WordPress Developer London

Hire WordPress developers in London.

Senior London WordPress developers for custom themes, plugin development, headless builds, WooCommerce, integrations, and migrations — built properly by developers who understand WordPress at the code level. Project builds from £5,000; retainers and team augmentation available.

WordPressExpert
Lighthouse95+
1 2 3 4 5 import { useState } from 'react' function App() { const [data, setData] = useState([]) return ( TERMINAL $ yarn build ✓ compiled ✓ 0 errors ✓ ready

WordPress the way it should be built.

Custom Theme Development

Hand-coded themes with Webpack build pipelines, Advanced Custom Fields, and performance-first architecture. No page builders, no bloat.

Plugin Development

Custom plugins for unique business requirements — from API integrations and payment processing to booking systems and custom post types.

WooCommerce

Custom WooCommerce builds for e-commerce stores — product configurators, subscription systems, and checkout optimisation.

Headless & Decoupled

WordPress as the CMS with a React or Next.js front end, served over the REST API or WPGraphQL. The right call for some projects and the wrong one for many — we will tell you which.

Migrations

Moves from Squarespace, Wix, Shopify and legacy WordPress installs, with URL mapping and redirect plans written before a single page moves.

Integrations

CRMs, payment providers, booking systems, ERPs and internal tools connected through documented, testable code rather than a stack of third-party connector plugins.

Straight Answer on Cost

What this actually costs in London.

Most agency sites make you book a call to find out whether you can afford them. Here is the short version instead.

A custom WordPress build with us starts at £5,000. That figure buys a hand-coded theme, a proper content model, and a site that does not need a plugin stack to stand up. Brochure sites for professional-services firms typically land between £5,000 and £12,000. WooCommerce stores and anything with real application logic — portals, configurators, integrations with systems you already run — generally fall between £10,000 and £40,000, driven almost entirely by how much of your business logic has to live in the site.

Ongoing work runs on a retainer from £150 per month, which is a predictable block of senior developer time rather than a support ticket queue. If you need someone inside your existing team for a sprint or a quarter, we quote a day rate after a scoping call — the number depends on the stack and the seniority you actually need, and quoting it blind would be a guess.

If you want the full market picture rather than just ours, we wrote it up: how much it costs to hire a WordPress developer in London covers freelance rates, agency rates, and the hidden costs that turn a cheap build expensive.

Day Rate & EngagementsFixed at quote
London£900per day
TorontoCA$1,500per day
Los AngelesUS$1,200per day
EngagementFromBest for
Fixed-scope build£5,000New sites
Commerce / app£10,000WooCommerce, portals
Retainer£150/moOngoing work
Team augmentation£900/daySprint capacity
Why Choose Us

We're not a theme installation shop.

Our WordPress builds are custom-coded with clean, maintainable PHP, modern SCSS, ES6 JavaScript, and Webpack asset pipelines. The kind of WordPress site that scores 95+ on Lighthouse and loads in under 2 seconds — not the kind that needs 47 plugins to function.

  • Custom themes built on modern development standards
  • Bespoke plugins, custom post types, and REST API / WPGraphQL integrations
  • WooCommerce builds and third-party integrations — see our ClickSend SMS & WooCommerce walkthrough
  • Headless WordPress with React/Next.js frontends
  • Platform migrations with full SEO continuity
  • Ongoing maintenance, security, and performance monitoring
  • WordPress Multisite and enterprise deployments

Looking for design as well as development? See our full WordPress agency services.

Get a Quote
Plugin stack
Page builderSliderSEOFormsCacheBackupSecurityGalleryPopupsAnalyticsRelated postsSocial+35 more
41Lighthouse
vs
Hand-coded theme
Custom themeACF content modelWebpack pipelineno page builder
98Lighthouse

Work with our developers the way that fits.

Transparent pricing and flexible engagements — whether you need a fixed-scope build, an ongoing retainer, or an extra pair of senior hands on your team. For a detailed breakdown of what development actually costs, read our guide on how much it costs to hire a WordPress developer in London.

Fixed-Scope Projects

Defined deliverables, timeline, and price. Custom WordPress builds from £5,000, scoped after a free discovery call. Ideal for new sites and defined feature work.

Monthly Retainers

Ongoing development, maintenance, and priority support from £150/month — a predictable block of senior developer time each month for evolving sites.

Team Augmentation

Embed a senior WordPress developer into your in-house team for a sprint or a quarter. Day rates on request after a scoping call.

How We Write Code

Standards you can inherit and maintain.

Every build follows WordPress coding standards, ships with a modern Webpack pipeline, and is documented so your next developer — in-house or agency — can pick it up without a rewrite. We open-source our foundations: our Thorn starter theme is the same clean, hand-coded base we build client sites on.

  • WordPress coding standards, PHPCS, and version control on every project
  • Modern SCSS, ES6 JavaScript, and Webpack asset pipelines — no page builders
  • The open-source Thorn starter theme as our production-tested foundation
  • Documented handovers so your site stays maintainable long after launch

Need design as well? See our WordPress agency in London or our custom WordPress design service.

your-sitemain
theme/ functions.php templates/ docs/ ARCHITECTURE.md HANDOVER.md
feat content model for case studies perf defer non-critical assets docs handover notes + walkthrough fix redirect map for migration
Repository access transfers at handover.

Honestly, when not to hire us.

Plenty of London WordPress work does not need an agency. Here is how the three options actually compare, including the cases where we are the wrong answer.

A freelance developer

Right when: the scope is clear, the site is small, and you have someone internally who can specify the work and review it.

Watch for: single-person availability. Holidays, illness and a better-paying client are all real risks, and there is no handover if they move on. Ask what happens to your site if they stop replying.

An agency like us

Right when: the build has integrations, migration risk, commerce, or an SEO position you cannot afford to lose — anything where a mistake is expensive to undo.

Watch for: paying agency rates for work a freelancer could do. If your project is a five-page brochure site with no integrations, we will tell you that on the call.

An in-house hire

Right when: WordPress is central to your business and there is more than a full-time job's worth of work, indefinitely.

Watch for: the true cost. A senior London WordPress developer's salary plus employer's NI, pension and tooling is a substantial annual commitment before they have shipped anything — and a single hire has no one to review their code.

Six phases, and you see work in every one.

01
Discovery

Requirements, content model, integrations, and the constraints nobody mentioned in the brief. Ends with a fixed scope and a fixed price.

02
Architecture

Content types, taxonomies, field structure and hosting decided before any code. This is the phase that determines whether the site is maintainable in three years.

03
Build

Theme development on our Thorn foundation, in version control, on a staging URL you can see from day one.

04
Content & QA

Content migration, cross-browser and device testing, accessibility checks, and Lighthouse work until performance is where it should be.

05
Launch

Redirect mapping, DNS, analytics and Search Console verification. On migrations, the redirect plan is signed off before we go anywhere near the live domain.

06
Handover

Documentation, a walkthrough recording, and repository access. You own the code. If you leave us, you leave with everything.

Work in London

Sites running in the city right now.

We moved our headquarters to London in 2023, after eleven years building the studio in Toronto. The London client base has grown around professional services, property and hospitality — sectors where the site is a credibility instrument first and a marketing channel second.

  • Mount St Projects — a high-end residential developer in London, where the build had to carry the same finish as the properties it presents.
  • Sofreh — a London restaurant, built for the reality that most diners arrive on a phone with one thumb free.
  • Jongleurs — a comedy venue group with listings, artists and ticketing across multiple sites.

Our Toronto roots still show in the client list — Wannes Law in Toronto has been with us across that whole transition. It is the reason we are comfortable running projects across time zones: we did it for a decade before it was a selling point.

See the full case studies
2012
Founded in Toronto
2016
Single-founder studio
2023
HQ moves to London
Today
London · Toronto · Los Angeles
30+
WordPress Sites Built
95+
Avg. Lighthouse Score
0
Plugin Bloat
99.99%
Client Satisfaction

Common questions.

Custom WordPress development starts from £5,000 for a brochure site and scales based on complexity. WooCommerce stores and web applications typically range from £10,000–£40,000. We provide a detailed quote after understanding your requirements.
No. We build custom themes from scratch using PHP, Advanced Custom Fields, and modern build tools. This gives you better performance, cleaner code, and a site that's easier to maintain long-term.
Yes — we regularly migrate sites from Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, and other CMSs to WordPress. We handle content, URL redirects, and SEO preservation to ensure zero ranking loss.
Yes. Our maintenance plans cover security updates, performance monitoring, daily backups, and priority support from £150/month.
Freelance WordPress developers in London commonly sit somewhere in the £35–£75 per hour range depending on seniority, and London agencies typically quote day rates rather than hourly. We work on fixed-scope pricing for project work — you get a number before we start, not a running meter — and quote a day rate for team augmentation after a scoping call, because it depends on the stack and the seniority the work actually needs. Our full breakdown of the London market is in our guide on the cost of hiring a WordPress developer.
Often, yes. If your scope is clear, your site is small, and you have someone internally who can specify and review the work, a good freelancer is better value. An agency earns its rate when there is migration risk, commerce, integrations with systems you already run, or existing search rankings you cannot afford to lose — situations where a mistake is expensive to undo and where you need more than one person's availability. If your project is a five-page brochure site, we will say so on the call.
A brochure site typically runs six to ten weeks from kickoff to launch. WooCommerce builds and sites with real application logic usually run three to five months. The variable is almost never the development — it is content readiness and the number of stakeholders who need to approve each stage. We will tell you in discovery which of those is likely to be your bottleneck.
Yes. Our headquarters is in London, but the studio was founded in Toronto in 2012 and we ran it there for eleven years, so working across time zones is genuinely normal for us rather than an accommodation. We currently work with clients across the UK, Canada and the United States.
You do. You get repository access, documentation and a walkthrough recording at handover. We do not build on proprietary systems that lock you in, and we do not hold hosting or domains hostage. If you decide to move to another developer, you leave with everything they would need.
Regularly. We start with a paid audit rather than a quote, because inheriting an unfamiliar codebase without reading it first is how agencies end up quoting a number they cannot honour. The audit tells you what is actually there, what it will cost to stabilise, and whether a rebuild is genuinely cheaper than a rescue — which it sometimes is.
It can, and that is the single most expensive mistake in a migration. We map every existing URL and write the redirect plan before touching the live domain, preserve title and meta structure unless there is a deliberate reason to change it, and verify in Search Console afterwards. If your current site has rankings worth protecting, say so in the first conversation — it changes how we sequence the whole project.
Yes, using the REST API or WPGraphQL with a React or Next.js front end. We are also happy to talk you out of it. Headless adds real cost and real maintenance overhead, and for a marketing site it usually buys less than people expect. It earns its keep when you are serving multiple front ends from one content source, or when the front end is genuinely an application. Our guide on choosing between traditional and headless WordPress covers where the line sits.
Most clients move onto a retainer from £150/month, which covers updates, monitoring, backups and a block of development time. If you would rather not commit to a retainer, we also take ad-hoc work — you are not obliged to keep paying us to keep your site working.

Let's build your next growth engine.

Every great digital product starts with a conversation. Tell us what you're building — we'll show you how to get there faster. Free discovery call. No commitment.

JC BU MS
65+ projects delivered since 2012