, migration and infrastructure side while their own team owns the front end and content.