UK Software Development Pricing — 2026 Day Rates and Project Costs
If you are scoping a build in 2026 and trying to figure out UK software development pricing, you are walking into a market that ranges from £15 per hour for offshore freelancers to £250 per hour for tier-1 consultancies. The honest answer is: most published numbers are misleading, the cheapest option is usually the most expensive over 18 months, and the difference between a £50,000 project and a £150,000 project is rarely the quality of the code.
This page is what Magora's senior team tells founders, CTOs and procurement leads when they ask "what does software development cost in the UK actually look like?" It includes our own pricing — published openly so you can use it as a benchmark against any other agency.
TL;DR — 2026 UK software development pricing benchmarks
Updated: 13 October 2026. Price ranges on this page follow the summary table.
Engagement
Typical UK range
Magora
Hourly day rate (product-engineering house)
£45-90
from £49
Coded prototype
£3,000-15,000
Free (+ written analysis from senior PO)
Discovery sprint (2 weeks)
£8,000-30,000
From £3,000
Startup MVP
£25,000-80,000
From £10,000
Full production mobile or web project
£50,000-300,000+
£25,000–£60,000
AI / ML production build
£40,000-250,000+
Scoped after Discovery
Bespoke enterprise CRM
£80,000-500,000+
Scoped after Discovery
Monthly maintenance retainer
£2,000-12,000
from £1,000
Numbers above assume in-house, senior-led delivery from a London-based UK-registered agency. Offshore and tier-1 consultancies are covered separately below.
What our 2026 estimates actually cost
In the 12 estimates we wrote for UK clients between July and October 2026, a first production release (MVP) of a custom web or mobile product cost £11,000–£34,000, with a median of about £25,000, and typically took 6–8 weeks with two to three developers. Discovery before the build cost £1,200–£3,600 (median about £1,800), and a second phase usually added 30–70% of the first release. That is about £520–£570 per developer-day, including QA and product ownership.
The full table, with what each project was and where the money went: Software development cost in the UK (2026): all 12 estimates.
UK software and app development cost: summary table
Updated: 13 October 2026. Same figures on our app cost, software cost, UK pricing, MVP and fixed-price pages.
Typical project types, time and cost in the UK (2026), in pounds sterling
Project type
Typical time
Typical range
Free working prototype, with written analysis from a senior Product Owner
Production app or web platform, with backend and admin
3–6 months
£25,000–£60,000
Regulated or integration-heavy product (fintech, health, logistics)
5–8 months
£80,000–£120,000
AI proof of concept (scoped after Discovery)
4–6 weeks
from £15,000
Maintenance retainer after launch
monthly
from £1,000 per month
Rates: from £49 an hour per developer (about £390 a day); £65–£70 an hour for a full team with QA and product ownership. Each range is for the stage named in its row; the free prototype, Discovery and maintenance are priced separately from the build.
How we calculate these ranges
These are Magora’s published 2026 price bands, not quotes. We check them against our own data: the 12 project estimates we wrote for UK clients in 2026. In those estimates a first release of a new product cost £11,000–£34,000, with a median of about £25,000, and took 6–8 weeks; Discovery cost £1,200–£3,600. The extended version of one app cost £39,758, and a single API integration £2,500–£3,000.
Each estimate lists features in story points (about one developer-day each), adds project set-up, regression testing, user acceptance testing and deployment, then adds QA at 30% and product ownership at 20% of development time. Cost is that effort multiplied by our day rates, about £520–£570 per developer-day including QA and product ownership.
The other rows are the bands in our UK software development pricing guide. Your own figure depends on platforms, integrations, regulation and design; a fixed price comes from Discovery. For a first number, use the app cost calculator.
Where the money actually goes
A £100,000 UK software project typically breaks down as:
Senior engineering (50-60%) — the people writing production code.
When an offshore agency quotes you 60% less for "the same project", they have removed 80% of the Product Owner time and 50% of the QA time. The code ships, but it ships the wrong thing — or breaks at the first production load.
UK software development pricing by tier
The UK market sorts into five clear tiers. Pick the right one for your project type and risk tolerance:
Tier 1 — Offshore freelancers (£15-30 / hour)
Solo developers on freelance platforms or direct contracts in India, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, Philippines.
Strength: raw hourly cost is unbeatable for narrow, well-specified work.
Weakness: no Product Owner, no QA cycle, no compliance, no UK legal accountability. Time-zone drag adds 30% to delivery time.
Right for: small tasks where you (or your in-house team) can specify exactly what is needed and review every commit.
Tier 2 — Offshore agencies with a UK sales front (£25-50 / hour)
UK-based sales and account management, with delivery by an offshore team.
Strength: a UK point of contact at a lower hourly rate.
Consider: quality depends on the team assigned, so check who will actually build the product.
Right for: medium-complexity builds where you can tolerate variance and have a strong in-house Product Owner pushing back.
UK-registered, in-house teams of 30-300, English-law contracts, senior PO on every project. Magora's rate: from £49 / hour per developer, £65–£70 / hour for a full team.
Strength: consistent quality, full accountability, compliance by default, senior-led delivery from a single team.
Weakness: higher hourly rate than offshore.
Right for: exploratory product work, regulated industries (FinTech, healthcare, education), AI builds, anything where the brief will evolve mid-build.
Tier 4 — Boutique London digital agencies (£60-140 / hour)
5-30 person agencies, often design-led, branding crossover.
Strength: beautiful UI, strong design opinion.
Weakness: engineering depth varies wildly. Many subcontract backend work.
Right for: consumer-facing apps where design is the differentiator and backend complexity is low.
Tier 5 — Tier-1 consultancies (£120-250 / hour)
Global consulting groups offering enterprise digital programmes.
Strength: programme delivery at scale, hundreds-of-millions budgets, board-level reporting.
Weakness: the £200/hour rate is mostly hierarchy. Junior consultants do most of the work.
Right for: enterprise digital transformation programmes ≥ £1M, not product builds.
Magora's pricing — published openly
Free working prototype + senior Product Owner analysis
A senior Product Owner will scope the core flow with you, and we will ship a coded prototype — yours to keep, whether you hire us or not. Cost: £0. No commitment, no charge. Typically 5-10 working days from kickoff.
This exists because most engagements that fail, fail at scope — not at code. The free prototype phase de-risks the scope question for both sides before either spends real money.
Discovery sprint — from £3,000
Two weeks of senior Product Owner and Solution Architect time. Output:
Validated problem statement and user-journey map.
Costed architecture and stack choice.
Working prototype of the riskiest flow.
Phased delivery roadmap with realistic timelines.
Fixed-price quote for the next phase.
You can take the Discovery output to another agency for a comparable quote — we have had clients do this. The Discovery output stays useful even if you choose someone else. Book a Discovery sprint →
Startup MVP — from £10,000
Production-grade product in users' hands inside a calendar quarter (6-8 weeks). Scope:
One or two core flows, fully working.
Production hosting (AWS or GCP) with monitoring.
Authentication, user management, baseline analytics.
One mobile platform (iOS or Android) OR one web platform.
30 days of post-launch maintenance included.
Above £10,000, additional flows, second mobile platform, third-party integrations and AI features are quoted as add-ons. Read more about MVP development →
Full production mobile or web project — £25,000–£60,000
End-to-end build for a real production audience. Typical scope:
A production build with a backend and admin typically costs £25,000–£60,000 and takes 3–6 months; regulated or integration-heavy products run £80,000–£120,000. Larger enterprise builds, AI products, regulated platforms and bespoke CRMs are scoped individually after Discovery.
AI development
Scoped after Discovery. Indicative pricing:
AI proof of concept (4-6 weeks): from £15,000.
LLM-powered application (production-grade): from £40,000.
RAG pipeline + vector database + API: from £30,000.
Custom fine-tuned open-source model: from £25,000.
Scoped after Discovery. Typical range £80,000-£500,000+. Engagements usually include domain modelling and integration with legacy systems, multi-role authentication, audit logging, GDPR data-subject tooling, bespoke workflows and automation tailored to the client's operations, and phased rollout to internal users with training and handover. Read more about bespoke software development →
Ongoing maintenance retainer — from £1,000 / month
Post-launch, products need constant attention to stay competitive and secure. Magora's maintenance covers:
Bug fixes (severity-tiered SLA).
Product Backlog management from user feedback.
Library and dependency updates.
Security monitoring and patch cycle.
Quarterly enhancement releases.
What changes the price
Five factors move a UK software project up or down the price scale:
Number of platforms. iOS + Android + web is roughly 1.8× a single platform. iOS + Android + web + admin panel is roughly 2.3×.
Regulatory burden. FinTech with FCA permissions, healthcare with NHS integration, or anything touching Open Banking adds 25-40% for compliance work that an unregulated build does not need.
Third-party integrations. Each external system (Stripe, Twilio, HubSpot, Salesforce, custom legacy API) adds 5-15% depending on documentation quality.
AI features. Bolting AI onto an existing app is cheap (LLM API integration). Building an AI-native product with custom models, RAG and agents is a separate engineering discipline that adds £20,000-£100,000+.
Time pressure. Compressing 16-week delivery into 10 weeks adds 30% for overtime and parallelisation overhead.
Common pricing pitfalls
The "fixed price on a vague brief" trap. If an agency quotes you a flat number without Discovery, they have either inflated the price by 40% to cover unknowns or they will run out of money halfway through. Both end badly. The best UK software development companies insist on Discovery first.
The "we'll match the offshore quote" trap. A London agency that matches a £30,000 offshore quote on a £100,000 brief is cutting senior PO time, QA cycle and post-launch maintenance. The build ships; the product fails at first contact with real users.
The "we own a percentage of the IP" trap. Read the IP-transfer clause carefully. Some agencies retain rights to reuse code on "non-competing" projects — definition of "competing" buried in legal fine print.
The "junior team after sales" trap. The senior architect you meet at sales does not deliver the project. Ask in writing: "Confirm that the team meeting me today is the team delivering the work."
Fixed price or time & materials?
Short answer: Choose a fixed price when the scope is defined and has an end; choose time and materials (T&M) when the product will keep changing or the work will run for months. At Magora a fixed price comes after Discovery, not before it.
Fixed price
What you pay: an agreed price for an agreed scope.
How it is produced: a free working prototype (5–10 working days), then a Discovery sprint (2 weeks, from £3,000) that ends in a fixed-price quote for the build.
Best for: a well-defined scope with a fixed end, such as a startup MVP or a defined project.
If the scope changes: it goes through a change request.
Comparison: you can take the Discovery output to another agency for a comparable quote.
Time and materials (dedicated team)
What you pay: a day rate per engineer, billed monthly. From £49 an hour per developer (about £390 a day); £65–£70 an hour for a full team with QA and product ownership.
Commitment: a minimum of four weeks, then monthly rolling.
Best for: a product or roadmap that runs for months, or a brief that will change along the way.
If the scope changes: the backlog is re-prioritised in any sprint.
After launch: a maintenance retainer from £1,000 a month.
The fastest path is the free working prototype. We scope the core flow on a 30-minute call, then within two weeks you have a coded prototype in your hands and a written analysis from a senior PO. No charge, no commitment.
From that point, Discovery (£3,000) gives you a fixed-price quote for the full build. Or you take the Discovery output to another agency for comparison — both options are fine with us.
What is the average cost of software development in the UK?
Median project size across London product-engineering houses sits around £60,000-£120,000. MVPs from £10,000, full production £25,000–£60,000, enterprise from £80,000+. Magora publishes full pricing above.
Why is UK software development more expensive than offshore?
You pay for in-house senior delivery, English-law contracts, GDPR and EU AI Act compliance by default, and a single accountable legal entity. Over an 18-month project lifecycle, the UK premium usually pays back through fewer rebuilds and fewer compliance incidents.
Can I get a fixed-price quote in the UK?
Yes — after Discovery. Any agency that fixed-prices a vague brief is either padding by 40% or will run out of budget. Magora's standard model: free prototype → £3,000 Discovery → fixed-price quote for the build.
Do you take payment in stages?
Yes. Standard Magora payment model: 25% on Discovery sign-off, 25% at the design milestone, 25% at the production-ready milestone, 25% on go-live. Adjustable for specific cash-flow constraints — speak to sales@magora.co.uk.
What is the cheapest realistic UK software development project?
The free working prototype + Discovery sprint at £3,000 gives you a working prototype and a roadmap. The cheapest production build starts at £10,000 for a Startup MVP. Below that, you are looking at offshore freelance, not a UK agency.
Should I choose a fixed price or time and materials?
Choose a fixed price when the scope is defined and has an end; choose time and materials when the brief will change or the work runs for months. At Magora a fixed-price quote comes after a Discovery sprint (2 weeks, from £3,000). Time and materials and dedicated teams are billed at a day rate per engineer, from £49 an hour, monthly rolling with a four-week minimum.
