Independent construction consultancy delivering clarity, confidence and exceptional results.
We help clients across the built environment make better decisions, reduce risk and deliver projects that create lasting value.
About us →Dovetail exists to give clients, architects and designers one constant presence across the whole life of a build: someone with real construction understanding who protects the vision and the budget, and who is still there when the last snag is closed.
We answer only to the project. We charge a fixed fee, so our advice is never shaped by what earns us more. We stay from feasibility to defects, because the people who shape a project should be the ones who see it finished. And we speak plainly, about cost, about risk, and about what will and won’t work on site.
Independent, practical support across the full project lifecycle, from early cost and feasibility through delivery, contracts, change and recovery.
Great design deserves to be built as intended. Dovetail is the independent partner that protects the vision and the budget in equal measure, from first feasibility through to delivery. Come to us for a single element or the full journey. Every engagement is bespoke to what the project needs.
Reality based estimates and cost plans that hold, from first feasibility through to final account. Testing design ambition against budget, identifying where margin lives and where risk hides, and giving the go/no go clarity to move with confidence.
Running the full pre construction and delivery sequence: design coordination, structural and MEP integration, stakeholder management, and programme, managing complex projects with precision from inception to completion.
Running the contract through the build, valuations, variations, and the commercial framework held firm from site start through to practical completion and defects, protecting your interests and reducing risk.
Financial control and reporting that drive performance and profitability. Positioning projects to attract the right contractors at the right price, with tender and procurement strategy that protects quality and budget.
Managing change smoothly to keep projects and teams moving forward. Protecting design intent through delivery so the vision that was drawn is the one that gets built, without the budget breaking.
Independent audits and stress testing to strengthen performance and resilience. Reviewing underperforming or stalled projects, auditing where they've gone wrong and steering them back to viable delivery.
Every engagement shaped to the project in front of it, never off the shelf.
Complex, high value homes and estates where design intent and buildability are hardest to reconcile.
Hotels, restaurants, and members' spaces where guest experience and technical delivery run in parallel.
Bringing hard-won commercial and delivery experience to technically demanding, high value energy schemes.
Residential and mixed use schemes where viability, programme, and margin have to be protected from day one.
Every project is different. Our role is to bring commercial clarity, construction experience and consistent leadership to the people, details and decisions that turn an ambitious brief into a finished place.
01
Dovetail supported the pre-construction phase of this major luxury hospitality scheme, bringing commercial clarity to a complex historic building. The role included detailed asset and MEPH review, tender and risk analysis, PCSA and scope negotiations, senior site-team mobilisation and the coordination strategy for a high-specification hotel fit-out across interconnected Georgian buildings.
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02
A complex design-and-build programme across six Grade II* listed barns, combining heritage conservation with modern structural interventions, high-performance building fabric, renewable energy systems and full luxury interior delivery. Dovetail led the project through feasibility, cost planning, design coordination, construction and aftercare.
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03
A landscape-led hospitality setting that brings architecture, external works and guest experience together. Successful delivery depends on careful sequencing, robust detailing and close coordination between multiple specialist packages.
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04
Large, complex developments demand clarity across design, programme, cost and delivery. Dovetail’s approach is to bring those moving parts together early, identify risk clearly and keep decisions focused on the finished outcome.
Discuss a similar projectDovetail stays with a project across its whole life, shaping it early, pricing it honestly, running the contract through the build, and seeing it through completion and defects. Not a consultant who hands over and disappears: one constant presence, with real build understanding, who owns the commercial outcome.
Feasibility, design ambition vs. budget reality, and early strategy.
Reality based cost planning that surfaces hidden risk early.
Design, structural, and MEP integration with specialist input.
Procurement, tender strategy, and contract award.
Contract administration on site, the commercial framework held firm.
Through practical completion and defects. We finish what we shape.
Dovetail sits at the centre of a growing collective: an expanding pool of trusted professionals and specialist firms spanning every discipline in the built environment. Instead of carrying a fixed team, we select the exact people each project needs from deep, senior expertise, matched precisely to the work in front of us. For you that means one point of contact, the sharpest specialists for the job behind them, and none of the overhead of a standing firm.
Coordinating design teams so the vision that was drawn is the one that gets built.
Structural strategy and integration for demanding, design led schemes.
Services design and coordination brought in early, where cost and risk really sit.
Programme, sequencing, and site logistics for complex and constrained builds.
Estimating, cost planning and commercial management that hold from first estimate to final account.
Contract, joint venture, and development structuring for high value projects.
The collective is growing. If you’re a specialist or firm who shares our standards, and you want the right projects without the overhead of chasing them, we’d like to hear from you.
Hard-won build understanding, not paper theory. We’ve stood on the sites we price and delivered the schemes we advise on.
Fast, decisive answers. Feasibility and cost advice when you need it, not three weeks later.
A trusted network of specialists, assembled around your project.
Open books, plain language. You see what we see, when we see it.
Long standing relationships with the contractors and trades who actually deliver, so pricing is real and programmes are achievable.
One presence from feasibility to defects. We finish what we shape.
No percentage of spend. No incentive to inflate. Our fee doesn’t move with your budget, so our advice stays honest, and our independence is more than a claim.
Tom founded Dovetail after more than thirty years in construction, across the whole of the sector, first building and scaling an SME contracting business to 90 people, then moving consultancy side to lead pre construction and delivery on some of the UK's most demanding residential, hospitality and heritage projects.
Having run a contracting business, he knows where margin lives and where risk hides; having delivered on site, he knows what actually gets built, not just what prices well on paper.
That combination is rare. Most consultants have only ever advised; most builders have only ever built. Tom has done both at a senior level, which is why he can sit across the table from an architect, a family office and a site manager in the same afternoon and keep all three moving in the same direction.
His track record spans super prime residential, Michelin starred hospitality, listed heritage conversions and complex urban basements, from early feasibility through to the closing of the final defect. On every one, the brief was the same: protect the ambition, protect the budget, and see it through.
To discuss a project, from early feasibility through to completion and defects, book a call directly or send us a note and one of the team will come back to you.
Book a callTell us a little about the project and one of the team will come back to you, usually within one working day.
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