A fractional AI team, without the headcount.
Senior AI engineers embedded in your business on a monthly retainer. The capability of a team you cannot yet hire, paid for in delivery rather than salaries, recruiters and equity. Four UK bases, national delivery.
Hiring a senior AI team in 2026 is brutal. Twelve-month searches, six-figure base salaries, options that have to compete with frontier labs, and an onboarding ramp before anyone ships a line of code. Most scale-ups cannot wait that long, and most mid-market firms should not pay it.
Moonlabs is a fractional AI team. You get senior, AI-native engineers who have rebuilt three of their own operating companies around AI — embedded inside your business, accountable for the work, on a monthly retainer plus transparent hourly delivery.
The team is James (Derby), Louis (Norwich), Phil (Nottingham) and Shivam (London). Four UK bases, national delivery. No recruiter fees, no relocation packages, no twelve-month notice periods — just operators in the room when you need them.
Senior, AI-native, on day one
Not juniors learning on your time. The same operators running production AI at home.co.uk, Homemove and homedata.co.uk. AI-native since the week ChatGPT shipped.
Capacity sized to the work
Scale the team up for a build sprint, scale it back when you are operating. A monthly retainer reserves capacity; delivery hours flex around the project. No idle salaries, no over-hired bench.
Train your team alongside ours
Pair sessions, code review, runbook hand-overs and standing knowledge transfer mean your engineers compound on every engagement. Eventually you can take the work in-house — that is the point.
Common questions.
What does a fractional AI team look like in practice?
A reserved monthly capacity of senior AI engineering hours, with one named lead from our team accountable for the work. Embedded into your Slack, your repos and your standups. On-site days when they matter; focused remote work the rest of the time.
How does this compare to hiring a permanent AI team?
Faster, cheaper to start, and proven on day one. The trade-off is that you do not own the headcount — we do. For most scale-ups and mid-market firms that is the right trade for the first twelve to twenty-four months. After that you can hire alongside us or take the work in-house entirely.
Will the fractional team disappear when the project ends?
You decide. The retainer is monthly with no long lock-in. Most clients keep us in a steady-state capacity for the operate-and-extend phase after the initial build, often at a lower retainer than the build months.
What size of UK businesses do you work with as a fractional team?
Scale-ups and mid-market firms with real revenue and a real operating model. Owner-managed SMBs who want senior capacity without hiring a team. Property, professional services, finance, recruitment, legal, and ops-heavy industries are the natural fit.
What does a fractional AI team cost in the UK?
A monthly retainer reserves capacity and covers the planning, oversight and ongoing thinking between sprints. Delivery hours are billed transparently on top. The whole arrangement typically costs a fraction of an equivalent in-house team while shipping faster.
The full Forward Deployment offer
How the embedded model works: diagnose, build, operate. Pricing structure and the four UK bases on one page.
About James, Louis, Phil & Shivam
The operators behind the work. £5m+ raised for their own companies, ~£10m across their broader career, AI-native since the week ChatGPT shipped.
More Academy entry points.
The Academy is one course with many doors. Each of these pages is a different entry point into the same twelve weeks.
Senior AI engineers without the headcount.
Tell us what you would hire for if hiring were possible. If we’re a fit, we’ll come back inside the week with a capacity plan, not a recruiter pitch.
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