AI workflow assessment for UK consultancies - find the admin draining your billable hours.
We sit down with your consultancy for 60 minutes, diagnose where the unbillable hours actually go - proposals, scheduling, project admin, the research prep before every call - and hand back a report built around how you deliver: named tools, step-by-step recipes, and a prioritised plan to reclaim the time. Not a template.
The work between the work that never gets billed.
You bill clients at £110 an hour, some engagements at £200. Then a day and a half of every week disappears to the work in between: a proposal that takes half a day and might not close, diary tetris to line up three stakeholders for one call, the weekly status update, and 45 minutes of prep before every billable hour with the client.
None of it appears on an invoice, so none of it is visible - but it is the reason the pipeline stalls, the reason you turn down work you could have delivered, and the reason the evenings go. You know AI could take some of it. You just need someone to show you where, and in what order, for a consultancy that delivers the way yours does.
That is what the assessment is for. Not another webinar, not a generic tool list - a 60-minute diagnostic of your consultancy and a plan built around what will genuinely give you the hours back.
UK consultancies lose around £55,700 a year per consultant to unbillable admin.
The median UK consultancy loses 11 hours per consultant per week to admin. At a blended billing rate of £110 an hour across the 46-week UK working year, that is £55,660 of unbillable time every year - for each consultant in the firm.
£37,950
Associate rate - 11 hrs/week × £75 × 46 weeks
£55,660
Mid-tier rate - 11 hrs/week × £110 × 46 weeks
£101,200
Partner or specialist rate - 11 hrs/week × £200 × 46 weeks
The 11-hour benchmark is the median from HoursBack assessment data (n=20+) across UK consultancies, including management, IT, HR and marketing, cross-checked against published UK SME productivity research. Your consultancy will differ - run your own numbers in the admin cost calculator for consultancies, or read the full breakdown in where proposal writing time leaks in UK consultancies.
The assessment is £799 - less than half a day at most consulting rates.
Your six biggest time sinks - and what we do about each one.
We map your whole consultancy in the 60-minute session, then work backwards to the drains worth fixing first. Here is how that lands on the specific admin consultants feel.
Proposal and SoW writing
Every opportunity needs a tailored proposal - scope, deliverables, timeline, price. Two to four hours for a small one, a full day for a larger engagement, and half of them never close. We map how proposals get written in your firm and show where AI drafting from a structured brief cuts the time without flattening the tailoring that wins the work.
Meeting scheduling and rescheduling
Lining up client diaries, internal teams and subject-matter experts - eight to twelve minutes a booking by email, hours a week of pure diary work. We look at your actual scheduling flow and show which parts a booking tool or an AI assistant can take off your desk entirely.
Project admin and status updates
The weekly project email, the steering deck, the action log, the timesheet. None of it bills, all of it is required. We identify the updates AI can draft from your notes and the ones a light template plus transcription remove altogether.
Research and prep before client calls
Forty-five minutes of unbilled reading before every billable hour - the last three emails, the plan, the previous notes, the background. We show you how a transcript-plus-summary workflow turns that prep block into a ten-minute structured recap.
The senior-consultant inbox
Long client threads, internal escalations, partner queries, business-development follow-up - easily 90 minutes a day. We give you a prompt library for the replies you write most, so the inbox stops eating the morning.
The capacity ceiling
Engagements you cannot take on because the admin already fills the week. Your report prioritises by hours reclaimed, so you can free delivery capacity without hiring a coordinator first.
What this is - and what it isn’t.
The assessment is a diagnostic and a plan. Within two working days of your call you get a passcode-protected report: the AI and automation opportunities we have found for your consultancy, named tools with costs and setup time, step-by-step recipes, a prompt library, an impact-versus-effort ranking, and ROI worked out on your real numbers. It is written in plain English so you can act on it - no technical background needed.
It is guidance, not us doing the work for you. If the report flags something worth building - a proposal-drafting agent, say - the Custom AI Agent Build is a separate product from £2,500, scoped case by case. If you would rather implement the report’s quick wins yourself with someone beside you, the Implementation Kickstart (£349, 90 minutes) is there for that. The assessment always comes first.
Questions consultancies ask us.
We do confidential client work. Is it safe to put anything into AI tools?
Will AI-written proposals sound generic and cost us the work?
We already use Notion and ChatGPT. Is there anything left to find?
Is £799 worth it for a small consultancy?
One payment. A written plan,
a video walkthrough, and someone
checking in to make sure it happens.
A diagnostic session, personalised report, video walkthrough, and follow-up support. One payment, no ongoing costs.
Find out where your consultancy's hours actually go.
Book a 60-minute diagnostic. Get a report built around your consultancy within two working days, a video walkthrough, and follow-up support. Money back if it doesn't show at least 5 hours a week worth reclaiming.
Book your assessment →Not ready to book? Take the free 2-minute AI readiness quiz to see where your consultancy stands.