Hire PHP
developers in the UK.

Both, but team-led is our default. Magora's strongest delivery model is a small senior team — typically a senior PHP lead, 1 – 2 mid-senior engineers, a part-time PO and a part-time QA — owning the project end-to-end.

Single-engineer engagements work for narrow specialist work (an audit, a tricky Filament resource, a Symfony bundle). For anything where the brief will evolve, the team model holds up better over 6 – 18 months. Start with a Discovery sprint.

The full modern PHP set: Laravel (with deep Filament + Inertia + Livewire expertise), Symfony (API Platform, Messenger, Doctrine), native PHP 8.3 for libraries and lean services, WordPress (custom plugins, Gutenberg, headless), and Drupal 10/11 for regulated CMS.

Microframeworks (Slim, Phalcon) for niche use-cases. We don't put juniors on framework-spanning work — the senior on the team owns the architectural choices.

Yes. Magora is headquartered in London (The Tea Building, 56 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6JJ). UK timezone, English-law contracts, NDA on day one. Legal entity is Thinking Fish Ltd, UK Companies House 03637036, incorporated 1998.

That matters for IP enforceability, GDPR accountability and being able to sit in the same standup as your in-house team. See our full London web development offer.

2 – 5 working days from offer to first commit for most engagements. NDA on day 1, codebase walkthrough in the first three days, paired commits in week 1, autonomous PRs by week 2.

For larger team builds (3+ engineers), allow 5 – 10 working days for ramp-up so the senior lead can scope the domain model before the rest of the team starts writing PHP.

Both options are available. Single senior engineer engagements are common for audits, framework migrations, Filament resource work, or to plug a specific gap in your in-house team. From £49/hour (about £390/day), minimum 4 weeks.

Team engagements (2 – 5 people, senior-led) work better for full product builds, regulated platforms and anything where the brief will evolve. Start with a Discovery sprint if you're not sure which model fits.

Magento — yes, primarily on the Laravel-side integration: webhooks, ledger sync, CRM mirror, order-pipeline automation. We don't position ourselves as a Magento theming shop, but we have senior PHP engineers who have shipped production Magento 2 work.

Shopify — yes, via Liquid + the Storefront API + headless Shopify with a Laravel or Symfony backend. For headless storefronts we typically build a thin PHP layer on top of the Storefront API. See bespoke software for the broader pattern.

Yes — that's the default. UK timezone, daily standups, your Slack workspace, your Jira / Linear board, weekly demos with your stakeholders. The Magora engineer is on your repo and your tooling from day one.

For larger engagements we often run a hybrid model: the Magora senior lead pairs with your in-house lead, the rest of the team works as a pod. See our London web development page for the engagement patterns we run most often.

4 weeks. Anything shorter doesn't justify the ramp-up cost — even a senior engineer needs about a week to be fully productive in a new codebase.

For specific narrow tasks (a PHP security audit, a Filament resource build, a Symfony bundle) we can do fixed-scope engagements under 4 weeks — start with a Discovery call to scope the work properly.

Full IP transfer on payment, English-law contract. IPR in bespoke software shall, without prejudice to our rights in pre-existing IPR, be transferred to you on payment of the requested amount relating to such work.

No "we retain rights to reuse code on non-competing projects" small print. Source code, designs and IP all transfer in full — Magora is Thinking Fish Ltd, UK Companies House 03637036, so the contract is enforceable in England without crossing a jurisdiction.

At Magora, rates start from £49/hour per developer (about £390/day), and £65–£70/hour for a full team with QA and product ownership. A dedicated developer has a 4-week minimum; for a fixed-scope project we start with a Discovery from £3,000 and then quote a fixed price.

For what whole projects cost, see 12 real UK project estimates or try the cost calculator.

Yes. We start with an audit of the codebase and its dependencies, add tests around the critical paths, then upgrade in steps — PHP version, framework version, packages — using Rector and static analysis so each step is checked before the next. The application stays live throughout.

Upgrades are a common single-developer engagement; larger or riskier ones are run by a small team. See also Laravel developers.