Data consultancy

Data consultancy

Data consulting for organisations whose data outgrew the spreadsheets: strategy, foundation, analytics, and governance from one team.

Overview

One foundation. Every answer.

Shipshape Data is a UK data consultancy. Our data consulting services take you from scattered systems to a governed foundation and the analytics built on it: data strategy, engineering, data science, and business intelligence, delivered by the same team end to end.

Most data problems look like reporting problems. The dashboard nobody trusts, the weekly export ritual, the two departments with two different revenue numbers. Underneath, it's the same cause every time: no single governed foundation. So that's where we start, a cloud data warehouse with a medallion architecture and a semantic layer, one definition of your business that every report, model, and AI tool draws from.

The AI angle matters even if AI isn't today's priority. Every AI capability we build stands on this same foundation, so a data consulting engagement with us leaves you AI-ready by construction, not as an afterthought.

Medallion architecture diagram showing sources feeding bronze, silver, and gold data layers, a governed semantic layer, and the dashboards, AI models, and apps built on top
The medallion architecture: raw data lands in bronze, is cleaned into silver and gold, and everything above draws on one governed definition.
What you get

What our data consulting covers

Data strategy consulting

What to collect, where it should live, and which decisions it must support, sequenced so the first step pays for the second.

Data engineering and foundation

Warehouse, pipelines, and medallion architecture with data migrated in cleanly. See the data foundation and data migration.

Analytics and BI consultancy

Dashboards and self-serve reporting your team opens on their own, built on one version of the truth. See AI forecasting.

Data science and governance

Predictive models where they earn their keep, and the governance that keeps data accurate, secure, and compliant as it scales.

Proof

Proof it works

We knew what we wanted to achieve, but wanted specialist support to accelerate the journey and bring external expertise.

Chris Pullinger, Financial Controller, Smarter Services
Read the Smarter Services case study

7 systems, unified

Smarter Services went from fragmented reporting to one live, governed dashboard in 14 weeks.

1.5 days a week

returned to the Smarter Services team once manual reporting stopped.

60% of tickets

handled to a human standard at 1NCE, on data the foundation made trustworthy.

Method

How an engagement runs

  1. Audit what you have

    Systems, sources, quality, and ownership, mapped in the open. You'll know what your data can support before anything is built on it.

  2. Strategy tied to decisions

    We work back from the decisions your business needs to make, so the strategy is a delivery plan rather than a slide.

  3. Build the foundation

    Warehouse, pipelines, medallion layers, semantic layer. The unglamorous part that decides whether everything above it can be trusted.

  4. Deliver the analytics

    Dashboards, reporting, and models on top of the foundation, rolled out team by team with the definitions agreed once.

  5. Govern and hand over

    Access rules, lineage, and documentation live in the platform, and we stick around past go-live until your team runs it comfortably.

Analytics and science

Data analytics and data science consultancy

Once the foundation holds, the analytics layer is where the business feels it. Our data analytics consultancy work covers the reporting your teams run every day: dashboards people open on their own, self-serve numbers that agree with each other, and forecasts you can plan against. Analytics consulting only works when every chart draws from the semantic layer, one governed definition of revenue, margin, and customer, so two departments stop arriving at two different answers.

Data science consulting picks up where reporting stops: demand forecasting, churn and risk scoring, anomaly detection, and the classical machine learning that quietly outperforms a language model on structured data. We're honest about which problems deserve a model and which need a decent report. Plenty of "data science" engagements in this market are expensive routes to a number a well-built dashboard would have shown for free.

Both run on the same foundation as everything else, which means an analytics engagement leaves you a step from AI rather than a rebuild away from it.

Kept in order

Data management and governance consulting

The least visible part of data consulting is the part that decides whether the rest survives contact with an audit. Our data management consultancy work covers ownership, quality, and lifecycle: who's responsible for each dataset, how accuracy is measured, and what happens to data you no longer need.

Data governance consulting makes the rules enforceable rather than aspirational. Access controls, lineage, and retention live in the platform itself, in the warehouse and the semantic layer, so governance holds without anyone remembering to apply it. That's also the honest scope: row-level rules hold as long as they live in the semantic layer, not in each app on top. For UK organisations this is where GDPR obligations, data protection requirements, and board-level risk questions get concrete answers instead of policies in a drawer.

FAQ

Questions we hear most

What does a data consultancy do?

A data consultancy helps you turn scattered operational data into something your business can rely on: a strategy for what to collect and why, a governed foundation to hold it, and the analytics, data science, and BI built on top. At Shipshape Data all four come from one team.

What is the difference between data strategy and data governance?

Data strategy decides what data the business needs and what it should do; governance is the rules and controls that keep it accurate, secure, and compliant while it does it. You need both: strategy without governance drifts, and governance without strategy is paperwork.

Which platforms do you work with?

We build on the modern cloud data stack: Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, and Microsoft Fabric, with dbt and Fivetran in the pipeline layer. We recommend the platform that fits your estate rather than the one we get a margin on: we do not resell licences.

Do you cover business intelligence consultancy?

Yes. Dashboards, self-serve reporting, and forecasting are usually the first visible output of the engagement, built on a semantic layer so every team works from one definition of the numbers.

How long does a data consulting engagement take?

A focused first outcome typically lands in weeks. Our Smarter Services engagement unified seven systems into one live, governed dashboard in 14 weeks, and freed up 1.5 days of manual reporting a week from then on.

We're not a large enterprise. Is this still for us?

Yes. Most of our clients are mid-sized organisations whose data outgrew spreadsheets and point solutions. The architecture scales down as well as up; what matters is that the foundation is right for the decisions you need it to support.

If you're weighing up data consulting companies, start with the question that separates them: will they show you what your data can support before proposing what to build? That's our first deliverable. Talk to us and tell us what your data looks like today.

Next steps

What happens when you get in touch

  1. You tell us the problem

    A few lines through the form is plenty. We reply personally, usually within one working day.

  2. A scoping conversation

    Thirty minutes on your systems, your reporting, and the decisions your data should be supporting. No deck, no pitch.

  3. A straight answer

    What your foundation needs, what we'd build first, and what it costs, in writing.

Not ready to talk yet? See what a data engagement looks like from the inside: the Smarter Services case study covers the whole 14 weeks, honestly.

Start at your core.

Tell us where your data is today and what you want AI to do. We'll come back with a straight answer on what your foundation needs and where the quickest real win is.

Talk to us