IT Consultant Hire - IT Pro Expert

A · vCIO

Executive strategy & vCIO services

Strategic roadmapping. Developing 3–5 year technology roadmaps that align IT with business growth (e.g. scaling from 50 to 200 users).
Digital transformation. Leading initiatives for paper-to-digital migration and on-premises to cloud transitions.
Board advisory. Translating technical concepts into commercial risk and ROI language for C-suite stakeholders.
Business continuity planning. Strategies for personnel continuity, alternative worksites, crisis protocols and defining RTO / RPO targets.

B · BCP / DR

Backup, business continuity & disaster recovery

3-2-1-1-0 backup architecture. Three copies of data, on two media types, one off-site, one immutable, with zero errors after recovery testing — the modern standard for ransomware survivability.
Immutable & air-gapped backups. Object-lock S3 buckets (AWS, Wasabi, Backblaze B2), Veeam hardened repositories and rotated offline media — designed so an attacker with full administrative access still cannot destroy the restore point.
RTO & RPO target setting. Defining Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives per system based on business impact analysis, rather than applying a single policy to everything.
Restore testing. Scheduled full-restore drills against isolated environments — because an untested backup is not a backup. Documented test results retained for audit and insurance evidence.
Ransomware playbook. Pre-written decision trees for isolation, evidence preservation, regulator notification timing (ICO 72-hour clock), insurance carrier engagement, ransom-negotiation considerations and clean-rebuild procedures.
Business continuity planning. Personnel continuity, alternative worksites, communications fallback (when email is down), supplier dependency mapping and crisis-leadership rotas.
Disaster recovery sites. Hot, warm and cold DR site architectures; cross-region cloud replication; database failover patterns and DNS-level cutover procedures.
Tabletop exercises. Facilitating board-level and IT-team scenario walkthroughs — ransomware, data breach, key-person loss, supplier failure, regional outage.

C · Finance

Financial governance & procurement

Budgetary lifecycle. Strategic shifting of IT spend from CapEx (hardware) to OpEx (SaaS / IaaS).
TCO analysis. Calculating total cost of ownership — price, power, support and licensing — to inform procurement.
Vendor management. Negotiating SLAs and contracts; consolidating vendor sprawl.

D · GRC

Governance, risk & compliance

Cyber Essentials & Cyber Essentials Plus. Preparing infrastructure for certification; auditing boundary firewalls, patch levels and ACLs to UK government standards.
Risk management. Quantitative and qualitative risk assessment (ISO 27005 / NIST SP 800-30); maintaining risk registers and defining risk appetite.
Regulatory frameworks. DPIAs for UK GDPR compliance and aligning IT operations with ISO 27001 controls.
Policy formulation. Writing robust Incident Response Plans, Disaster Recovery protocols and Acceptable Use Policies.

E · Expert witness

Expert witness, litigation & legal advisory

Single Joint Expert & party-instructed engagements. Acting under CPR Part 35 with the duty to the court overriding any duty to the instructing party — for civil, commercial and intellectual property disputes.
CPR Part 35 compliant reports. Drafting compliant expert reports including statement of truth, declaration, methodology, opinion, list of literature relied upon and curriculum vitae appendix — to the standard the Civil Procedure Rules require.
Disclosure & preservation. Advising solicitors on technical disclosure scope, preservation orders, forensic imaging requirements (bit-for-bit, hash-verified) and Norwich Pharmacal / Bankers Trust order workflows where third-party data is needed.
Chain of custody. Maintaining evidential chain-of-custody documentation from seizure through analysis to courtroom presentation — write-blocked acquisition, SHA-256 hash verification, sealed storage and signed handling logs.
Subject-matter areas.
- Cyber incidents — ransomware, business email compromise, data breach attribution, insider threat investigations.
- Intellectual property & trade secrets — source code comparison, software lineage analysis, departing employee data exfiltration.
- Contract & service-level disputes — assessing whether an IT project, software build or managed-service engagement met its specification.
- Employment matters — workplace device examination, communications recovery, conduct evidence.
- Hardware failure & data loss — establishing root cause for insurance claims and supplier disputes.
Joint expert meetings. Participating in expert-to-expert discussions to narrow issues, producing the agreed joint statement of points of agreement and disagreement for the court.
Cross-examination & testimony. Giving oral evidence at hearing, prepared to defend methodology and opinions under examination by opposing counsel.
Pre-action advisory. Technical assessment of merits before proceedings are issued — helping solicitors and corporate counsel decide whether a technical claim is worth pursuing.
Crisis management & incident commander. Acting as Incident Commander during active security breaches — coordinating technical remediation, evidence preservation, legal counsel and executive communications in parallel.
Forensic reporting for non-litigation. Detailed root-cause reports for boards, regulators (ICO under UK GDPR Article 33), insurers and internal stakeholders — translating complex telemetry into clear timelines.

A · Red team

Offensive security & penetration testing

Scoped penetration test engagements. Black-box, grey-box and white-box test delivery against PTES and OWASP testing methodologies — including pre-engagement rules of engagement, scope locking, formal reporting and post-remediation retesting.
Kali Linux framework. Advanced proficiency with the Kali ecosystem for full-scope penetration testing.
Vulnerability assessment. Automated scanning (Nessus, OpenVAS, Qualys) and manual validation to identify CVEs.
Web application security. Testing against the OWASP Top 10 (SQLi, XSS, CSRF) using Burp Suite Professional and OWASP ZAP.
Network penetration. Exploitation of legacy protocols (NetBIOS / SMB) and man-in-the-middle attacks using Metasploit Framework and Responder.
Wireless & physical adjacencies. Wi-Fi assessment with hashcat-based WPA2/3 key recovery, rogue-AP detection, and authorised use of Raspberry Pi-based field kit and Alfa AWUS adapters where physical-site assessment is in scope.
Security scripting. Custom tooling in Python (packet manipulation with Scapy) and Bash to automate reconnaissance and exploit delivery.

B · Blue team

Defensive security & incident response

Network security architecture. Segmentation, honeypots and DMZs to minimise lateral movement.
Intrusion detection. Snort and Suricata configuration; analysis of traffic patterns for anomalies.
Threat intelligence. OSINT tooling (Maltego, Recon-ng) and adversary mapping to the MITRE ATT&CK framework to predict TTPs.
Incident response. Leading the IR lifecycle — preparation, detection, containment, eradication, recovery — for breaches and ransomware events.
SIEM operations. Aggregating logs into Splunk or Wazuh to correlate events and trigger alerts on active compromises.

C · Cryptography

Applied cryptography & code breaking

Encryption. AES-256, RSA and ECC implementation; PGP / GPG key management for secure communications.
Cryptanalysis. GPU-accelerated code breaking (CUDA / OpenCL) using Hashcat and John the Ripper for authorised password auditing and recovery.
BitLocker & FDE forensics. Techniques for extracting Volume Master Keys (VMK) via RAM dumps or TPM sniffing — used only under proper legal authority.
Steganography. Analysing multimedia files to detect hidden payloads or exfiltrated corporate data.

A · Physical servers

Server build, specification & commissioning

Server specification. Sizing tier-1 servers (Dell PowerEdge, HPE ProLiant, Lenovo ThinkSystem, Supermicro) and tier-2/whitebox builds against the actual workload — CPU socket count and core type, memory channel population, NIC speed, drive bay topology and PSU redundancy.
Physical build & commissioning. Chassis assembly, CPU and heatsink installation, DIMM placement for correct memory-channel population, NVMe and SAS/SATA drive layout, RAID controller cabling, OOB management module installation and full POST-to-production commissioning.
RAID & storage architecture. Hardware RAID controller configuration (Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom) and software stacks (ZFS on Linux/TrueNAS, Storage Spaces Direct, mdadm). RAID level selection (1 / 5 / 6 / 10 / 50 / 60) matched to performance, capacity and rebuild-window requirements, with hot-spare and parity strategies.
Firmware lifecycle. BIOS / UEFI updates, BMC firmware, RAID controller and backplane firmware, NIC firmware — coordinated through vendor management consoles (Dell OpenManage, HPE OneView) to keep fleets consistent.
Out-of-band management. Dell iDRAC, HPE iLO, Lenovo XCC, Supermicro IPMI and standalone KVM-over-IP — configured for remote console access, virtual media mounting, hardware health alerting and power control on isolated management networks.
Storage appliances. Specification and deployment of Synology, QNAP and TrueNAS storage arrays alongside server fleet; iSCSI and NFS target provisioning for hypervisor datastores.
Decommissioning & secure data destruction. Certified data sanitisation (NIST 800-88 standards), drive shredding, asset-disposal documentation and compliant end-of-life processes for retired servers.

B · Datacentre

Datacentre & on-premises facility management

Rack architecture. 19″ rack planning — U-allocation, cable management arms, blanking panels, weight distribution and front-to-back airflow design. Designing builds for both customer comms rooms and colocation cabinets.
Colocation operations. Working with UK colocation providers — remote-hands ticketing workflows, change-control procedures, cross-connect provisioning, smart-hands escalation paths and access-control management for engineer visits.
Power & cooling. Server room and DC-grade power design — A/B feed redundancy, dual-PSU strapping across feeds, UPS sizing with runtime targets, generator failover testing, and hot/cold aisle containment with environmental monitoring (temperature, humidity, dew point, water ingress).
Cable management. Structured patching from server NICs through ToR switches to MDF/IDF — colour-coded by VLAN/function, labelled at both ends, documented in patch schedules.
Capacity & lifecycle planning. Tracking rack space, power draw (kW per cabinet), cooling headroom and growth runway; planning hardware refresh waves before end-of-support or warranty expiry.
Migrations & lift-and-shifts. Planning and executing physical server relocations — between offices, into colo, or onto cloud — with minimal downtime windows and full rollback contingencies.

C · Linux

Linux & open-source administration

Distribution mastery. Deep administration of Red Hat (RHEL) / CentOS / AlmaLinux (RPM-based) and Debian / Ubuntu / Mint (DEB-based); management of Kali and Parrot OS for security work.
Kernel tuning. Managing kernel modules (modprobe), configuring sysctl.conf for high-throughput networking (TCP window scaling) and file descriptor limits (ulimit).
Server hardening.
- Access control — SELinux and AppArmor profile configuration.
- Firewalling — advanced rule creation in IPTables, NFTables and UFW.
- SSH hardening — key-based authentication (Ed25519), disabled root login, non-default ports, Fail2Ban for brute-force prevention.
Package & patch management. Automated updates via unattended-upgrades or Ansible; compiling from source (Make / GCC); managing repositories (PPA / Snap / Flatpak).

D · Windows & virtualisation

Windows Server & enterprise virtualisation

Windows Server estate. Building, patching and managing Windows Server (2016 / 2019 / 2022 / 2025) — both standalone and as part of multi-server fleets, on bare metal, on hypervisors and on cloud IaaS.
Active Directory Domain Services. Forest and domain design, multi-site replication topology with appropriate site links, FSMO role placement, Group Policy architecture, OU and delegation strategy, and trust relationships. Hardening against credential-theft attacks and Kerberoasting.
Identity supporting services. Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) for internal PKI, AD Federation Services (AD FS) for legacy SAML, Azure AD Connect (Entra Connect) for hybrid identity, password hash sync and pass-through authentication.
Core infrastructure roles. DNS (including conditional forwarders and DNSSEC), DHCP with failover partnerships, File Server with DFS-N and DFS-R replication, Print Services with universal print integration, WSUS for patch distribution and Network Policy Server (RADIUS) for Wi-Fi and VPN authentication.
Remote Desktop Services. RDS farm design — Session Hosts, Connection Brokers, Web Access, Gateway and Licensing — with high availability, profile management (FSLogix) and published app delivery.
Hyper-V. Standalone Hyper-V hosts and Hyper-V Failover Clusters with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV); live migration, storage migration and replica configuration; integration with Windows Admin Center.
VMware vSphere. ESXi host installation and patching (vLCM / Update Manager), vCenter Server deployment, vSphere clusters with HA and DRS, vMotion, Storage vMotion, distributed switching (vDS) and resource-pool design. NSX-T basics where required.
Proxmox VE. Building Proxmox clusters with Ceph or ZFS-replicated storage, snapshot management, container (LXC) and KVM workloads, and migrating legacy VMware estates onto Proxmox for cost reduction.
Other hypervisors. XCP-ng / Xen Orchestra for open-source virtualisation; KVM with libvirt for Linux-native deployments; Nutanix AHV familiarity for hyperconverged deployments encountered in the field.
Backup & replication. Veeam Backup & Replication for VMware/Hyper-V/Proxmox workloads, application-aware processing for Exchange/SQL/AD, immutable backup repositories and replication to DR sites or cloud.
SQL Server administration. Installation, maintenance, Always On Availability Groups, backup strategy, log shipping, performance tuning and migration between editions.
Patch & configuration management. WSUS, Microsoft Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM), Intune for hybrid-managed devices, and PowerShell DSC for desired-state enforcement.

E · Observability

Systems monitoring & observability

Enterprise monitoring. Deployment of Zabbix and Nagios Core for SNMP polling and agent-based monitoring.
Time-series metrics. Prometheus scrapers visualised in Grafana dashboards — disk I/O, CPU steal time, application-specific metrics.
Custom agent development. Bash and Python agents written for business-specific logic (e.g. monitoring an Odoo API for HTTP 200, parsing proprietary backup logs).
Log aggregation. rsyslog management, logrotate policies and centralised logging (ELK stack, Graylog) to prevent disk overflow.

F · Web stack

High-performance web stack (LAMP / LEMP)

Web servers. Nginx as reverse proxy, load balancer and web server; Apache with .htaccess overrides for SEO URLs and MPM tuning (Prefork vs Event).
PHP optimisation. PHP-FPM pool process managers (static vs dynamic), RAM-based worker calculations, OPcache configuration.
Caching layers. Redis and Memcached for object caching to reduce database load.
CDN integration. Configuring origin servers for Cloudflare.
Encryption (PKI). Automated certificate renewal via Certbot (Let’s Encrypt), HSTS enforcement and disabling weak ciphers (TLS 1.0 / 1.1).

G · Cloud

Cloud infrastructure (IaaS / PaaS)

Multi-cloud. Architecting solutions on AWS (EC2 / S3 / VPC), DigitalOcean, Ionos and Vultr.
VPS hardening. Day-zero setup scripts (user creation, SSH keys, firewall) to secure fresh instances immediately.
Storage & snapshots. Expandable block-storage volumes; object storage (AWS S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2) for off-site immutable backups.
Snapshot strategy. Automated rolling snapshots for ransomware rollback (hourly / daily / weekly retention).
Containerisation. Docker for application isolation; Portainer and Kubernetes for orchestration and lifecycle management.

H · Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 & SaaS administration

Tenant architecture. Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), Conditional Access Policies (geofencing, device compliance) and SSO integrations.
Migrations. Tenant-to-tenant migrations (BitTitan, ShareGate) and IMAP-to-Exchange cutovers.
Exchange Online. Diagnosing NDRs, analysing message headers, configuring connectors for SMTP relays and managing hybrid Exchange environments via Azure AD Connect.
Email authentication. Implementing and monitoring SPF, DKIM, DMARC (with quarantine and reject policies), BIMI for brand visibility and MTA-STS for in-transit encryption — restoring inbox placement for domains hit by deliverability issues.
Compliance & governance. Retention labels, DLP policies and eDiscovery searches for legal holds.
Intune (MDM). Device enrolment, Autopilot deployment profiles and remote wipe execution.

I · DBA

Database administration

SQL management. MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL — master-replica replication for read-scaling and master-master for high availability.
Disaster recovery. Automated backups with GPG encryption before off-site transfer.
Performance tuning. Using EXPLAIN to analyse slow queries, adding missing indexes, configuring engine and query-cache limits against available server RAM.
Data integrity. Repairing corrupted MyISAM / InnoDB tables and resolving collation and charset issues (UTF8mb4 conversions).

J · DevSecOps

Cloud security & DevSecOps

Cloud security auditing. Auditing cloud environments for IAM misconfigurations, public S3 buckets and unencrypted volumes.
Identity & access management. Least-privilege principles, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Just-in-Time (JIT) access policies.
Container security. Scanning Docker images for CVEs and hardening against runtime attacks.

A · Layer 1

Physical layer & structured cabling

Copper infrastructure.
- Design & install — end-to-end installation of Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6a (10GbE) shielded, unshielded and armoured cabling.
- Certification — proficient with Fluke DSX CableAnalyzers for crosstalk (NEXT / FEXT), insertion loss and wire-map integrity to TIA / ISO standards.
- Containment — installation of J-hooks, cable trays and conduit (PVC / EMT) bending for commercial environments.
Fibre optic engineering.
- Types — single-mode (OS2) for long-haul / ISP links; multi-mode (OM3 / OM4) for high-speed server backbones.
- Testing — OTDR (Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer) analysis to pinpoint breaks and high-loss splices.
Outside plant. Armoured direct-burial fibre and aerial lashing for inter-building connectivity.
Grounding & protection. ANSI / TIA-607 grounding busbars and Ethernet surge protectors (ETH-SP-G2) for outdoor equipment to prevent ESD damage.

B · Power

High voltage, backup power & environmental

Enterprise power systems.
- UPS management — sizing and installing APC and Eaton units; configuring network management cards for automated server shutdown.
- PDU configuration — switched and metered PDUs for remote power-cycling of locked equipment.
- Mains integration — 110V–240V AC load balancing, single- and three-phase requirements for server racks, MCB / RCD protection.
Renewable & off-grid power (ESS).
- Solar logic — high-voltage DC string inverters (Axpert / Victron) and MPPT charge controllers.
- Battery technology — LiFePO4 storage banks with BMS communication (CAN bus / Modbus).
- Hybrid systems — Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) for seamless failover between grid, generator and battery.
Server room environment. Rack layout (hot / cold aisle containment) and environmental monitoring — dew point, humidity, temperature — integrated with alerting.

C · Layer 2 / 3

Network design & engineering

WAN & SD-WAN strategy.
- Failover logic — Policy-Based Routing (PBR) to route VoIP via fibre and bulk traffic via Starlink or LTE.
- Bonding — WAN aggregation (load balancing) to combine bandwidth from multiple ISPs.
- Starlink integration — High-Performance dishes with bypass mode for direct public IP integration.
Wireless ISP (WISP) engineering.
- Long-range backhauls — licensed-band microwave links (11GHz / 18GHz / 23GHz) for inter-site connectivity beyond 10 miles.
- Mid-range unlicensed — 5GHz airMAX and AC links for shorter spans where licensed spectrum isn’t justified.
- Short-range gigabit — 60GHz wireless bridging (UniFi GBE / Wave / airFiber 60) for sub-mile high-throughput campus and rooftop-to-rooftop links.
- Physics — calculating link budgets, Fresnel zones, Free Space Path Loss (FSPL), oxygen absorption at 60GHz and rain-fade margins.
- Spectrum analysis — RF explorers to identify noise floors and select clean channels.
Core switching & routing.
- Protocols — advanced OSPF / BGP routing, LACP (802.3ad) link aggregation, Spanning Tree (RSTP / MSTP) tuning to prevent loops.
- Segmentation — zero-trust network design using granular VLANs (voice, data, IoT, guest, management).

A · Scope

Whole-ecosystem capability

Every Ubiquiti product line. Skilled to install, implement, configure, diagnose and manage every device across UniFi, airMAX, airFiber, GigaBeam, UISP, UFiber and AmpliFi — from a single in-wall access point to a multi-site enterprise build.
Every UniFi application. Deep working knowledge of Network, Protect, Access, Talk, Drive (UNAS), Identity, Connect, InnerSpace and Mobility — including the inter-app dependencies that catch most installers out.
Every console class. Cloud Keys (legacy Gen2 / Gen2 Plus / Enterprise), Dream Machines (UDM, UDM Pro, UDM SE, Dream Machine Pro Max, Dream Router, Dream Wall), Cloud Gateways (UCG-Ultra, UCG-Max, UCG-Fiber), the standalone Network Server, and self-hosted UniFi OS Server on customer hardware.
Multi-tenant operation. Comfortable across single-site SOHO installs, multi-site SMB chains and full UniFi Site Manager managed-service deployments for MSP workflows.

B · Network

UniFi Network — wired & wireless

Controller architecture & migrations. Migrating self-hosted controllers (Linux, Docker, Windows) onto UniFi OS consoles or UniFi OS Server; cross-console site backups, restores and L2/L3 adoption across networks.
Wi-Fi engineering across every generation. Specification, mounting and tuning of Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points — indoor, in-wall, outdoor, long-range, mesh, BaseStation XG, and the U6 / U7 family including U7 Pro XGS for spectral scanning.
High-density & survey work.
- Predictive planning — WiFiman, Design Center and InnerSpace floorplan modelling with coverage and capacity overlays.
- Live site survey — AP placement validation, channel planning, co-channel and adjacent-channel interference mitigation.
- Roaming behaviour — minimum RSSI, 802.11r / k / v fast-roaming, BSS transition tuning and cell-size adjustment for seamless handoff.
SSID strategy & security. WPA3-Enterprise with RADIUS, Private Pre-Shared Keys (PPSK) for IoT segmentation, Hotspot / captive portal flows, guest network isolation and voucher systems.
Switching at every tier. Configuration of USW Flex, USW Lite, USW Pro, USW Aggregation, USW Enterprise, USW Pro Max and the EnterpriseXG / Pro XG 10G / 25G switching range — including VLAN design, LACP / link aggregation, RSTP / loop prevention, jumbo frames, ACLs and storm control.
Gateway & firewall. Configuring UXG, UDM, UCG and Dream Wall gateways with IDS / IPS, Geo-IP blocking, Smart Queues for QoS, Teleport VPN (WireGuard), Site-to-Site VPN, Site Magic SD-WAN and traffic flow rules.
WAN resilience. Multi-WAN failover, WAN load-balancing and policy-based routing across fibre, Starlink, LTE / 5G and UMR cellular gateways.

C · Protect

UniFi Protect — surveillance & AI video

Full camera range. Specification, mounting, focusing and configuration of every Protect camera — G3 / G4 / G5 / G6 series including Flex, Instant, Bullet, Dome, Pro, PTZ, AI Pro, AI Bullet, AI 360, AI Theta, AI LPR (licence plate), AI DSLR and the Smart Flood Light. NDAA compliance handled where required.
Storage & recording. Cloud Key Gen2 Plus, UNVR, UNVR Pro and UNVR Toolless deployments — including RAID 1 / 5 / 6 / 10 configuration, drive sizing for retention targets and stacked NVR architectures for 30–90+ day retention.
AI & smart detection tuning.
- Object classification — person, vehicle, package and animal detection thresholds.
- Licence plate recognition — gate-access logging, allow-lists and integration with UniFi Access.
- Smart Detections workflow — face recognition, motion zones, privacy masks, scheduled detections and event-bridge automations.
Doorbell & intercom integration. G4 Doorbell Pro, G5 Doorbell, G4 Doorbell — including chime configuration, package detection, two-way audio and cross-app linking with Access.
Viewport & spot-monitors. ProtectView, Viewport hardware and Connect Display deployment for guard stations and reception desks.

D · Access

UniFi Access — door & building control

Reader & hub installation. UA-Hub, UA-Hub Door, UA-Hub Door Mini, UA-Hub Elevator, UA-G2-Pro, UA-G3 readers, UA-Lite, UA-SK keypads and UA-Intercom.
Door hardware. Wiring magnetic locks (Maglocks), electric strikes, Request-to-Exit (REX) sensors, door position sensors and emergency break-glass overrides — all to fire-safety code.
Credential management. NFC card programming, UA Pro fob enrolment, mobile credential issuance via UniFi Identity, PIN codes and dual-factor (card + PIN) policies.
Visitor management. UA-Intercom directory configuration, app-based unlocking, time-limited PIN codes and visitor schedules.
Cross-app automation. Linking Access events to Protect camera bookmarks, sending denial notifications, and tying door unlock to LPR-triggered gate workflows.

E · Talk

UniFi Talk — telephony

Talk console deployment. Provisioning Talk on supported UniFi OS consoles, configuring extensions, ring groups, IVR menus, voicemail-to-email and business-hours routing.
Handset commissioning. UVP-Touch, UVP-X, UVP-Executive and UVP-Flex phones — including auto-provisioning, hot-desking and headset pairing.
SIP trunk integration. Connecting Talk to third-party SIP carriers, configuring call routing logic and migrating numbers via LNP / porting workflows.
Site-wide DECT. Where Talk isn’t the right fit, integrating UniFi network infrastructure with Yealink, Grandstream and Snom DECT systems running alongside.

F · Drive

UniFi Drive (UNAS) — storage & collaboration

UNAS deployment. Specification and installation of UNAS Pro and UNAS-2 NAS appliances; RAID configuration (1, 5, 6, 10), volume layout, hot-spare strategy and capacity planning.
File services. Configuring SMB / CIFS shares, ACL design, snapshot retention policies and version history for ransomware resilience.
Remote access. UniFi Identity-backed remote file access via web, desktop and mobile clients with SSO.
Backup workflows. NAS-to-cloud replication targets (Backblaze B2, Wasabi, S3) for true 3-2-1 backup posture.

G · Identity

UniFi Identity & Connect

Identity Standard & Enterprise. Provisioning users, groups and devices; SSO across UniFi applications and third-party SAML / OIDC apps.
Directory integration. Synchronising users from Microsoft Entra ID, on-premises Active Directory, Google Secure LDAP, JumpCloud or standard LDAP.
Custom certificates & trust. Uploading custom TLS certificates to UniFi OS for clean browser trust on internal portals.
UniFi Connect. Managing Connect Displays for digital signage, lobby information screens and EV charging station dashboards.
InnerSpace. Importing floorplans, drawing walls and obstructions, placing devices and visualising live Wi-Fi and camera coverage across the customer’s actual building.

H · Mobility

UniFi Mobility — cellular & vehicle

UMR series. Standalone UMR, UMR-Industrial and UMR-Ultra deployment for vehicle fleets, IoT, pop-up sites and remote outposts.
Operating modes. Router Mode for full-featured cellular WAN, LTE Passthrough Mode to hand the public IP to a downstream firewall, and Ethernet Bridge Mode for AP-only operation.
Mobility Cloud. Remote management via mobility.ui.com — fleet-wide monitoring, GPS tracking, S2S VPN, firewall and port-forward configuration.
Failover integration. Configuring UMR as an automatic LTE failover path on UDM / UCG gateways to keep critical sites online during fixed-line outages.

I · Long-range

airMAX, airFiber & GigaBeam

airMAX point-to-point. NanoBeam, LiteBeam, PowerBeam, RocketDish and Rocket Prism deployments for 5GHz inter-building and WISP links.
airMAX point-to-multipoint. Sector antenna design for serving multiple remote subscribers from a single mast.
airFiber long-haul. AF-5XHD, AF-11FX, AF-24HD and AF-60-XG for multi-Gbps backhauls over distances up to and beyond 100km on licensed bands.
GigaBeam & 60GHz. GBE, GBE-LR, Wave AP, Wave LR and Wave Pico for short-range gigabit and 10Gbit wireless bridging — campus links, rooftop-to-rooftop and last-mile fibre alternative.
Alignment & commissioning. Precise antenna alignment using built-in signal strength meters, calculating link budget margins and post-install certification of throughput and stability.

J · UISP & UFiber

Service provider & fibre platforms

UISP platform. Deploying UISP for WISP and FTTH operators — combining device monitoring, network topology mapping, outage detection and customer billing under one pane of glass.
EdgeMAX heritage estates. Continued support of legacy EdgeRouter, EdgeSwitch and ToughSwitch fleets, and structured migration paths onto UniFi where appropriate.
UFiber GPON. UFiber OLT configuration, ONU provisioning (UFiber Nano G, UFiber Loco) and fibre last-mile deployment up to 20km from the OLT.
AmpliFi. Where appropriate, AmpliFi Alien and HD mesh for residential customers who don’t need the full UniFi platform but want a consistent management story.

A · PBX

PBX architecture & server management

Asterisk implementation. Custom compilation and configuration of Asterisk; manual dial-plan authoring and AGI (Asterisk Gateway Interface) scripting.
VoIP platforms. Deployment, migration and maintenance of FreePBX, VitalPBX and multi-tenant environments on Linux VPS.
Session Border Controllers. Configuring SBCs for secure NAT traversal, SIP header manipulation and topology hiding to protect core infrastructure.

B · Quality

Traffic engineering & quality of service

Priority packet routing. VLAN tagging (voice VLAN) and Layer 3 DSCP / DiffServ markings (EF — Expedited Forwarding) to guarantee voice packets take precedence over bulk data.
Codec mastery. Expert tuning of compression protocols including G.722 for LAN excellence, G.729 for bandwidth-constrained links and Opus for variable-bitrate HD voice.
Analysis. Debugging RTP streams using Wireshark to identify jitter, packet loss and MOS (Mean Opinion Score) degradation.

C · Carrier

Carrier operations & number porting

Number porting (LNP). Managing complex Local Number Portability processes, resolving CSR (Customer Service Record) mismatches and coordinating FOC dates with losing carriers to minimise downtime.
SIP trunking. Multi-path SIP trunks with failover logic, DID (Direct Inward Dialling) mapping and E.164 number formatting compliance.

D · AI Voice

Next-generation AI VoIP integration

Programmable voice. Voice applications developed in Python and Node.js against carrier and platform APIs.
LLM integration. Conversational AI agents that intercept SIP streams for real-time transcription (STT) and sentiment analysis using OpenAI and Whisper models — replacing traditional IVR trees.

A · Governance

Service delivery & governance

SLA management. Design and enforcement of Service Level Agreements for response and resolution times (TTR).
ITIL framework.
- Incident management — protocols for rapid service restoration.
- Problem management — root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent recurring incidents.
- Change management — CAB procedures for approving high-risk infrastructure changes.
Client success. Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), translating technical metrics into business value for executive stakeholders, and dedicated executive support.
Documentation. Knowledge bases (IT Glue / Hudu), Standard Operating Procedures and network topology diagrams.

B · Support tiers

Multi-tiered support operations

Tier 1 — Service desk. Rapid triage and first-call resolution for user administration (Active Directory / Microsoft 365), password resets, printer mapping and standard software installation.
Remote support. Expert use of Remote Utilities, TeamViewer and SSH tunnelling for unattended and attended access.
Tier 2 — Escalation & field.
- Desktop analysis — debugging BSOD minidumps, repairing corrupted user profiles, resolving complex Outlook and Teams connectivity issues.
- Network troubleshooting — tracing cable faults, resolving IP conflicts, configuring local switch ports and VLANs onsite.
Tier 3 — Infrastructure & projects.
- Major incident management — leading response to critical server outages, ransomware events and wide-area network failures.
- Architectural remediation — rebuilding corrupted Exchange databases, migrating virtual machines (P2V / V2V), advanced firewall rule auditing.
- Legacy support — troubleshooting out-of-support operating systems and proprietary line-of-business applications.

C · Automation

RMM engineering & proactive automation

RMM mastery. Advanced configuration of Remote Monitoring and Management platforms.
Automation scripting. PowerShell (Windows) and Bash (Linux) for self-healing systems; automated software deployment via Chocolatey and Winget; bloatware removal.
Patch management. Designing staged rollout strategies (Alpha / Beta / Production) for software updates.
Predictive health monitoring. Configuring alert thresholds against CPU and memory trends rather than instantaneous spikes.
RAID & disk monitoring. SMART data analysis to predict drive failure before data loss occurs.

D · Asset & vendor

IT asset & vendor management

Lifecycle management. Tracking hardware age, warranty expiration (Dell service tags, HP serials) and planning tech refresh cycles for ageing fleet.
Software asset management. Auditing licence compliance for Microsoft 365, Adobe Creative Cloud and AutoCAD to prevent vendor penalties.
Vendor liaison. Acting as authorised technical contact for third-party vendors (ISPs, VoIP providers, SaaS tools) so the client never sits on hold.
Procurement. Specifying hardware requirements (CAD workstations vs admin laptops) and managing supply-chain logistics.

A · PCB

Circuit design & PCB engineering

Schematic & layout. Expert proficiency in KiCad (open source), Altium Designer and Eagle for commercial workflows.
Multi-layer design. Routing 4–6+ layer boards with dedicated ground / power planes, blind / buried vias and impedance control for high-frequency signals (USB / RF).
Component selection. Sourcing from LCSC / DigiKey / Mouser, managing BOMs and selecting packages (0402, QFN, BGA) for assembly.
Signal integrity. Designing for EMI / EMC using differential pairs, shielding cans for RF modules, bypass capacitors and crystal oscillator placement for microprocessor stability.
Design for manufacturing. Preparing Gerber files, Pick & Place (CPL) files and drill maps for fabrication houses (JLCPCB, PCBWay).
Custom UAV development. Flight controller coding, telemetry, long-range RF links, airframe design, drone mapping and thermal imaging integration — all within applicable UK CAA regulations.

B · Firmware

Embedded firmware & IoT development

Microcontroller architectures. Deep work on STM32 (ARM Cortex-M), ESP32 / ESP8266 (Xtensa) and AVR (Arduino, ATmega).
Low-level coding. C / C++ pointer manipulation, memory management and writing Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL) to interface with registers directly.
IoT protocols.
- Wireless — LoRaWAN (ChirpStack / TTN), MQTT over Wi-Fi and ESP-NOW for local mesh.
- Wired — I²C (sensors), SPI (displays / SD cards), UART (GPS / serial) and CAN bus (automotive / industrial).
RTOS & power management. FreeRTOS (tasks, queues, semaphores); deep-sleep modes and wake-on-interrupt for battery optimisation.
Smart building & environmental sensing. ESPHome and Home Assistant integration of custom-built IoT devices — air quality (SEN66 particulate, CO₂, VOC, NOx), energy monitoring with circuit-level CT clamps, water leak and flood detection, and ESP32-S3 dashboard displays driving real-time facilities telemetry.

C · Battery

Lithium battery engineering & ESS

Battery pack assembly.
- Chemistry — Li-ion (18650 / 21700) for density and LiFePO4 prismatic cells for safety and longevity.
- Construction — spot welding nickel strips (0.15mm / 0.2mm pure nickel), soldering high-current XT90 / Anderson connectors, designing 3D-printed cell spacers.
Battery management systems. Wiring and programming smart BMS units (Daly / JBD) with Bluetooth logging; configuring cut-off thresholds and understanding passive vs active balancing topology.
Solar & power conversion. Programming Victron MultiPlus or Solis hybrid inverters (ESS Assistants, grid feed-in limits) and optimising MPPT charge controllers based on Voc / Vmp temperature coefficients.

D · CAD / CAM

Mechanical design & rapid prototyping

3D CAD modelling. Parametric enclosures, IP67 / IP68 waterproof seals (O-rings, TPU gaskets) and thermal heatsink design.
Fabrication.
- Additive — FDM (PETG, ASA, TPU) and SLA resin for high-resolution prototypes.
- Subtractive — G-code generation for CNC routing.

E · Lab

Lab & test equipment

Debugging hardware. Logic analysers (Saleae) to decode protocol packets (I²C / SPI) visually.
Instrumentation. Digital storage oscilloscopes (DSO), bench power supplies (CV / CC modes) and thermal imaging cameras.
Soldering & rework. Expert hand-soldering of SMD components down to 0402, hot-air rework station use and reflow oven profiling.

A · Spectrum

RF analysis & interference hunting

Spectrum analysis. Operation of handheld and benchtop analysers (RF Explorer, TinySA Ultra, Rigol, Siglent) to visualise the RF environment.
Interference tracking. Identifying sources of RFI (wideband noise, harmonics, rogue transmitters) and analysing signal bandwidth and modulation to identify unauthorised devices.
Software Defined Radio.
- Hardware — HackRF One, RTL-SDR and LimeSDR (1MHz – 6GHz).
- Signal intelligence — SDR# (Sharp), SDR++ and GNU Radio Companion for demodulating and analysing raw IQ data.
- Protocol analysis — decoding digital protocols (POCSAG, ADS-B, ISM) and replay analysis using Universal Radio Hacker.

B · Digital radio

Digital & encrypted radio communications

DMR & P25. Configuring Tier 1 and Tier 2 DMR systems (Motorola MotoTRBO, Hytera) and P25 Phase 1 / 2.
Encryption. AES-256 and ARC4 encryption keys for secure voice and data transmission.
Codeplug programming. Building complex codeplugs managing talk groups, colour codes, TDMA time slots and roaming lists.
Trunking systems. Understanding control vs traffic channels and programming trunking scanners (Uniden, Whistler).

C · Analogue

Analogue & long-range transmission

Analogue transmission. FM, AM and SSB (Single Sideband) voice operations.
High Frequency. NVIS antennas for regional communications; understanding solar propagation cycles.
Business band. Licensing and configuring repeaters for site-wide logistics under UK Ofcom regulation.
Antenna engineering.
- Tuning — NanoVNA for precise SWR matching.
- Design — building Yagi, dipole and J-pole antennas.
- Cabling — fabricating low-loss coax assemblies (LMR-400 / RG-213).

D · Satellite

Direct-to-satellite uplinks & downlinks

VSAT & broadband satellite. Specification, installation and commissioning of fixed VSAT terminals — Ku-band and Ka-band dishes, BUC (Block Upconverter) and LNB selection, modem provisioning and link activation.
LEO constellations. Starlink Standard, Mini, High-Performance and Flat High-Performance deployments — including Bypass Mode for handing the public IP to a downstream firewall, roaming/regional service plans and mobility-rated installs for vehicles and vessels.
Antenna alignment & pointing. Azimuth, elevation and skew calculation against geostationary arc; signal-meter-assisted peaking of Ku/Ka dishes; line-of-sight verification for LEO constellations.
Link budget engineering. Calculating EIRP, G/T figures, free-space path loss and rain-fade margins across Ku and Ka bands; specifying dish gain for the target throughput.
Resilient hybrid WAN. Bonding satellite with terrestrial fibre, 5G / LTE and microwave links to deliver always-on connectivity for remote sites, vehicles, maritime operations and disaster-recovery scenarios.
Receive-only / SIGINT. Configuring satellite downlink receivers for telemetry capture, weather imagery (NOAA APT, GOES), ADS-B aircraft tracking and L-band reception via SDR.

E · LoRa mesh

IoT & LoRa long-range mesh networks

LoRaWAN infrastructure. Gateway deployment (Helium, TTN), device provisioning (AppEUI / DevEUI) and OTAA keys.
Off-grid mesh. Meshtastic nodes using ESP32 LoRa modules (LilyGO, RAK, Heltec) for decentralised emergency communications.
MQTT bridging. Configuring gateways to bridge local RF mesh data into central servers (Home Assistant, Grafana).

A · Tooling

Professional recovery tools

PC-3000 mastery. Expert proficiency with PC-3000 Express, UDMA and Portable (Ace Lab) for firmware repair, Service Area manipulation and translator regeneration.
DeepSpar operations. Using DeepSpar Disk Imager (DDI) for unstable read / write heads and bad-sector mapping protocols.

B · Cleanroom

Cleanroom & physical recovery

Head stack replacement. Precision head swaps using head combs and ramps in Class 100 cleanroom environments.
Platter exchange. Single- and multi-platter alignment to transfer data surfaces to a donor chassis without losing tracking alignment.
Motor remediation. Unsticking seized spindle motors and bearing replacement techniques.

C · Low level

Low-level diagnostics

Firmware repair. PCB ROM chip swapping and reprogramming, NVRAM editing and adaptive data matching.
Donor matching. Sourcing exact donor drives by DCM (Drive Configuration Manual), head maps and preamp revision codes.

A · AI strategy

AI strategy & enterprise deployment

AI readiness assessment. Auditing the business for sensible AI use cases — where it genuinely earns its place, where it’s a distraction, and where it’s a data-protection liability waiting to happen.
LLM integration. Building production integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini and self-hosted models (Llama, Mistral) via API — for document processing, customer support, summarisation and internal knowledge retrieval.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Architecting RAG pipelines so AI answers come from the customer’s actual documents, policies and data — not from the model’s general training. Vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector), chunking strategy and citation grounding.
MCP (Model Context Protocol). Building MCP servers that connect LLMs to live business systems — Stripe, CRM, ticketing, calendars — so AI agents can take real actions, not just chat.
AI governance & safety. Acceptable use policies, data classification (what may and may not be sent to a third-party model), prompt-injection defence, output validation, and regulatory alignment under UK GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Voice AI. Conversational agents that intercept SIP streams for real-time speech-to-text, sentiment analysis and intent routing — replacing rigid IVR trees with natural dialogue.
Microsoft Copilot & ecosystem AI. Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment, licence scoping, security guardrails and adoption training; integration with Teams, Outlook and SharePoint.

B · Full stack

Full-stack web & application development

Web architecture.
- Backend — expert PHP (7.4 / 8.x) and Node.js development.
- Frontend — HTML5, CSS3 (Grid / Flexbox), JavaScript ES6+ and responsive frameworks (Bootstrap, Tailwind).
- SEO & AI optimisation — implementing schema markup (JSON-LD) and structuring content for LLM-driven discovery.
Desktop & tooling. Developing C# (.NET / WPF) standalone executables and complex PowerShell / batch GUIs.
Code signing & software supply chain. YubiKey-protected EV code-signing certificates (DigiCert, GoGetSSL) for trusted Windows binaries — Authenticode-signed installers that pass SmartScreen reputation checks from day one rather than triggering browser warnings.
WordPress as a managed platform. Production WordPress hosting on Plesk-managed VPS; security hardening (Wordfence, file-permission lockdown, wp-admin IP allowlisting); malware cleanup and post-compromise rebuilds; Kadence and custom theme development; performance tuning with object caching and CDN edge rules.
Database management. Designing normalised SQL schemas (MySQL / MariaDB) and writing complex JOIN queries.

C · Creative

Creative studio & post-production

Video editing & VFX.
- Premiere Pro — advanced NLE workflows, multi-cam synchronisation and proxy workflows.
- After Effects — motion graphics, tracking, stabilisation and compositing.
Audio engineering. Adobe Audition spectral editing (noise removal) and mastering to broadcast standards.
Graphic design. Photoshop image editing, Illustrator for vector schematics and InDesign for whitepapers and reports.

D · Photography

Professional stills photography

Camera systems. Full working command of DSLR and mirrorless platforms — full-frame, APS-C and medium-format bodies — including manual exposure triangle control (aperture, shutter, ISO), RAW capture workflows and tethered shooting for client-review sessions.
Professional lens work. Specifying and operating across the lens stack — fast primes (35mm / 50mm / 85mm) for portraits, telephoto zooms for action, macro for product detail, tilt-shift for architecture and ultra-wide for environmental and interior work.
Studio lighting design.
- Modifiers — softboxes, octaboxes, beauty dishes, strip lights, snoots and grids matched to the subject.
- Multi-light setups — key, fill, rim, hair and background lighting with precise ratio control.
- Strobe & continuous — Godox, Profoto and Aputure systems, HSS sync, gel work for colour grading and ambient mixing.
Commissioned shoot disciplines.
- Portrait & modelling — headshots, editorial portraits, lookbooks and fashion test shoots.
- Product & e-commerce — clean-background catalogue work, hero shots and 360° turntable capture for online listings.
- Action & event — fast-paced subject tracking, low-light high-ISO work and multi-body coverage.
- Corporate & technical — headshots, premises photography, equipment documentation and case-study imagery.
Post-production. Lightroom catalogue management, batch processing, calibrated colour workflows (X-Rite ColorChecker), retouching in Photoshop (frequency separation, dodge-and-burn) and delivery in print-ready and web-optimised formats.
Asset pipeline integration. Where required, integrating shoot output directly into client website CMS systems, product feeds and brand asset libraries — keeping the photography deliverable joined-up with the broader digital estate.

E · Studio

Studio production & hardware operations

Cinematography & lighting. Operation of mirrorless and cinema cameras (Sony, Blackmagic), lens selection and three-point lighting design with Kelvin colour management.
Professional audio. Signal flow management (XLR / preamps) and proper microphone technique (shotgun, lavalier).
Live broadcasting. Configuring OBS Studio and vMix for live webinars with NDI integration and stream encoding.

Strategic IT Consultancy, Governance & Risk Management