What is a fractional CTO, and do I need one?

A fractional CTO is a senior technical leader who works part-time across one or more companies, typically one to two days a week. You likely need one if your team is shipping software but has no senior engineering voice in the room — for hiring, architecture, security, roadmap and tough technical decisions.

How much does a website accessibility audit cost?

A small marketing-site WCAG 2.2 audit typically starts around £1,500, with larger product audits in the £4,000–£10,000 range depending on the number of templates, components and user journeys. Every engagement includes a prioritised issue list and a remediation plan you can hand directly to your developers.

What is WCAG 2.2 and does my site need to comply?

WCAG 2.2 is the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines standard. In the UK, public-sector sites are legally required to meet WCAG 2.2 AA under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. Private-sector sites are expected to be accessible under the Equality Act 2010 and increasingly under the European Accessibility Act from June 2025.

How long does a website performance audit take?

A typical performance audit takes one to two weeks: lab testing against Core Web Vitals, field-data review from real users, render-path analysis and a written report with prioritised fixes. Urgent engagements can be completed in a few days if the site is small and the issues are obvious.

Do you work with teams outside the UK?

Yes. chrimes.dev is remote-first and based in Leeds, UK, working across UK and European time zones. Most engagements happen over video calls, shared docs and pull requests. I travel to clients in person for kick-offs and workshops when it helps.

What technology stacks do you specialise in?

Modern web stacks — Next.js, React, TypeScript, Node.js, and headless content systems. I have deep experience with design systems (including the NHS and GOV.UK patterns), accessibility tooling and performance engineering. For audits I’m stack-agnostic.

How do engagements typically start?

A short free call to understand the problem, a written proposal with scope, price and timeline, and a signed agreement before any work begins. Audits are fixed-price; retainers and fractional CTO work are billed monthly.

Software Development

NHS Online service

Helping build NHS Online — a new national digital hospital launching in England by 2027, connecting patients to specialists via the NHS App and easing elective waiting times.

Client: Kainos (for NHS England)
Role: Software Developer
Year: 2026
Duration: Ongoing multi-year programme

In short

Contributing to a flagship NHS programme that aims to reduce elective waiting times by routing suitable patients to specialists directly through the NHS App.
Delivering to the GOV.UK Service Standard and NHS Digital's accessibility, security and performance bars from day one.
Working as part of a Kainos-led multidisciplinary team — engineers, designers, user researchers and clinicians, in lockstep.

The brief

Elective waiting times in England have been at a fifteen-year high. NHS Online is the system's response: a new digital hospital that lets eligible patients access specialist care via the NHS App, without the traditional referral-to-appointment journey. Launching a service of this scope — under the privacy, safety, accessibility and reliability expectations the NHS has to meet — means the engineering has to be quietly excellent from day one.

My part is a front-line delivery role inside the Kainos team building the patient-facing service. Everything is user-researched, accessibility-assessed, security-reviewed, and held to NHS Digital's well-established playbook for high-stakes public services.

Approach

Working to the GOV.UK Service Standard through discovery, alpha, private beta and public beta — each phase ending with an independent assessment before the service can move on.

Building front-end journeys on the NHS Design System and established NHS.UK patterns, so anything we ship looks and behaves the way patients already expect their NHS digital services to.

Pair-programming and mobbing on the hardest journeys, keeping the review cycle tight and the knowledge spread across the team.

Running accessibility checks as part of every definition-of-done, with manual screen-reader and keyboard walkthroughs in addition to automated axe / Pa11y runs.

What I delivered

Patient-facing front-end features on the core referral and booking journeys
WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility evaluations and remediation
Performance profiling against Core Web Vitals on representative devices and networks
Component-level and journey-level tests, wired into the CI pipeline
Contributions back to shared NHS patterns and internal documentation

Outcomes

Shipping into an NHS service with a clear path to national launch by 2027
Meeting NHS Digital's exacting accessibility, security and performance standards on every assessment
Patterns and components that can be re-used across the wider NHS estate

Software DevelopmentNHS England, 2025

Manage Your Screening (MAYS)

Lead UI Developer on the Manage Your Screening team — making NHS cancer screening easier to understand, easier to access, and easier to manage.

Read case study

Software DevelopmentNHS England, 2024

Cohort Manager for cancer screening

Helping breast-screening staff identify, correct and verify the demographic details of eligible participants, so the right people are invited at the right time.