Database Engineering & Migration

What We Deliver

Everything Your Data Layer Needs

Five core database services. Engaged individually for a one-off project, or together as a programme to bring your entire data estate up to standard, ready for AI workloads, retrieval-augmented generation, and the agent economy.

3 to 10x Typical query performance gains after a tuning engagement. We profile real workloads, fix the indexing, and remove the joins and locks that slow your application down, with measurable before-and-after benchmarks.

Database Migrations

Move databases between platforms, versions, or clouds with zero data loss and minimum downtime. We handle schema conversion, data validation, and cutover planning end-to-end.

Cross-platform conversion Schema mapping Validated cutover Rollback procedures

Database Consolidation

Reduce sprawl. Consolidate fragmented databases onto a unified platform, cutting licensing costs, simplifying operations, and removing the integration nightmares that come with duplicate sources of truth.

Sprawl assessment Master-data design Licensing rationalisation Decommissioning plan

Performance Tuning

Profile, diagnose, fix. We hunt down slow queries, missing indexes, lock contention, and bad query plans, then prove the gains with workload benchmarks before and after.

Query profiling Index strategy Lock & deadlock fix Benchmarked results

DR & Backup Setup

Lose nothing, recover fast. We design backup strategies sized to your RPO and RTO, set up cross-region replication, and run real recovery drills so you know it works before you need it.

RPO/RTO targets Cross-region replication Tested restore drills Encryption at rest

Full Database Audits

A complete picture of your data estate. Schema, security, access, performance, compliance and cost: each documented, scored and prioritised. Becomes the roadmap for every other engagement.

Schema review Access & security audit Compliance gap analysis Prioritised roadmap

Why It Matters

Data That Pulls Its Weight

Faster Applications

Tuned databases mean snappier user experiences and lower compute costs. The difference between a 200ms query and a 20ms query compounds across every page load.

Lower Licensing Costs

Consolidation removes duplicate licenses. Right-sizing removes over-provisioned ones. We help you pay for the database capacity you actually use, not what you used to need.

Resilience You Can Prove

Backups that have been tested. Replication that has been failed over. Recovery times that have been measured. We don’t hand you a DR plan that has never run.

Operational Simplicity

Fewer platforms, cleaner schemas, documented runbooks. Your team spends less time firefighting database incidents and more time shipping features.

Audit-Ready Compliance

UK GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 2, FCA, NHS DSP: we map your databases against the standards that apply, close gaps, and document what you can show an auditor.

No Vendor Lock-In

We work across PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, MariaDB, and the cloud-managed equivalents. We pick the right tool for your workload, not the one we’re tied to.

Our Process

From Audit to Outcomes

A clear, structured engagement, from understanding what you have today to delivering measurable improvements.

01

Audit

We catalogue every database in your estate, platforms, versions, schemas, sizes, owners, access patterns, security posture, compliance gaps. You receive a scored report with a prioritised list of issues and quick wins.

02

Plan

From the audit, we design the target state, whether that means a tuning sprint, a consolidation programme, a migration to a managed service, or a DR rebuild. Fixed-price scope, clear success criteria, no surprises.

03

Deliver

We execute against the plan with version-controlled migrations, automated validation, and benchmarked checkpoints. Your team is informed at every milestone, no work happens behind the curtain.

04

Hand Over

Documentation, runbooks, monitoring dashboards, and 30 days of hypercare. Your team owns the result. We leave you with the knowledge to operate it, not the dependency on us to keep it running.

Technologies

Platforms We Work With

PostgreSQL MySQL SQL Server Oracle MariaDB MongoDB AWS RDS Aurora Azure SQL Cloud SQL Redis Elasticsearch

Real Engagements

Database Work That Actually Moved The Numbers

A snapshot of database engagements we have led. Client names withheld; outcomes are real.

Travel & Events £100k Saved Annually

SQL Licensing & Performance Indexing Programme

A national travel and events company was running a sprawling SQL Server estate at £180k/year in licensing alone. We delivered a wide-estate performance indexing programme, decommissioned redundant instances, right-sized editions, and consolidated where the workload allowed. Annual SQL licensing dropped from £180k to £80k, a sustained £100k+ saving per year, while application performance improved at the same time.

Legal Services Always-On HA & DR

SQL Server DR & Audit-Ready Compliance for Law Firms

For UK law firms handling sensitive client data, we delivered SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, robust backup and DR strategies, and full database audits to lock down permissions and access controls. We migrated estates from SQL Server 2008 to SQL 2017, embedded change-management discipline across developer teams, and reduced SQL licensing in parallel. Outcome: a data layer that is fast, fully recoverable, and audit-ready.

Telecoms Zero App Downtime

Application Database Performance Tuning at a UK Telco

Working as the application engineer on in-house applications and databases at a major UK telecoms operator, we performance-tuned SQL Server estates running everything from SQL 2008 through SQL 2012, kept legacy and new servers running side-by-side without business downtime, and accelerated business applications that had become slow. The kind of unglamorous deep DBA work that quietly removes friction across the whole company.

SQL Server: Every Version We Support

From legacy 2005 estates to the latest 2025 release, plus all editions in between. We migrate, upgrade, downgrade, and re-edition between Express, Standard and Enterprise.

SQL 2005 SQL 2008 SQL 2008 R2 SQL 2012 SQL 2016 SQL 2017 SQL 2019 SQL 2022 SQL 2025 Express · Standard · Enterprise

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Our Other Services

Background reading on data readiness for AI

Definition

What is AI data readiness?

Data structure, quality, accessibility and governance — the foundations AI projects depend on, plain English.

Definition

What is AI readiness?

A primer on the five readiness dimensions — including data readiness — and how UK businesses are scoring.

Assessment

AI readiness for accounting & finance firms

How accounting and financial-services firms specifically should approach AI readiness, mapped to FCA expectations.

Wondering if your data is AI-ready?

The 4-minute AI Readiness Scorecard tells you

A free diagnostic scoring your data readiness, infrastructure, governance, security and use-case maturity. Personalised PDF report with a 30-day plan.

Start the scorecard

Get a Free Database Audit

We’ll review your data estate and deliver a scored report with prioritised actions within 48 hours. No commitment, no sales pressure, just useful information you can act on.

Request Database Audit

Database Engineering