How much does an AI consultant cost in the UK?

How much does an AI consultant cost in the UK?

The median rate in UK contract adverts for AI consultants was £575 a day in the six months to 6 November 2026, with the middle 80% of rates between £445 and £715.¹ A small business can start with a few days. One consultant prices an audit for a sole trader or a business under 10 staff at £750 to £2,500, usually one to three days of consultant time.³

An AI consultant looks at how your business runs and tells you where AI or automation would save time or money, and where it wouldn't. Some stop at a written plan. Others, like me, go on to build what the plan recommends and keep improving it. The prices below are for the advice. For what a build costs to make and run, see what AI automation really costs a UK small business.

Why are published day rates so far apart?

Because each guide is written by a firm selling consulting, to the size of client it wants, and none says how its ranges were worked out. The same "independent consultant" is priced very differently from one guide to the next:

Published UK day rates for an AI consultant, £ a day

• UK contract adverts¹£445 to £715, median £575
• We Call Shotgun⁴£500 to £2,000
• Lilach Bullock³£600 to £1,200
• Progressive Robot⁵£700 to £950
• Whitehat⁶£1,200 to £2,200

£0£500£1,000£1,500£2,000£2,500

Only the top row is built from data: the 69 contract adverts that quoted a daily rate.¹ These are rates offered in job adverts for contractors, hired by the day through recruiters, which is a different market from consultants selling to small businesses. The median for general management consultants over the same six months was £561 a day,⁸ so in contract adverts AI consultants cost about the same per day as management consultants. Adverts rose from 24 a year earlier to 107, while the median fell 4.17% from £600 to £575.¹

The guides are pitched at bigger clients. Progressive Robot writes for companies with 50 to 250 staff and says Independents sit at £700 to £950,⁵ while Whitehat's table lists independent consultants at £1,200 to £2,200 a day.⁶ Both are one firm's view of its own market, with no survey behind either.

What does each kind of help cost?

These are published UK prices, from the smallest piece of help to the largest. The first five rows are where most small businesses should start.

Marketplace offers come from sellers in many countries, so check where someone is based and ask exactly what the price covers. At the other end, agency-run audits cost £5,000 to £15,000 or more, which sometimes includes workshops and follow-up sessions.³ For a shop or a trade business with a handful of staff, that buys far more consulting than the business can act on.

What should an AI audit include?

A map of where the time goes, a check of your data and the software you already pay for, and a written plan with a rough cost against each item. Lilach Bullock, a UK consultant, lists what a good audit covers:³

• A workflow map: every repeatable task, who does it, how long it takes and which tool touches it.
• A data readiness check: where your records live, and whether they are tidy and secure enough for an AI tool.
• Your existing spend: in her words, Nearly every business I audit is paying for two or three tools doing the same job.³
• A risk and data protection pass: GDPR, client contracts, and staff pasting confidential information into free AI tools.
• Quick wins split from bigger projects: what can be live in a week, and what needs months and a budget.
• A written roadmap with rough cost and effort against each item.

Asked what an audit usually finds, she answers: Wasted subscriptions doing overlapping jobs, and staff time lost to manual copying between systems.³

What pushes the price up or down?

The size of your business, the state of your data and how sensitive it is, and to a lesser degree where the consultant is based.

• Size. The same consultant's audit prices step from £750 to £2,500 under 10 staff to £2,500 to £8,000 for 10 to 50 staff.³
• The state of your data. In its worked budget, preparing and plumbing the data takes 22 of 92 consultant days.⁵ Records kept in one place and one format cost less to work with.
• Sensitive data. Anything touching client data in finance, law or recruitment usually adds 10 to 20 percent for compliance work and documentation, according to Lilach Bullock.¹¹
• Location. Whitehat puts London 15 to 25% above Manchester or Birmingham,⁶ and Lilach Bullock puts it 20 to 40 percent above regional UK rates.¹¹ Contract adverts show no gap: the median for AI consultants outside London was also £575 a day.¹

What does a small business need to pay for?

Start with a short audit and one small build that proves the idea, both priced before work starts, then keep improving from there. In my view a small business gets more from one working automation than from a long strategy document.

1. 01A free first callIs there anything worth doing?
2. 02A short auditWhere your time goes, written down
3. 03A planWhat to do first, what to leave alone
4. 04One small buildThe job with the clearest payback
5. 05Check and improveHours saved, then the next job

Steps 2-3Advice, priced up front

Steps 4-5A build, priced per job

After the first build, the work carries on. AI tools change every few months, so what you build needs looking after and improving, and new jobs become worth automating as the tools get better. In my view, the best value for a small business is a part-time AI expert who keeps doing this month after month, so you are never left behind. That is how our Keep Pace service works.

What might a first year cost?

A short audit, one simple automation and its tool for a year, priced from the published ranges above:

Your own quote depends on the job, and most businesses keep going after the first year, adding and improving as the tools change. A freelancer can come in well under the bottom of the build range for a simple job; see what AI automation really costs a UK small business.

How can you keep the cost down?

Do the groundwork yourself before the first paid hour. Clients who arrive with a rough list of tools, a sense of their busiest bottleneck, and a decision-maker in the room save at least half a day of billed time on discovery alone, according to Lilach Bullock.³

1. List every tool you pay for and what each costs a month.
2. List every task that takes more than an hour a week, who does it and which tools it touches.
3. Pick the one bottleneck you'd fix first.
4. Gather a few real examples, such as a typical order or invoice.
5. Have the person who can say yes on the first call.

Is there free or funded help?

In some parts of the UK. The Mayor of London announced a £12 million programme in June 2026 offering SMEs AI readiness assessments, expert mentoring, workshops and tailored adoption guidance,⁹ though the announcement doesn't yet say who qualifies or how to apply. In Scotland, The Data Lab offers fully funded training and support for SMEs.¹⁰ Both are worth checking for advice and training. Neither mentions building anything for you or keeping it running.

Why does a freelancer or small studio usually cost less?

In my view, a freelancer or small studio costs less because it has no sales team, marketing budget or account managers to pay for, so more of the fee goes into the work itself.

A larger agency's day rate has to cover all of that before anyone looks at your business. With a freelancer or a small studio like mine, the person on the first call is usually the person doing the audit and the build. The trade-off is cover: ask what happens if that one person is ill or on holiday, and keep every login and subscription in your own name.

How do you check a consultant's quote?

Before you pay anyone, ask for these in writing:

1. A fixed price, or a cap on the days. ExpertSure advises: Avoid day-rate engagements without a cost cap.⁷
2. A defined scope. One agency's guide says Scope is more negotiable than rate.⁴ Cutting what's covered lowers the price more honestly than haggling over the day rate.
3. What you get at the end. A list of jobs in priority order, with rough costs, beats a slide deck.
4. Something they built that is still running. Ask to see it working.