Fractional CTO · Bristol & remote

A fractional CTO, in Bristol and across the UK.

Fractional CTO work for companies that aren’t ready for a full-time hire — from Bristol, remote across the UK. You work directly with Thomas Bradley, the same person who builds everything else on this site.

Email Tom tom@drizzlelabs.ltd

Who it’s for

  • Founders without a technical co-founder Pre-seed to Series A, often non-technical. You need the early decisions made right the first time: the stack, build or buy, the first hires, and what the AI can actually do.
  • SMEs that need a real AI plan The board keeps asking for an AI strategy and nobody’s job is to write one. You need someone to look at the business properly and put a plan in writing — not another deck.

Three offers, public prices

  • AI Readiness Review

    £3,500 fixed
    two weeks · part-time

    The lowest-risk way to start. Two weeks alongside your team to work out what AI genuinely changes for your business — and what it doesn’t.

    • Interviews with the founder and leadership team
    • A review of your codebase and architecture
    • An AI opportunity map — what to build, what to buy, what to skip
    • Hiring and vendor recommendations
    • A written report and a 90-minute walkthrough

  • Fractional CTO

    from £3,500/month
    1–2 days a week

    Ongoing technical leadership, embedded in your company. The same seat a full-time CTO would fill — for the stage you’re actually at.

    • Roadmap ownership and technical direction
    • Hiring your first engineers
    • Agency and vendor oversight
    • Investor and board support
    • Delivery practices that ship

    Three-month initial engagement, then monthly with 30 days’ notice.

  • Project work

    £1,000–£1,200/day

    Defined pieces of work with a clear finish line, scoped and quoted up front.

    • Technical due diligence for investors
    • Architecture reviews
    • AI feature scoping

Why me

Fifteen years building consumer web products at scale: Betway, where the apps served millions under UK gambling regulation; Babylon Health; Hopin, mid-hypergrowth; and now Moonfire Ventures, where I’m a staff engineer building AI products inside a VC fund. Drizzlelabs is the working proof — four products shipped and a fifth in development, each one designed, built and run end to end by the person you’d be hiring. The proof is in the footer, and the longer version of the studio’s story is on the about page. The CV is at tombradley.dev.

Questions

How do engagements usually start?
Nearly always with the AI Readiness Review. It’s two weeks, fixed price, and ends with a written plan — so you get something useful whether or not we carry on. If the need is already obvious, we can go straight to a retainer.
Remote or on-site?
Remote-first, anywhere in the UK. I’m based in Bristol, so on-site days across the South West are easy to arrange.
How does this fit around the studio’s own products?
The studio is why this works. Designing, building and running its products is what keeps my judgement current — and fractional capacity is planned, not squeezed in. I take on a small number of clients at a time.
What are the notice terms?
Retainers run three months to start, then monthly with 30 days’ notice either way. Reviews and project work are fixed-scope, so there’s nothing to give notice on.
Who isn’t this for?
Anyone who needs full-time technical leadership — if that’s where you are, I’ll say so and help you hire. And anyone after a senior nod for a decision that’s already been made. I’m better value while the questions are still open.

Email Tom tom@drizzlelabs.ltd