Senior-led management consultancy for UK SMEs & mid-market firms
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RCT RCT Consultancy Senior-led, on the ground
Brief the Practice
Management & Operations Consultancy · United Kingdom

Senior consultants, on the ground.

A quiet practice for owners and leadership teams who’ve outgrown the founder-only model.

RCT Consultancy works with UK SMEs and mid-market firms that have outgrown founder-only management and need real operating discipline. We install the cadence, sharpen the leadership team, and tighten function-level performance , alongside your people, not on a deck.

Brief the Practice See How We Work
Senior-only delivery UK-wide, on-site days included Confidential by default
UK-wide Remote default, on-site when it matters
SME & Mid-Market Calibrated to owner-led businesses
Senior Only No juniors. No offshore back office.
Confidential Discreet briefs treated as such
What We Do

Five Areas of Practice

The places we’re most often asked to step in.

RCT is built for SMEs and mid-market firms who’ve outgrown the founder-only operating model. The work is practical, on the ground, and measured by what stays running once we leave.

01Practice

Operating Cadence Install

The recurring meeting rhythm that keeps a business honest week after week: weekly 1:1s, monthly reviews, quarterly resets, decision logs that survive the meeting. We design the cadence, run it with your leadership team for sixty to ninety days, then hand it back so your people own it. For the recurring 1:1 and monthly review cadence we install, we recommend HeyRamp , a structured platform that keeps weekly check-ins, decisions and follow-through in one place.

  • Weekly 1:1s
  • Monthly reviews
  • Quarterly resets
  • Decision logs
02Practice

Leadership Team Performance

The work most leadership teams know they need and rarely book: honest assessment, role-clarity, decision rights, and the operating habits a senior team needs to function as a team rather than a group of individuals reporting to the founder. Senior facilitation, candid conversations, and an installed way of working , not an away-day deck.

  • Role clarity
  • Decision rights
  • Conflict in the open
  • Meeting discipline
03Practice

Function-Level Diagnostic

A focused operations diagnostic on a single function , commercial, finance, operations, delivery, people , that surfaces what’s actually slowing the business and what the function owner needs to fix it. Two to four weeks of senior attention, honest findings, and a prioritised plan you can run with or hand to us.

  • Sales & commercial
  • Finance & FP&A
  • Ops & delivery
  • People & HR
04Practice

Capability & Capacity Review

A senior look at whether your management layer is the one you need for the next stage of the business. Capability mapped against what the next 12 to 24 months actually demand, capacity mapped against what each leader is genuinely carrying. The output is a calm, evidenced view , useful for promotion decisions, hiring briefs, or honest conversations.

  • Management layer review
  • Succession
  • Hiring briefs
  • Span of control
05Practice

Owner-Operator Coaching

A retained, senior sounding board for the founder, owner-CEO, or managing director who carries too much of the business in their head. Private, monthly, confidential. The agenda is yours; the value is in having someone senior who’s seen the same patterns elsewhere and will tell you honestly what they think.

  • Monthly retained
  • Confidential
  • Strategic sounding board
  • Senior peer
How We Engage

Three Engagement Formats

Pick the shape that suits the decision in front of you.

Most engagements begin with a short diagnostic before anything longer is committed. We’d rather scope the problem honestly than sell a long programme that doesn’t fit.

2 to 4 weeks

Diagnostic Sprint

A short, focused engagement to frame the actual problem and recommend , honestly , what should happen next. Sometimes the answer is to do less, not more.

60 to 120 days

Installation Engagement

The core RCT engagement. Senior consultant alongside your leadership team to install operating cadence, sharpen the team, or fix a function , with handover built in from day one.

Monthly retained

Senior Advisory Retainer

A monthly retainer with senior-partner access for owner-operators and leadership teams who want a confidential sounding board on call between engagements.

How We Work

A Four-Stage Engagement

Each stage has a purpose, a person on the ground, and something your team keeps.

Quiet, disciplined, and built so that by the end the cadence is yours, not ours. We aim to make ourselves unnecessary as quickly as the work allows.

i

Diagnose

A two-week sprint to understand the operating reality , people, numbers, calendar, decisions. We surface what’s actually in the way.

ii

Frame

Agreed objectives, honest options, and a scoped plan. You decide; we recommend the smallest engagement that does the job.

iii

Install

Senior consultant on the ground with your leadership team. Weekly cadence, on-site days, visible delivery , not slide-ware.

iv

Hand Back

Capability transfer baked in from day one. Your team owns the cadence and the habits; we’re on call when needed.

Who We Work With

Three Patterns We Recognise

The kinds of businesses RCT is built to serve.

We’re not for everyone. We work best with leaders who want senior, honest input and are prepared to run the cadence we install once we leave.

Owner-Led SMEs

Founders and owner-operators whose business has grown past the point where they can hold it all. Usually £5m,£40m, often without a real management layer yet, and ready to install one.

Mid-Market Services Firms

Professional services, technology and B2B services businesses in the £20m,£150m range, where the leadership team is in place but the operating discipline hasn’t caught up with the size.

Founder-CEO Firms

Founder-CEOs preparing for a step up, a sale, an investor round, or a generational handover. Often they want a confidential second pair of senior eyes before they commit to a direction.

Common Questions

Questions We Hear Often

The questions owners and leadership teams ask when they’re considering us.
What size of business does RCT Consultancy work with?

We focus on UK SMEs and lower mid-market firms, typically in the £5m to £150m revenue range. The brief tends to be the same: the founder or CEO has outgrown founder-only management, the leadership team is stretched, and the company needs real operating discipline rather than another strategy deck.

Do you have an office, or do you work on-site?

RCT Consultancy has no physical office. We are fully remote with on-site days arranged into every engagement. Most engagements run with a weekly remote cadence and one or two days a month in the client’s office. We work UK-wide and travel is included in the engagement fee.

Who actually delivers the work?

Senior consultants only. There is no junior army, no associate behind a partner you never meet, and no offshore back office. The person who scopes the engagement is the person on every call and in every on-site day. If we ever bring in a specialist for a particular slice of work, we tell you who and why before they appear.

How is RCT Consultancy different from a strategy house?

We are not a strategy deck shop. We do not show up with a 60-slide deck and disappear. Our engagements install the operating cadence, the meeting rhythm, the decision logs, the function-level reviews , the running discipline that keeps a business honest week after week. The deliverable is the habit your team owns, not the deck on the shelf.

What does a typical engagement look like?

Most engagements run 60 to 120 days, anchored on a clear outcome agreed up front. A two-week diagnostic frames the problem honestly. The middle is delivery on the ground , weekly 1:1s, monthly reviews, function-level work , installed alongside your leadership team. The final fortnight is handover, so your team carries the cadence forward without us.

Considering an Engagement

Brief the Practice

A short note on what you’re trying to decide is enough to start.

We come back within one working day with a thirty-minute call and a clear, honest view of whether RCT is the right team for what’s in front of you.

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