AI consultancy
AI Consultancies and AI Consulting Firms for Mid-Market Companies in the UK: 7 Compared
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The short answer
AI consultancies that work with mid-market companies in the UK include Codurance, Fifty One Degrees, OpenKit, QuantSpark, Softblues and Softwire and New Odyssey. They differ mainly in whether they advise or build, whether the first step has a fixed price, and which sectors they know. This page compares them using facts from each firm's own website, checked on November 13, 2026. It is written by New Odyssey, which is one of the firms listed, so it is a comparison and not a ranking.
The consultancies compared
Facts below come from each firm's own website, checked on November 13, 2026. Firms are in alphabetical order. New Odyssey wrote this page and is the last row.
| Firm | Based | What it offers | Who it is for | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codurance | Offices listed in London, Manchester, Leeds, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, New York City and Sao Paulo | Markets AI-first software modernization alongside assessments such as a Data and AI Readiness Assessment, an AI in Engineering Assessment and Technical and AI Due Diligence. | Company size not stated; sectors listed include financial services, health and life sciences, private equity and venture capital, UK public sector, retail and technology. | Announces Select Partner tier in the Claude Partner Network and lists OpenAI Select Partner status. |
| Fifty One Degrees | London headquarters (167-169 Great Portland Street) with a New York office | Markets AI agents, conversational and voice AI, data science and machine learning, data engineering, AI training, Claude and OpenAI implementation and fractional Chief AI Officer services. | Mid-market businesses, typically £5m to £250m turnover, in the UK and US; sectors listed include financial services and insurance, home services and construction, professional services, retail, and venture capital and private equity. | Lists itself as an OpenAI Select Partner and a Claude Services Partner; client logos shown include Formula E and Heatable. |
| OpenKit | Offices listed in Cambridge (Cambridge Guildhall) and Durham (Belmont Business Park) | Markets an AI Audit, AI Implementation, AI Consulting, AI Engineering (custom tools and agents with code handed over), governance work, private AI hosting and AI for Microsoft 365. | Company size not stated; sectors listed include financial services, private equity, legal, education, healthcare, recruitment and HR, manufacturing and hospitality. | States it has been ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified since November 2024; publishes starting fees (AI Audit from £10,000, AI Implementation from £5,000 a month, excluding VAT). |
| QuantSpark | London (230 Blackfriars Road, SE1); registered in England and Wales | Markets a stepped set of fixed-price engagements: a free readiness diagnostic, its AiRE diagnostic, a five-week first agent build, an ongoing rollout service and longer Labs prototype and production builds. | Mid-market and private-equity-backed organizations, typically with £50m or more of revenue; sectors named include asset management, retail, manufacturing, professional services, software and government. | Says it has operated since 2016 and has around 70 staff; states it is independent of AI vendors. |
| Softblues | London (Covent Garden address listed) | Markets help choosing and rolling out an AI platform (Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT or Gemini) with governance and training, plus AI automation such as agents, connectors, voice agents and document automation. | Firms with roughly 50 or more knowledge workers in the UK and Ireland, with regulated sectors first: financial services, then healthcare and legal. | Lists OpenAI Select Partner, Claude Partner Network, Google Cloud and Microsoft partner statuses; names Key Capital as a training client. |
| Softwire | Offices listed in London (Highgate Studios), Manchester, Cambridge and Abu Dhabi | Its AI Transformation service lists AI strategy, governance and guardrails, evaluation and testing, proof-of-value work, AI solutions at scale, agentic AI automation and organizational readiness. | Company size not stated; sectors listed are energy and utilities, financial services, government and public sector, and insurance. | AI case studies name Moorfields, Tax Systems and Autogen; lists AWS Partner Advanced Tier Services status. |
| New Odyssey (the author of this page) | London, with US operations in Dallas, Texas | Finds where AI belongs in a workflow, then builds it: custom AI agents for a company's own process, and Pegasus, packaged agents for common workflows such as the month-end close, onboarding, contract review and privacy requests. | Mid-market operations, finance, HR, legal and compliance teams in the UK and US | Built the AI help desk the Talking News Federation runs in production, where a person approves every reply. Does not publish prices. |
How to choose
- Decide whether you need advice or a build. Some firms stop at a strategy or an assessment; others stay until something is running in production. Ask which one you are buying.
- Ask for a fixed first step. A firm confident in its method can scope one process for a fixed fee before you commit to more.
- Check who does the work. Mid-market projects are small enough that the people in the sales meeting should be the people building.
- Ask how success is measured, and insist on a baseline recorded before the work starts.
- Ask who owns the code, the prompts and the data at the end.
Where New Odyssey fits
New Odyssey is a build-led AI consultancy. We find the workflow where AI pays back, build the agent inside the systems a team already uses, and measure it against a baseline. Where one of our packaged Pegasus agents already covers the workflow we use it; where it does not, we build a custom agent. If you mainly want a board-level AI strategy, several of the firms above are a better fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I choose an AI consultancy for a mid-market company?
- Start from one process with a named owner and a measurable cost, and ask each firm how it would prove value on that process for a fixed fee. The answers show quickly who builds and who only advises.
- How much does an AI consultancy cost in the UK?
- It varies widely with scope. A few firms on this list publish starting prices on their own sites; most, including New Odyssey, quote after scoping a first step.
- Is this a ranking?
- No. The firms are listed alphabetically, with New Odyssey last because we wrote the page. Every fact about another firm comes from that firm's own website.
Keep exploring
Related reading
- AI consultancyHow New Odyssey finds where AI belongs and builds it.
- Custom AI agentsAgents built for a workflow of your own.
- AI for private equity portfolio companiesProve one workflow at one company, then repeat it.
- Talking News Federation case studyAn AI help desk where a person approves every reply.
Next step
Start with one workflow
Tell us about the process. We will say plainly whether it is worth building.