Custom software
around your security stack.

Digital Signet is an AI-native software studio: a team of AI agents directed by twenty years of delivery experience. We build the layer your security vendors will not: the integrations, the alert triage automation, the custom dashboards, the evidence and audit reporting. Fixed quote in two working days. Builds ship in weeks, not months.


An AI-native studio, directed by twenty years of delivery.

Digital Signet is not a traditional agency. A directed team of AI agents does the volume of the build work. A senior engineer with twenty years of shipped software directs it, reviews everything, and takes responsibility for what goes out. That is the whole model, and it is why the economics look wrong next to an agency quote: senior-grade software in weeks, at a fixed price, without a bench of juniors on the invoice.

The output is deliberately boring. Versioned code in your repository, tests, CI/CD, documentation your engineers can pick up without us in the room. The method is new. The engineering standards are not.

The model is not a theory either. It runs daily on enterprise client work, including AI-anchored Azure platforms for a UK data transformation consultancy, with the CI/CD and review discipline that enterprise clients audit.


What building around a security stack actually means.

Security teams sit on top of a stack of vendor tools that were bought at different times, by different people, for different reasons. The tools individually work. What is missing is the software layer that makes them work together for your specific business.

That layer is where Digital Signet builds. Concrete examples of recent shape:

The clarifying test: if you have ever asked a vendor for a specific integration or report and been told "that is on the roadmap" or "that would be professional services", that is the work we do. We are the professional services team that is not tied to a vendor.

What we do not do.

Buyers arriving here from a cost calculator often want to know what we are not, before they know what we are. Straight list:

This is what makes us useful to a security team already spending on the above. We build the software you needed the vendor to build and they did not.


Work with the same constraint set.

Case studies are anonymised. The technical detail is the point. Three with the constraint profile security teams recognise: regulated audiences, critical infrastructure, and systems that could not go down while being changed.

Critical infrastructure

Tech lead on customer-facing services for a UK water utility

Account self-service on React and Azure B2C, a Salesforce-anchored sales journey, Kubernetes workloads on Azure. Millions of customers behind every change, and every customer-state transition carrying compliance, audit and customer-communication implications.

Regulated, high-traffic

A high-traffic public benefits platform built greenfield

Eligibility search and calculation against the layered rules of the UK benefits system. Built for a high-traffic public launch and for users at the worst end of digital confidence, with external usability testing feeding every iteration.

Modernisation in place

Image analysis and legacy modernisation for an industrial manufacturer

Custom image analysis for production-floor quality evaluation, and a classic-ASP-to-ASP.NET modernisation done in place, without breaking the system the operations team relied on every day.

We also build and run independent buyer-research tools in this space, including siemcostcalculator.com and mdrcost.com. If you arrived here from one of them, you have already used our work.

All case studies


How a build happens.

Every engagement runs the same shape.

  1. 30-minute scoping call. You describe the problem. We ask what tools you already own, what you have tried, and what a good outcome looks like.
  2. Written fixed quote within 48 hours. Scope, price, timeline, what is in, what is not. If we do not think we are the right build partner we tell you.
  3. Build in weekly cycles. A directed team of AI agents does the volume of the software work. Twenty years of software delivery experience directs the build and takes responsibility for what ships.
  4. You own the code. Delivered to your repository, deployed to your infrastructure, documented. No lock-in.
  5. Optional retainer. Once shipped, an ongoing engineering retainer keeps the software adapted to how your stack changes over the year.

Questions security buyers ask first.

What does "building around your security stack" actually mean?

It means the custom software that sits between your SIEM, EDR, MDR, ticketing and business systems. Alert triage automation. Evidence collection for audit. Custom dashboards that show the numbers a specific team actually needs. Integrations vendors will not build because your stack is not standard. We are not a security vendor. We build the layer around vendors.

Which SIEM, EDR or MDR platforms do you work with?

All the common ones. Splunk, Sentinel, Elastic, Chronicle, QRadar on SIEM. CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Sophos, Microsoft Defender on EDR. Arctic Wolf, Huntress, Expel, Sophos MDR, SentinelOne Vigilance on MDR. We integrate against whatever you already own. We do not sell you a preferred platform.

Do you replace or augment our existing tools?

Augment. We do not replace your SIEM or your EDR. We build the software you needed the vendor to build and they did not: the integrations, the triage rules, the custom reporting, the dashboards, the workflow automation between tools. If a tool needs replacing, that is a procurement decision, not a build decision.

What does a security engineering build cost and how long does it take?

Focused single-workflow builds (a triage rule set, a dashboard, one integration) run £4,000 to £12,000 fixed quote, delivered in three to five weeks. Multi-integration builds and audit-evidence platforms run £15,000 to £45,000, delivered in six to ten weeks. Ongoing engineering retainers start at £1,500 per month. Fixed quotes only. No open-ended time-and-materials.

How do you handle access to sensitive systems during a build?

Development against synthetic or anonymised data wherever the build allows it. Read-only tokens against production for anything that needs live data. Time-limited credentials rotated at engagement end. NDAs and DPAs signed before scoping. If your security team wants us in a hardened environment, we work in it. Independent UK consultancy, no offshore team.

Who actually writes the code?

A directed team of AI agents produces the volume of the code. A senior engineer with twenty years of delivery experience directs the work, reviews everything, and takes responsibility for what ships. The review, testing and CI/CD discipline is what you would expect from a senior team. What changes is the economics and the speed. The same model runs daily on enterprise client work, not just internal projects.

Written by Oliver Wakefield-Smith, founder of Digital Signet. Twenty years of building and shipping software across broadcast media, satellite communications, sports media, water utilities, retail, finance, manufacturing and the public sector. More about Oliver.

Related: DevOps platform tooling · IT cost visibility · Tech partnership


Tell us the shape.

Two paragraphs is enough. The tools you own, the workflow that is broken, and what a good outcome looks like. Written back within two working days with a shape, a price and a timeline.

Or book a 30-minute call.