Software Development agencies in Edinburgh.

A simple MVP is usually 12 weeks. A medium custom product is 4-8 months. Complex enterprise software runs 9-18 months or more. The phases are roughly the same regardless of size: discovery and requirements (2-6 weeks), architecture and UX design (3-8 weeks), MVP build (8-16 weeks), iteration and hardening (4-12 weeks), and focused QA before launch (2-6 weeks). Most UK agencies run on a 2-week sprint cadence and replan after each sprint.

Web Development covers marketing websites, content sites, and lighter web apps, typically on WordPress, React, or a headless CMS, with budgets from £2,000 to around £150,000. Software Development covers bespoke business systems, SaaS products, internal platforms, and enterprise integrations. The codebase is larger, the architecture is custom, and the lifecycle continues after launch. Some agencies do both. Most serious software shops treat them as separate disciplines with separate teams.

Fixed-price works only when the scope has been through proper discovery and is genuinely stable, which is rare. For anything ambiguous, exploratory, or product-led, time-and-materials with a named squad is the safer model. It aligns incentives on quality rather than cutting corners to hit a quote. Retained squads, billed monthly per seat, are a useful middle ground for ongoing product work after the initial build. Fixed-price on unclear scope almost always ends in change orders.

Tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code are now embedded in roughly 85% of professional workflows. The productivity gains are real on greenfield code, tests, and documentation, and are starting to compress timelines and team sizes on simpler builds. Day rates have not collapsed because senior judgement, architecture, and review still gate quality. Expect agencies to be transparent about how AI tools sit in their workflow, their review policy, and where IP lands on AI-assisted output.