Typical Areas of R&D Activity

• Software architecture and systems design, developing and integrating complex backend and frontend systems.
• Algorithm and data model development, improving accuracy, scalability, and processing efficiency.
• Cloud infrastructure and DevOps, automating deployment pipelines, managing multitenant scale, and cost optimisation.
• Cybersecurity and data protection, enhancing authentication, encryption, and data integrity.
• Performance optimisation, reducing latency, improving load balancing, and optimising resource usage.
• Hardware and edge integration, IoT, embedded firmware, and device interoperability.

Common Challenges

Teams must demonstrate why solutions were not readily deducible and separate routine product delivery from true R&D. Cost capture can be complex where engineers move across squads and where cloud usage, EPWs, and subcontractors are involved.

• Defining uncertainty, distinguishing research and experimentation from feature work and refactoring.
• Attribution, mapping staff time, EPWs, subcontractors, and eligible cloud costs to qualifying activities.
• Evidence, capturing design decisions, prototypes, benchmarks, and test results that show systematic investigation.

How We Support You

• Partner-led discovery with engineering, data, and product leaders to surface non-trivial problems solved.
• Clear, compliant narratives that evidence uncertainty, baseline, approach, and outcomes.
• Cost mapping across staff, EPWs, subcontractors, software licensing, and eligible cloud activity.
• Compliance with the Merged RDEC framework, including territorial rules and PAYE considerations.
• Full enquiry defence with evidence packs designed to minimise disruption if HMRC asks questions.