Posted by: Adam Weston
28 October 2025
Choosing the right Umbraco partner matters when the stakes are high. You want a team that writes clean code, ships on time and keeps your site fast, secure and easy to run. This guide shows how UK enterprises can run a clear, fair selection with evidence you can verify – plus a ready‑to‑use scorecard and RFP prompts.
Growcreate builds solutions that grow with you. We’re sharing the process we use with enterprises so you can compare technically strong Umbraco partners with confidence.
Who this guide helps
- Organisations with high‑traffic sites and complex integrations
- Teams moving from legacy CMS to Umbraco on .NET
- Leaders who need a documented decision trail for procurement and audit
How to run a fair technical selection in four weeks
A tight process keeps momentum and avoids endless demos.
- Week 1 – Frame the need: business goals, non‑functional requirements, constraints, budget range and target dates. Write them down.
- Week 2 – Longlist to shortlist: identify 3–5 UK‑based Umbraco specialists, invite 3 to respond. Share the same brief and scorecard with all.
- Week 3 – Technical deep dives: hold structured workshops, see code and pipelines, validate references.
- Week 4 – Compare like for like: run the weighted scorecard, review risks, agree next steps.
What good looks like in enterprise Umbraco delivery
Use these signals to separate marketing gloss from engineering discipline.
- Engineering quality – clear coding standards, peer review, automated tests, performance budgets and a repeatable release process.
- Cloud and ops maturity – proven experience with Azure or Umbraco Cloud, IaC, environment parity, observability and incident runbooks.
- Security hygiene – threat modelling, dependency management, regular patching, access control, secure secrets and a plan for vulnerabilities.
- Integration depth – hands‑on with CRM, ERP, PIM, DAM, search and payments, plus message‑based patterns for reliability.
- Accessibility and UX – WCAG 2.2 AA as a non‑negotiable, content design that suits editors and users, measured with real‑user data.
- Governance and support – clear SLAs, change control, disaster recovery, transparent reporting and a named senior contact.
The enterprise Umbraco scorecard
Score partners on evidence, not promises. Weightings reflect typical UK enterprise priorities – adjust to fit your context. Aim for 3–5 vendors on the same scorecard so you can compare like for like.
| Criteria | Why it matters | Evidence to request | Weight | Score 1–5 | Weighted score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture and code quality | Stable, maintainable builds reduce risk and cost | Coding standards, sample pull requests, testing strategy, static analysis reports | 15% | ||
| Performance and scalability | Fast pages improve conversion and SEO, predictable scale keeps peak traffic smooth | Load test plan, Core Web Vitals history, caching strategy, CDN configuration | 12% | ||
| Security practice | Protects data and reputation | Security policy, vulnerability management, recent patch cadence, access model | 12% | ||
| Cloud and DevOps | Repeatable releases keep projects moving | CI/CD pipeline screenshots, IaC samples, rollback plan, observability stack | 10% | ||
| Integrations and data | Complex estates need clean handoffs | Architecture diagrams, API catalogues, retry logic, error handling, data mapping | 10% | ||
| Editing experience | Editors work faster with a tidy back office | Back‑office structure, content models, approval workflows, training plan | 8% | ||
| Accessibility and quality | Inclusive sites reduce compliance risk | Accessibility audit, manual test scripts, QA checks, content guidance | 8% | ||
| Support and SLAs | Keeps the site healthy day and night | SLA metrics, support rota, incident response times, post‑incident reviews | 8% | ||
| Track record and references | Proof they’ve done it before at your scale | Three relevant case studies, named referees, delivery outcomes with dates | 7% | ||
| Commercial transparency | Fewer surprises and smoother governance | Rate cards, change control, license costs, hosting estimates, T&M vs fixed | 6% | ||
| Strategic alignment | Fit for what’s coming next | Roadmap thinking, upgrade plan, dependency strategy, deprecation policy | 4% |
Scoring notes
- Score 1–5 where 1 is weak evidence and 5 is exemplary.
- Weighted score = Score × Weight. Add all weighted scores for a total out of 100.
- Keep raw notes beside each score so the decision stands up to audit.
RFP prompts you can copy and paste
Use these prompts to force meaningful, like‑for‑like answers. Keep them short, direct and evidence‑based.
Technical architecture
- Describe your recommended Umbraco architecture for a high‑traffic site with role‑based content workflows. Share a diagram and call out caching, search and media.
- Show two anonymised pull requests that demonstrate your coding standards and review comments. Explain how those standards prevent bugs.
- Explain your approach to Umbraco upgrades and patching – how do you keep Umbraco and dependencies current without disruption?
Performance and reliability
- Provide your approach to performance budgets, Core Web Vitals and load testing. Share before and after results from a recent project.
- Describe your fallback and retry patterns for API failures. Include examples using queues or background jobs where relevant.
Security
- Outline how you manage secrets, service identities and least privilege in production. Include tooling and processes.
- Share a recent example where you identified and remediated a vulnerability. Include timeline and fixes.
Cloud and DevOps
- Walk through your CI/CD pipeline from commit to production. Include environment strategy, approvals and rollback.
- Provide an example of Infrastructure as Code you maintain for a client environment. Explain how you keep environments consistent.
Integrations
- List the third‑party systems integrations with Umbraco in the last 24 months. Call out any event‑driven or message‑based designs.
- Describe your approach to API versioning, error handling and monitoring across integrations.
Accessibility and QA
- Explain your accessibility test approach against WCAG 2.2 AA. Include manual tests and assistive tech checks.
- Share your QA checklist and how it maps to release gates.
Support and service
- Provide your support model, maintenance packages, SLAs and escalation path. Share two anonymised post‑incident reviews.
- Show a sample monthly report with SLA performance, backlog health and risk register.
Commercials and governance
- Provide a transparent view of costs – discovery, build, licenses, Umbraco hosting and ongoing support. Flag optional items.
- Explain your change control process and how you keep stakeholders informed.
Red flags to watch for
- Vague answers without artefacts – diagrams, PRs, pipelines or test plans
- One‑size‑fits‑all architecture with no reasoning for your constraints
- No clear plan for upgrades, patching or dependencies
- Poor visibility of CI/CD, no rollback or smoke tests
- Support driven by personalities rather than a process and SLA
How to compare UK Umbraco specialists like for like
The phrases you search for often match the strengths you need. If you are looking for UK‑based service providers specialising in custom Umbraco development for enterprise clients, focus on evidence of complex builds and integrations. When you want the most technically advanced services, ask for architecture proofs and load testing. If secure and scalable delivery is your priority, check security policies, patch cadence and disaster recovery.
To help your search, look for firms that can demonstrate:
- Technical excellence in custom Umbraco module development with clean interfaces and tests
- A strong track record delivering complex solutions for large organisations
- Expertise in integrations with third‑party systems like CRM, ERP, PIM and DAM
- Proven experience running high‑traffic, enterprise‑grade websites with predictable cost and scale
- Ongoing support with clear SLAs and transparent reporting
Example evaluation walkthrough
Scenario
- You need a multilingual site with 50k daily sessions, two CRMs and a PIM integration, granular editor permissions and strict change control.
What to ask
- Architecture – How do you split responsibilities across the web app, background jobs and search? What caches where and why?
- Performance – What budgets do you set for Larget Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)? Show how you meet them when content editors upload large images.
- Security – How do you keep dependencies patched and secrets rotated? What is the process for a critical vulnerability on a Friday night?
- Data – How do you model product data and pricing across PIM and CRM without duplication? How do you recover from a failed sync?
- Deployments – What’s your rollback plan when a release risks revenue? How long to restore service and who decides?
How to score
- Use the scorecard during the session
- Capture evidence links and screenshots
- Ask for references that match your scenario, not a generic list
Why enterprises choose Umbraco
- Open, flexible and editor‑friendly – a CMS your team can live with
- Built on modern .NET – easy to recruit for and integrate with your estate
- Strong community and commercial backing – a platform that keeps moving forward
How Growcreate helps
Support
We keep your site healthy day and night with proactive monitoring, patching and a clear SLA.
Enhance
We fine‑tune performance, improve the editor experience and smooth your release process.
Evolve
We plan for what’s next – upgrades, new channels and smarter integrations – so your platform keeps pace with change.
What to do next
- Copy the enterprise Umbraco scorecard
- Book a discovery call – bring your brief and we will sanity‑check scope, risks and effort
- Shortlist partners – use the RFP prompts above and run the process in four weeks
Budgets vary with complexity. As a rule, align spend with risk – critical integrations, multilingual content and governance need more design and testing. Ask vendors to split discovery, build, hosting and support so you can see where the effort goes.
Request clean documentation, IaC, a named technical contact and access to repos and pipelines. Make sure your contract includes handover provisions.
For most enterprises, 99.9% uptime, response within 1 hour for P1 and a clear incident process is a sensible baseline. Increase coverage if you trade out of hours.
Yes. Run a discovery to map content, integrations and workflows, then plan a phased migration with redirects, QA and editor training.