§ 01 / Headroom
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Greycell core product

Headroom

A year-long side-by-side build · for owner-managed UK specialist electrical consultancies

Your senior judgement, locked into the firm.

Headroom works alongside you for a year. By the end, your firm runs without you on every quote, proposal, and senior-engineering decision. The system you keep is built on your judgement, signed off by you, in plain sight, on the page.

HV-EARTHING-DESIGN · QUOTE-2026Q2-014
Example
§ 1.0 Earthing scope

Earthing system shall provide a continuous low-impedance path to ground per BS 7430. Minimum conductor 16mm² copper.

✗ Engineer override · standard BS 7430 covers LV. For HV substation earthing apply BS EN 50522 §5.4.1. Conductor sized from rated fault current calculation, not table minimum.
§ 2.0 Touch & step potentials

Limits per IEEE 80 Tables. Apply uniform soil model.

✗ Engineer override · method Two-layer soil model required for this geology. Run per EN 50522 Annex N.
Custom agent first pass · Engineer override · Client sees both Audit trail kept 7 years
Illustrative example · not a real client deliverable
§ 02 / Method

How it works

Custom agent first pass. Engineer override. Client sees both.

No black box. The chartered-engineer corrections sit on the page next to the AI draft, signed and dated. The engineer override is the work, and it stays visible.

Step 01 · AI first pass

Draft on the standards.

A custom AI agent reads the brief, pulls the relevant standards, and produces a working draft of the quote, the calculation, or the section. Fast. Searchable. Cited.

First-draft technical scaffolding
Step 02 · Engineer override

Correct on the page.

The chartered engineer reviews, annotates, and signs every override on the same document. Where standards differ, the engineer names which one applies and why.

Chartered-engineer judgement, on the page
Step 03 · Client final

Both layers shipped.

The deliverable shows the AI draft and the engineer corrections side by side. The client sees the working, not just the answer.

Audit trail kept for 7 years
§ 03 / Keep

What's in the box with Headroom

Four things you keep, even after the engagement ends.

Bonuses are not decoration. Each one solves a named objection and stays with you when the year is over.

Bonus 1

Your First Quote, On Us

We take one of your real quotes, the one stuck on your desk right now, and finish it for you in week 2. No charge. You get the finished quote out the door, your client gets a fast answer, and you see the method working on a real piece of your business inside the first month.

Bonus 2

The Quarterly Score for Your Fellow Directors

Every three months, we write a one-page score for the people who own and run the firm with you. Two numbers, no more. Senior-engineer hours saved this quarter. What the firm would be worth at sale today versus three years from now. We walk your board through it for an hour, in normal money words.

Bonus 3

Plain-English Notes on Every Standard You Use

A written set of notes, in normal English, covering every major HV earthing and lightning protection standard your firm uses (EN 50522, EN 62305, IEEE 80, ENA TS 41-24, the rest). Written by the engineer who chairs a UK earthing standards working group. Yours to keep, even if you walk at month 12.

Bonus 4

A Front-Row Seat to How We Run Greycell

A login to our live AI-tracker. You watch the 23 AI assistants we run inside our own firm, what they do, when they break, when they save us time. Most consultants tell you they use AI. We let you watch ours actually working.

§ 04 / Risk

Our guarantees

Three guarantees, running together.

A year-long engagement at director level needs more than a one-line refund clause. Three guarantees stack to cover three different time-windows of risk.

Months 1 to 3

Guarantee 1 · The 90-Day No-Hard-Feelings

Any time in the first 90 days, you can walk. Full refund of the unused balance. No questions, no exit interview, no notice period.

Months 1 to 12

Guarantee 2 · The Milestone Promise

Three concrete things happen on three specific dates, or you get money back.

  • Day 14your first AI-augmented quote goes out the door, signed off by you
  • Month 6AI scaffolding produces at least 50% of first-draft senior-grade output
  • Month 12a structured senior-knowledge agent kit handed over to you, yours forever

Miss any milestone, money back, pro-rated.

Month 12

Guarantee 3 · The Quote-Without-You Promise

By month 12, your firm will ship at least one quote, proposal, or major engineering decision without you personally signing it off at senior grade. If it doesn't happen, refund of the final quarter.

If you refuse to delegate at any point in the 12 months, the third guarantee voids. Otherwise every owner-manager could trigger the refund by simply refusing to engage with the work.
§ 05 / Price

The price

Early rate. Then standard.

Two rates, one product. The early rate holds for the first three firms to sign. After those three, the standard rate applies to every firm thereafter. Same engagement. Same deliverables. Same guarantees.

Standard rate · 4th firm onward

For every firm after the first three

£3,750a month

About £45,000 a year

Same engagement, deliverables, and guarantees as the early rate. Anchored by published case studies.

  • Identical scope, identical override-quality bar
  • Same four bonuses, same three-layer guarantee
  • Same senior-knowledge agent kit at month 12
  • Standard rate locked once the first three slots close
Book a Discovery Call

For context, a senior chartered engineer in UK power systems costs roughly £95,000 to £120,000 a year, fully loaded, and takes around 18 months to recruit.

3 owner-manager slots open Capacity ceiling: 3 concurrent
§ 06 / Fit

Who Headroom is for

Owner-managed UK specialist electrical consultancies.

Narrow on purpose. HV is where we started, but the fit is firm shape, not a single discipline. If you don't fit, we'll tell you in the first call and refer you on.

This is for you if you run

  • An owner-managed UK specialist electrical consultancy
  • £1m to £10m turnover
  • 10 to 50 staff
  • One or two senior chartered engineers signing every certificate, scoping every bid, holding every conflict meeting
  • Growth gated by senior judgement, not by demand

This is not for you if

  • You run a SaaS or product business with no senior-engineering bottleneck
  • You are not in specialist electrical engineering (HV, lightning protection, earthing, T&I, DC electrical, and the rest)
  • You want a generic AI consultant selling workshops
  • You want a chatbot or a tool recommendation
  • You are over 50 staff (talk to us separately)
§ 07 / Proof

The principle, and the proof

Judge us on the evidence.

Embedding senior judgement into systems is early work that few in this field have taken on, so we let the evidence carry it: the standards we help write, the hyperscale design we deliver now, and the agents you can watch running. No Headroom case study to point to yet. Come in at the start, and be the first.

The proof

30 years in HV, chartered (CEng)

The engineer doing the override pass has 30 years in high-voltage power systems and holds chartered status (CEng MIET). Senior judgement built over a career, not borrowed from a deck.

The proof

A seat on a British Standards earthing committee

The same engineer chairs a UK earthing and lightning protection working group and contributes to British Standards drafting. Standards fluency at native level, not a sales claim.

The proof

£1.5m of live hyperscale design, and 23 agents you can watch

Currently delivering £1.5m a year of design services into four major hyperscale operators, and running 23 production AI agents inside our own firm on a public read-only tracker.

§ 08 / FAQ

FAQ

What owner-managers ask about Headroom.

What exactly do I get for £2,100 a month?
A year-long, side-by-side build of a system that turns your senior judgement into something the firm runs without you. A custom AI agent does the first pass on every quote, proposal, and senior decision. The chartered engineer corrects every output on the page in plain sight. The deliverable shows both layers. You keep the four bonuses, the standards notes, the quarterly board scores, and the senior-knowledge agent kit at month 12.
Why is the product called "Headroom"?
Because that is the outcome. Today, your firm's ceiling is your own time and attention. Headroom raises the ceiling: the work that used to wait for you starts moving without you, and you get room back at the top. The method inside it is the engineer override (AI drafts, the chartered engineer overrides where standards demand judgement, the client sees both layers). The product is the headroom; the override is how we get there.
How is this different from hiring another senior chartered engineer?
A senior chartered engineer in UK power systems costs £95,000 to £120,000 a year fully loaded (base salary plus car, health, pension) and takes around 18 months to recruit. Headroom at about £25,000 a year is around a quarter of that cost, embedded in 12 months, and the system you build with us stays in the firm even if a future engineer leaves. We are an asset on the balance sheet, not headcount.
How does the override-tracing actually work in practice?
A custom AI agent does the first-pass technical drafting. The chartered engineer then reviews, annotates, and signs every override on the page itself. The deliverable shows both layers, the agent's first pass and the engineer's corrections, side by side, visible to the client. The engineer's reasoning is not hidden under the bonnet. It is the credibility surface. A normal HV bid response shows only the final text. Ours shows the working.
What happens at month 12?
You keep the senior-knowledge agent kit, the standards notes, the quarterly board scores, and the audit trail of every override produced during the year. The system runs in your firm without us. We are hired to make ourselves unnecessary, not to embed permanently.
What if my fellow directors block this?
Bonus 2 (the Quarterly Score for Your Fellow Directors) is built for exactly this. Every three months we write a one-page score in plain money language, walk your board through it, and frame the engagement as asset formation rather than expense. If your directors will not approve £2,100 to £3,750 a month against a documented reduction in senior bottleneck and a documented uplift in firm value at sale, the conversation we need to have is different from the one we're having now.
What if I want out?
Walk in the first 90 days, full refund of the unused balance. After 90 days, if we miss a milestone (Day 14, Month 6, or Month 12), money back pro-rated against the missed milestone. After Month 12, if your firm has not shipped at least one quote, proposal, or senior decision without you personally signing it at senior grade, refund of the final quarter. Three guarantees, three time windows.
What's the £3,750 a month standard rate after the first three sign?
Once three owner-managers have signed at the early rate of £2,100 a month, the rate steps up to £3,750 a month for everyone after. Same engagement, same deliverables, same guarantees. The step-up is not arbitrary: by then we will have published case studies from the first three engagements, which the standard rate is anchored against.
§ 09 / Decide

Ready to talk?

Three owner-managers. Three slots. Then the rate steps up.

Headroom is a year-long engagement, working alongside you, that helps owner-managed UK specialist electrical consultancies turn your senior judgement into a system the firm runs without you. The first three firms to sign get the early rate of £2,100 a month. From the fourth firm onward, the standard rate of £3,750 a month applies. Either rate includes four bonuses you keep, a three-layer guarantee, and the senior-knowledge kit yours forever. We can run three engagements concurrently while delivering at the override-quality bar the offer requires.

The Bottleneck Review is free and takes 90 seconds. If we can't help, we'll tell you in the first call and refer you on.