Manufacturing IT Leadership. Independent. Specialist. Transparent.
Bailey & Associates is an independent IT consultancy built exclusively for UK manufacturers. We provide fractional IT leadership, ERP advisory, digital transformation strategy, and vendor management services to manufacturing businesses that need senior technology expertise without the overhead of a full-time IT director.
We are not generalists. We do not work across every sector and hope for the best. Manufacturing is what we know — the shop floors, the supply chains, the compliance demands, the OT/IT boundary, and the specific ways that technology investment succeeds or fails in production environments.
Every engagement is vendor-independent. We take no commissions, referral fees, or revenue from any technology vendor or implementation partner. Our advice is ours alone, and our pricing is published transparently on our website.
Founder & Principal Consultant
David Bailey is the founder and principal consultant at Bailey & Associates. He has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of IT strategy and manufacturing operations, helping UK manufacturers make better technology decisions, manage complex implementations, and build IT functions that genuinely support production and growth.
David started his career in the military at 18, where he developed the structured thinking, problem-solving discipline, and operational focus that still define his approach to IT leadership. He moved into IT and technology management, building hands-on experience across infrastructure, systems integration, ERP implementation, cybersecurity, and digital transformation in manufacturing environments.
He currently serves as IT Director at Kanes Foods alongside his other consultancy work, giving him a live, operational perspective on IT leadership that pure consultants simply do not have. He is not advising from a textbook — he is doing the work every day.
David holds a current IT Director role. He deals with the same vendor negotiations, board presentations, and budget pressures that his clients face.
Deep experience across production scheduling, MRP, shop floor data capture, OT networks, quality systems, and supply chain integration.
Structured, methodical, and direct. A disciplined approach to project governance and risk management from military training.
No vendor affiliations, no referral agreements, no commission arrangements. Our advice is entirely our own.
Bailey & Associates operates as a brand of Leadership Services Limited, a UK-registered company based in Cheshire, England. We work with manufacturing clients across the UK.
Our model is deliberately lean. When a client engagement requires additional specialist resource, we bring in trusted, pre-vetted specialists on a project basis. You pay for expertise you actually need, not for overhead you do not.
Our rates are published on our website. No discovery calls to unlock a quote.
We do not dilute our expertise across sectors.
We never recommend a product because we earn a commission on it.
Every recommendation is grounded in what actually works in manufacturing.
Our clients are typically UK manufacturers with revenue between £5M and £200M — from precision engineering and process manufacturing to food production and automotive supply chain.
Book a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your technology challenges.
