/for uk businesses outsourcing web design
Outsourcing web design usually means chasing a reply through the night. CodeSketch sits one or two hours ahead of London, so most of a UK working day overlaps with mine. Every site is hand-coded line by line by the one person who builds it, in English, with a fixed quote in writing before any work begins.
/the actual time difference
South Africa sits one hour ahead of London in winter and two in summer, so a message sent at 9am in London usually gets a reply well inside the same working day. Offshore web development doesn't have to mean waiting overnight for an answer.
There's no account manager relaying instructions to a team overseas. Lance Hancock builds every site personally, in English as a first working language, so nothing gets lost translating a brief into a spec and back again.
Every message over WhatsApp or email gets a reply within one working day. It's a small, checkable promise rather than a vague claim about responsiveness, the same whether the query lands on a Monday or a Friday afternoon.
/what outsourcing usually goes wrong
Anyone who has searched for outsourced web design has probably read a horror story first: a developer who goes quiet, code nobody else can open, or a project that never quite finishes. Here's what's actually different about how CodeSketch works.
The price is fixed and confirmed in writing before real work starts on the build, not renegotiated later once a deposit has already cleared into the wrong hands. See how CodeSketch prices a build before deciding anything at all.
You see the design direction first. If it isn't right at that stage, you walk away owing nothing. That's not a marketing line, it's the actual first stage of every project, described on the services page.
/what hand-coded actually means
CodeSketch has hand-coded a booking site for a coastal guesthouse in Kleinmond, a site for a licensed financial advisory firm, and a nail salon site that's carried close to three years of bookings without a rebuild. See the actual sites on the work page.
A finished site still needs hosting, security and updates handled by someone. CodeSketch care plans cover that ongoing work, so a UK business isn't left maintaining a South African build alone.
asked all the time
Mostly yes. South Africa runs one to two hours ahead of the UK depending on the time of year, covering almost an entire shared working day. Messages sent during UK office hours are usually answered inside the same day, not the next one.
Quotes are given in your own currency, so a UK business is quoted in pounds from the start, not left converting a rand figure themselves. It's the same fixed number throughout the project, agreed in writing before anything is built.
You see the blueprint, the actual design direction, before the full build starts. If it isn't right at that stage, you walk away owing nothing rather than paying to fix a direction you never approved.
No. Lance Hancock, based in East London, South Africa and qualified in Systems Development, builds every site personally, hand-coded line by line. There's no subcontracted team and no page-builder export standing in for real code anywhere in the build.
CodeSketch works the same way with clients in the United States and Australia, and with agencies who need white label web design under their own name. More on how remote builds run is on the international page.
CodeSketch takes on a maximum of five builds a month, so a UK start date is worth confirming early.
Fixed quote, hand-coded, a reply within one working day.