Search “cloud consultancy London” or “cloud consultancy Leeds” and you’ll drown in firms that all say the same things: certified, experienced, trusted, end-to-end. This guide is our attempt at something more useful \u2014 the questions that actually separate good from expensive, written for the person who has to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, we’re a cloud consultancy in London and Leeds, so read with that in mind. But every test below is one we’re happy to be measured against, which is rather the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. “Who exactly will do the work?”<\/strong> The oldest trick in consultancy is selling you the grey-haired expert and delivering the graduate scheme. Ask for the names of the engineers on your<\/em> engagement, their experience, and whether the person scoping the work is the person delivering it. A firm that can’t answer plainly has answered anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. “Will everything be built as code, in our repository?”<\/strong> For Azure work especially: infrastructure delivered as Bicep or Terraform in your<\/em> source control can be reviewed, rebuilt and inherited by your team. Portal click-throughs can’t. This one question filters out a remarkable share of the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. “What happens if we leave?”<\/strong> Good consultancies are relaxed about this question; the wrong ones get vague. You want documentation as a deliverable, credentials in your hands, and no proprietary glue holding your own estate hostage. Lock-in is a business model, not an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. “Can we speak to a client like us?”<\/strong> Not a logo wall \u2014 a phone call with a reference client of similar size and sector. Pay attention to what they say about the awkward moments: how problems were handled tells you more than how successes were presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. “What’s the fixed price, and what’s excluded?”<\/strong> Open-ended day rates put all the risk on you. Fixed-scope engagements with clearly stated exclusions put the estimation risk where it belongs \u2014 on the people claiming expertise. If a firm won’t fix a price for a well-defined phase, ask why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. “Show us a cost forecast before we commit.”<\/strong> Any credible cloud consultancy can estimate your Azure run costs before migration, and should volunteer FinOps guardrails (budgets, alerts, tagging) as standard. “The bill will be what the bill will be” is a warning, not an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does a London firm serve Leeds well, and vice versa? Mostly, yes \u2014 cloud work is remote-first by nature, and delivery quality travels fine. Where local presence genuinely matters: workshops at the start of an engagement, on-site discovery of physical infrastructure, and the trust that comes from sitting in the same room for the difficult conversations. Firms with feet in both cities (we work from London and Leeds, serving clients UK-wide) get you both without the day-rate-plus-train-fare economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’ll know you’ve chosen well when, three months in, your own team understands the estate better than they did before the consultancy arrived. Knowledge transfer is the tell: firms confident in their value teach; firms dependent on your ignorance don’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLocal, remote, or both?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Red flags worth naming<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What choosing well looks like<\/h2>\n\n\n\n