Do you need a data guy?
Need help with your business data, but can't hire anyone full-time — and don't want to deal with far-away online consultants?
I'm London-based, and I can help with projects, ongoing contracts or ad-hoc questions. First, I listen to what you actually need.
Three ways to work with me
Pick roughly what fits. Everything is flexible — we'll work out the details over a coffee.
The on-call data hand
A few hours a month
You've got the basics covered, but every now and then something comes up: a report that needs building, a spreadsheet that's grown into a monster, a question you can't quite answer. You call me, I sort it.
Your part-time data person
2–4 days a month
You want someone who owns your data, but not five days a week. I build and maintain your reports, dashboards and data flows — and I know your business well enough that you never have to explain things twice.
Hands-on, every week
One day a week
You've got a serious project — a new system, years of messy data to untangle — or you want data properly embedded in how the business runs. I'm there every week, in person when useful.
One-off projects (a fixed build, a clean-up, one big question answered) are quoted individually — always a fixed price agreed upfront, no hourly meter running.
So, what can I actually do?
In plain English, here's what's on my CV — translated:
- I connect your systems so they finally talk to each other.
- Your till, your web shop, your spreadsheets, your accounting software — I hook them up so the numbers match without anyone retyping them. (The technical term is "building data pipelines" — I've done this for years at Point Topic, the UK's leading broadband data company.)
- I build the dashboards you wish you had.
- Sales at a glance. Stock before it runs out. Which customers are drifting away. One screen, always current, no Friday spreadsheet ritual.
- I clean up messy data.
- Years of half-consistent records, three spellings of every product name, duplicate customers? I've untangled worse — including a whole open-data platform for UK supermarket data, browse it yourself at aislestats.com.
- I turn numbers into decisions.
- I studied economics and environmental science at UCL (first class, both times) and ran computer simulations of EV charging for a UK government department. Numbers into decisions is literally my training.
- I speak human.
- I used to teach — kids in China, adults in London — and I wrote a German textbook series while I was at it. Explaining complicated things simply is a skill I've practised on tougher audiences than a boardroom.
- I've run a business.
- I co-founded a data start-up, so I know what it's like to watch the budget and decide without perfect information. No consultant-speak — straight answers.
- I take ownership.
- If I build it, I stand behind it. Documented, monitored, and if something breaks you call me — not a ticket system in another timezone.
- And a few extras.
- I speak German, French and Mandarin, and I've worked in finance (Bloomberg), telecoms, education and retail data — I adapt fast to new industries.
Don't take my word for it — look at the work
- AisleStats (aislestats.com) — my own open-data platform for UK supermarket data, built end to end
- Point Topic (point-topic.com) — the production pipelines behind the UK's leading broadband analytics
- An open-source data standard used across the telecoms industry (github.com/Point-Topic/cto-ontology) — I wrote it
The honest FAQ
"Why not just hire someone?"
A good data engineer costs £60–80k a year before they've done anything. Most small businesses need a solid foundation, then a few days a month. That's exactly the shape of what I do.
"Why not an agency?"
You'd pay for account managers and slide decks, and never meet the person doing the work. I'm the person doing the work — and I can be at your office on a Tuesday.
"What if it breaks?"
Everything I build is documented and monitored, so nothing fails silently. And if something does go wrong, you call me, not a support queue.
Let's start with a chat
Twenty minutes, I come to you, no charge — tell me what's bugging you about your data, and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
ar.kuersteiner@proton.me