Web Development Company in Glasgow

Accessibility and consent obligations shape a Glasgow website budget as much as design does. A scoped Glasgow marketing site runs six to ten weeks, covering Next.js or Astro on Sanity or Storyblok, PSBAR 2018 WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility, Cyber Essentials-aligned hosting on AWS eu-west-2, and a UK GDPR-compliant cookie consent flow. A Shopify Plus or headless commerce build for a Buchanan Street retail brand adds Klarna, Clearpay, Apple Pay, and PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication. Scottish public sector builds aligned to the Scottish Government Digital Scotland Service Standard add mygov.scot patterns, Scots Gaelic and English bilingual content, myaccount or Scotland Account SSO, and full service assessment. Glasgow rates sit below London and Edinburgh but reflect the Scottish public sector and financial services accessibility premium.

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR) require Scottish public bodies, including Scottish Government, NHS Scotland, Glasgow City Council, Police Scotland, and most universities, to meet WCAG 2.2 AA and publish an accessibility statement. The Equality Act 2010 then layers reasonable adjustments obligations on all employers and service providers with broader reach. Our Scottish public sector web builds ship with automated axe-core and Pa11y in CI, manual NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver testing, accessible PDF remediation, an accessibility statement published in the Scottish Government format, and an Equality and Human Rights Commission complaints path. We have shipped to this standard against the Scottish Government accessibility monitoring regime.

Yes. The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 establishes Bòrd na Gàidhlig and a duty for listed public bodies (Scottish Government, NHS Scotland, Police Scotland, Glasgow City Council, and most Scottish universities) to publish a Gaelic Language Plan covering web content. We build bilingual sites with a translation memory pipeline that supports Bòrd na Gàidhlig-approved translators, language switching that respects URL structure (/ga/ and /en/), hreflang tags configured for gd-GB and en-GB, and content modelling in Sanity, Contentful, Storyblok, or Umbraco that prevents English-only fallback in published Gaelic sections. We also handle Scots language content where the public body’s plan includes it, and right-to-left or accented language support for Glasgow’s diaspora communities.

Yes. Glasgow City Council operates a large digital estate with significant GOSS and Umbraco footprint, and the Scottish Government Digital Directorate runs mygov.scot on a Drupal-based platform with a strong service standard. Our council and Scottish Government builds align to the Scottish Government Digital Scotland Service Standard, follow the Design System for Scotland pattern library, integrate with myaccount and Scotland Account where citizen identity is needed, and ship with Cyber Essentials Plus and NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework evidence. Procurement typically runs through the Scottish Government Dynamic Purchasing System for digital services or the council’s direct framework. We have shipped to this standard and can support the formal Digital Scotland service assessment at alpha, beta, and live stages.

The Online Safety Act 2023, enforced by Ofcom, imposes duties on user-to-user services and search services to assess illegal content risk, implement proportionate mitigations, and (for categorised services) protect children with age assurance. Where Glasgow clients run forums, marketplaces, fan communities (Celtic, Rangers, Partick Thistle, Glasgow Warriors), or comment systems, we build Ofcom-aligned illegal content risk assessments, child safety duty mitigations, reporting and appeals flows, transparency reporting hooks, and content moderation tooling integrated with platforms like Spectrum Labs or in-house moderators. We document Ofcom Code of Practice alignment in a record that Ofcom can review during their information notice process.

A typical Glasgow marketing site (Next.js or Astro on Sanity, ten to twenty pages, PSBAR 2018 WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility, ICO cookie consent) takes eight to twelve weeks from kickoff to launch. Week 1 to 2 is UK GDPR DPIA, accessibility scoping, and design system selection. Week 3 to 8 is build with two-week sprints and design QA. Week 9 to 10 is accessibility audit through a CREST-accredited or RNIB-aligned partner where the budget warrants, penetration testing, and Cyber Essentials hosting verification. Week 11 onward is content load, redirects, and launch. Scottish public sector builds requiring formal Digital Scotland service assessment add four to ten weeks for the assessment cycle itself.

Glasgow local SEO ties to the Buchanan Street, Sauchiehall Street, Argyle Street, Byres Road West End, and Merchant City catchments. We ship structured data (schema.org LocalBusiness, Organization, BreadcrumbList) compatible with Google Business Profile, Yell.com, Bing Places, and Apple Business Connect, with Glasgow city pages built around the G1 to G77 postcode geography and the Glasgow City Region eight-council footprint. For Scottish business directories we align to Yell.com Glasgow listings format, Visit Scotland Glasgow city pages, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce member directory schema, and Scottish Enterprise account-manager directories. We also handle Scottish Government statutory directory listings where the customer is a registered charity or social enterprise.

The Equality Act 2010 imposes anticipatory reasonable adjustment duties on Scottish service providers regardless of size, beyond the public sector PSBAR scope. For Glasgow retail, hospitality, finance, and B2B web builds, we ship WCAG 2.2 AA as a baseline, an accessibility statement and EHRC-aligned complaints path, accessible PDFs, captioned and transcribed video, screen reader-tested navigation, sufficient colour contrast under the WCAG 2.2 contrast requirements, and reduced-motion respecting animation. Where the customer’s offline service has wheelchair access, BSL interpreter on request, or hearing loop provision, we surface that on the website in a structured Accessibility page that an EHRC investigator can reference during a Section 25 enquiry.