About Brace Digital

Nothing meaningful was ever built overnight.

We're a highly experienced Umbraco team in Chester. We started Brace Digital in 2015 to make building and looking after websites painless, and more than ten years on, that's still the job.

Our story

Ben and Rick had each spent years building websites for agencies, banks and household names. They kept seeing the same thing: great sites launched, then left to drift.

So they set up Brace Digital to do it differently: focus on one platform, Umbraco, and stay with clients for the long haul. Today we look after websites for councils, charities, membership bodies and businesses across the UK, with a highly experienced team we've built over many years.

2015

Founded in Chester
20

Years with Umbraco
40+

Years of development experience
7

Specialist experts

What we believe.

Only the best will do

We go the extra mile. Our processes are there for a reason, and we stick to them.
Honesty is the best policy

We're transparent with clients and partners, and upfront about being upfront.
We support and delight

Proactivity and expertise are baked in. We want every client to feel there's never a problem.

How we work

Scope

We take on board your requirements, ask the key questions and agree exactly what we'll deliver.
Plan

A thorough plan, with no stone left unturned, so the work is set up to succeed.
Create

Design and development, with progress shared along the way so you know we're on track.
Test and release

Careful testing to find and fix defects, then a staging site so you see exactly how it works before it's live.
Deploy

Continuous integration puts changes live seamlessly, free from human error, with rollback built in.
Monitor and maintain

Monitoring checks your site stays up and healthy, and we keep improving it long after launch.

Leadership team

The people doing the work

Highly experienced on purpose. One of the company's owners leads every project, so you're never passed to a junior.

Ben McKean

Co-owner and Technical Lead · Umbraco Certified Master

25+ years in web development. Specialises in scoping, bespoke solutions, database design and complex integrations.
Rick Lynch

Co-owner and Technical Lead · Umbraco Certified Master

20+ years in web development. Specialises in architecture, Microsoft Azure and tricky third-party integrations.
Kate Johnston

Client Services Manager · APM PMQ

15+ years in client services and project management. Your day-to-day contact, keeping everything on track.

Plus the wider team. An Umbraco MVP, developers, designers and DevOps engineers, so whatever the size of your project, it gets the right people.

Join us

Zero down-time

We can't promise there'll never be a problem, but we'll do everything we can to make sure there isn't.

It's the idea behind how we work: proactive monitoring, careful testing and releases with rollback built in, so your site keeps doing its job and you can get on with yours.

What clients say

In their words.

Brace Digital are everything you could want in a team of developers - they're responsive, reliable, knowledgeable and great at communicating. We know that they'll do a fantastic job to a very high standard. Brace always deliver on time and within budget and frequently exceed our expectations.

Belbin

The balance of account management, maintenance/technical support and horizon scanning is just right. We trust and value their opinions and suggestions, and know they will always find the best solution to any problems we encounter on our website...

The Oddfellows