BPCs Software — engineers by the hour

An engineer in your team by Monday.

When you have enough work to need a developer but not enough to hire one, borrow one of ours by the hour — working inside your team for as long as the problem lasts and not an hour longer.

Book a callSee the rates

No minimum. No notice period. Nothing to sign but a rate.

No booked days and no retainer — an engineer works the hours the job needs, billed to the quarter hour.How the hours work

Enough work for an engineer. Not enough for a hire.

A permanent developer is a salary you would struggle to fill a year with. An agency wants a scope and a minimum fee. There is a third option, and it is the only thing we do.

Option one

Hire a developer

  • A salary, a pension and a laptop before a line of code exists.
  • Three months to recruit, if the advert works at all.
  • One person's skillset, whatever the job turns out to need.
  • Not enough work to keep them busy by month four.
Option two

Go to an agency

  • A minimum engagement that assumes you are somebody else.
  • Weeks of scoping, paid for, before anything is built.
  • An account manager between you and the person typing.
  • Change your mind and it is a change request.
What we do instead

Borrow one of ours

  • An hourly rate and nothing else to commit to.
  • Usually starts the Monday after the call.
  • Different engineer when the job needs a different skill.
  • No set days: two hours one week, twenty the next, none the week after.

You hire the hours, not the promise.

Tell us what is broken. An engineer works out what it needs, builds it, and you pay for the hours they were on it — nobody technical required on your side.

They become your engineer

You describe the problem in plain English; they work out what it needs and build it. Nobody in the middle, nobody technical required on your side.

You own everything

The code, the accounts, the hosting. At the end you can keep us on, hand it to someone else, or ask us to walk away — it all still works.

Nobody is warming a seat

There are no days booked out to fill. If the week only needs three hours, three hours is what you are billed.

What an engineer costs.

Three bands by experience, published so you can do the sum yourself. The rate is the same whether you need a fortnight or a year.

Who you need
8 h
1 hour40 — full time

Nothing here is a booked day. Move the slider every week if you like — you are charged for the hours the work actually took, and a quiet week costs nothing.

What those hours costEstimate, not a quote
£680.00

8 hours with a senior engineer. A week like this one costs £680; four of them, £2,720. A week where you need nothing costs nothing.

Hourly rate£85.00
A morning, four hours£340.00
8 hours£680.00
Book a call

An estimate, not a quote. A quote has to cover the worst week, so it always carries padding. Working by the hour means we never have to build that in — you pay for the hours the work took, and nothing for the ones it didn't.

Invoiced monthly, itemised by job and hours. No agency fee, no minimum block, no charge for the call.

The full rates page, and what hiring costs instead

Four days from call to keyboard

  1. Twenty minutes on a call

    What is broken, who is already working on it, and what you would like to stop worrying about.

  2. We name the engineer

    Within two working days: who they are, what they have done before, their rate and the days they have free.

  3. They start

    Usually the following Monday, on the hours the first job needs rather than a booked block of days.

  4. The invoice arrives

    Monthly, itemised by job and hours. If a week was quiet, the week is cheap.

The work our engineers spend their hours on.

Four things come up again and again: build something new, fix something old, join systems together, sort the data out. If yours is not on the list, it is still worth the call — the answer is sometimes that you do not need us.

Build something new

A website customers book through, an app your staff log into, a back-office tool that replaces the spreadsheet. Built so the next engineer can read it, hosted where you control it.

Fix something old

Undocumented, load-bearing, and the person who built it has gone. Taken over, made safe to change, then replaced a piece at a time while it keeps running.

Join systems together

Your accounts package, your booking system and your supplier portal, talking to each other instead of to three people retyping.

Sort the data out

One honest number per screen, pulled from your own systems, and a backend that keeps it that way without a reporting team in the middle.

Mobile where it is needed

iOS and Android when the job genuinely needs a phone — a camera, a van, a warehouse aisle. Not because an app sounds good.

AI where it earns its keep

Sorting, drafting, extracting. We will also tell you when it is the wrong tool, which is often.

Screenshot of the system being replaced

Something the business runs on, that nobody left can maintain

The person who built it has gone. It works until it doesn't, and every change is a gamble. We put an engineer on it for a few days a week: first to understand it, then to make it safe to change, then to replace it a piece at a time while it keeps running.

Talk to us about a takeover

What the hours turned into.

Four jobs: what the business was, what was broken, what the engineer did, and where it stands now.

Installation engineer app, replacing paperwork and manual data entry

A technical systems, hardware and cabling installation company. Jobs were handed out through Outlook, reported on paper and email, then keyed into the database by the salesperson, so records lagged and forms sat on desks. One engineer built a phone app (iOS and Android) that hands out jobs, syncs calendars for engineers and managers, and lets engineers tick off work and log travel and onsite time day by day. It went in around 100 hours of work. Far more of the forms now get filled in, and the database keeps up with the engineers. It is live and we support and update it.

Built new· about 100 hours

Booking website, replacing phone-only bookings

A London plumbing company whose bookings all came by phone, on the back of word of mouth. One engineer built them a new website in around 50 hours. Customers choose the date and time they want and the company gets the request instantly, then calls to confirm the job and the exact time. It is live and we support it, though it rarely needs changing.

Built new· about 50 hours

Job system and Sage 50 integration, replacing manual cost and stock updates

A technical systems and cabling installation company whose job system and Sage 50 accounts lived out of step. Cost prices were typed in by the salesperson from a spreadsheet the owner produced now and then. One engineer connected the two: job components, invoices and costs pass into Sage, stock levels come back for costing, and approval rules block or release items as they move. The base took about 60 hours. When the client asked for more, another 30 went in as hours, with no change request. It is in testing with the client, not fully rolled out, and already solves their information problem. We will keep it working as Sage updates.

Integration· about 90 hours so far

Backend management system, updated as needed instead of quoted per change

A cabling and systems engineering company whose Microsoft Access database was slowly breaking down. Another software firm rebuilt it from the ground up as a MySQL database with a new web front end, easier to work with and more secure, since nobody can now reach the database itself. They handed it over at an agreed point, but it still needed support and new features. Our engineers took it over and add features as the client asks, weekly or monthly, by the hour, with no quote and no change log for each one. Over the years every part of it has been updated and checked. It is live, and still being worked on.

Taken over· ongoing

Not sure what you need

Book the call anyway

If an hour of an engineer's opinion is all it takes, that is all we will bill you for. The call itself is free.

Book a call

How we fit in

We work with whoever you have

An owner who knows the business, an IT contractor, a developer already stretched — our engineer works with them, adding what is missing and getting out of the way of what is not.

See how it works

Want an engineer next Monday?

Book a call