About Us

Partner-led tax advisory for innovators & industry disruptors


At Westlock Partners, our mission is to provide trusted, partner-led tax advisory that empowers innovative businesses to grow with confidence by combining deep technical expertise with real-world industry insight.


What we do

Westlock Partners provides specialist, partner-led advisory across innovation incentives and corporate tax, with a focus on making claims coherent, explainable, and processing-ready.

R&D Tax Relief

Eligibility, project scoping, AIF alignment, and robust supporting documentation, built for the merged scheme environment.

Capital Allowances

Technical reviews to identify qualifying expenditure and strengthen the evidence trail behind claims and classifications.

Grants & Funding Support

Pragmatic assistance on positioning, technical narratives, and substantiation, particularly for innovative SMEs.

How we work

Our approach is deliberately partner-led. We keep the process efficient for your team, while maintaining the depth and structure that makes a claim defensible.

Partner-led delivery Senior-led throughout, with a clear methodology and direct accountability from our partners.
Clarity first. Evidence-led. Partner-owned. Our approach prioritises clarity and transparency. Our methodology is evidence-led and defensible, reflecting an increasingly compliance-led R&D landscape and HMRC’s evolving review approach.
Regulatory foresight We monitor guidance and policy developments closely and brief clients promptly, translating updates into practical actions that keep claims aligned and outcomes predictable.
Comprehensive defence resolution, included as standard All engagements provided by us is backed by our comprehensive defence resolution service, should HMRC ever enquire.

Senior leadership team

Our senior team combines corporate tax expertise with hands-on technical insight, supporting everything from early-stage innovators through to complex, high-scrutiny claims.

SE

Soroush Emami

Senior Partner — Head of R&D & U.K. Corporation Tax Advisory

Soroush began his professional career in practice, advising SMEs and high/ultra-high net worth individuals on compliance requirements and compliant tax planning aligned to their circumstances and ambitions. He later specialised in Innovation Incentives and Capital Allowances, working across a wide client base, from small-scale start-ups to premier league football clubs and global household brands, advising on eligibility, claim strategy, and defending claims through HMRC compliance checks, including interactions with HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service.

SR

Saifur Rahman

Senior Partner — Head of Innovative & Emerging Technologies Advisory

Saifur leads our technical R&D tax relief advisory practice. He is a software developer by background and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science & Network Security from the University of Birmingham. He has specialised in Innovation Incentives advisory for the past seven years, advising Software & Technology companies on eligibility and preparing the supporting documentation required to access relief. Saifur takes a hands-on approach, proactively educating clients through workshops and training seminars to build more efficient, repeatable processes for future years. His client portfolio spans high-street banks, global fintech firms, IT transformation businesses, and early-stage tech start-ups.

Who we support

We work with innovative SMEs and growth-stage businesses, particularly those where the technical story matters and the evidence needs to be clear, coherent, and defensible.

Software & Technology FinTech MarTech Engineering & Manufacturing Energy & Environmental Technology

Our Values

At Westlock Partners, our values guide every client relationship, every engagement we undertake, and every decision we make as a firm. We believe great advisory work is built not just on expertise, but on principles that endure:


Partner-led, always

We stay close to the detail. Every engagement is led by a senior partner, with direct access throughout, not delegated down the chain.


Clarity over complexity

We translate technical work into a clear, well-structured claim pack. If it can’t be understood quickly by an informed third party, it isn’t finished.


Proportionate, evidence-led

We focus on the evidence that matters, relevant, contemporaneous, and mapped to the narrative and methodology, without overburdening your team.


Methodology that reflects reality

We build cost approaches that fit how your business actually operates. Assumptions are explicit, consistent, and easy to explain.


Long-term thinking

We help clients improve year-on-year by strengthening internal processes, not just producing a one-off submission.


Integrity, always

We advise within the letter and spirit of the law, with a balanced approach that protects the client and the claim.

Prefer a partner-led view before you file?

If you’re preparing a merged-scheme submission, we can sense-check your narrative, AIF alignment, and methodology, and share practical refinements that support smoother processing and stronger defensibility.