All services Every engagement has a fixed, published price. Book a strategy call
What AI governance costs in the UK: the assessment, the office build, the monthly running options, the EU AI Act dates that set your timetable, and where budgets drift.
AI governance budgets are being set this year by organisations that could not have named the discipline two years ago, usually under pressure from a board, a customer or the EU AI Act calendar. This guide sets out what AI governance costs in the UK: the assessment that starts it, the build that stands it up, the running costs that keep it honest, and the deadlines that decide how much time you have. Every Intelance fee named is published on the linked service pages and fixed in writing before work starts.
The short answer. With Intelance, an AI governance programme has three cost stages: finding out where you stand (the AI Governance QuickScan, from £15,000 + VAT in two weeks), standing up the working machinery (the AI Governance Office, from £30,000 + VAT), and keeping it running (retained support from £8,000 + VAT per month, or AI Risk-as-a-Service from £8,000 + VAT per month). Where the question is specifically the EU AI Act, the readiness assessment runs from £18,000 + VAT in four to six weeks.
Four drivers move the number. How much AI you run: not the projects on the register, but the features switched on inside tools you already licence, which is where most organisations discover their real inventory is triple the official one. Your regulatory position: whether you are a provider or a deployer under the EU AI Act, and whether anything you run lands in a high-risk category. The state of your data governance: every AI control inherits the data underneath it, and organisations without data ownership pay for it twice. Who has to be satisfied: a board wanting comfort is one cost. A regulator, enterprise customer or certification audit is another.
| Component | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| AI Governance QuickScan | From £15,000 + VAT | Every AI use case found and tiered in two weeks, including the shadow AI nobody registered. The evidence the rest is built on. |
| EU AI Act readiness assessment | From £18,000 + VAT | Four to six weeks: your systems inventoried, tiered and mapped to the Act’s obligations and dates, fixed after a scoping call. |
| AI Governance Office build | From £30,000 + VAT | The working machinery: policy that operates, an inventory that stays current, review gates and board reporting, piloted on real use cases. |
| Retained governance support | From £8,000 + VAT per month | Optional, after the office build: the function run with you rather than handed over cold. |
| AI Risk-as-a-Service | From £8,000 + VAT per month | The monthly alternative: AI risk run as a standing function, mapped to the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001 and NIST AI RMF. |
| ISO/IEC 42001 implementation | Fixed by scope | The certifiable AI management system, priced after a scoping call because scope varies too widely for an honest flat number. |
The unbilled component is your own people’s time: owners for AI systems, attendance at review gates and the discipline of registering new use cases. A governance design that fits how the organisation already works keeps that cost tolerable. A parallel bureaucracy does not survive its first busy quarter.
The EU AI Act calendar, as it stands after the 2026 Digital Omnibus, gives UK organisations selling into or operating in the EU four dates that matter: transparency duties for AI systems interacting with people apply from August 2026, content marking obligations from December 2026, the high-risk obligations for standalone Annex III systems from December 2027, and the rules for AI embedded in regulated products from August 2028. Penalties for prohibited practices reach €35 million or 7% of global turnover. The practical point for budgeting: transparency duties arrive first and touch the most systems, and an inventory you do not have yet is the reason deadlines get expensive. Our EU AI Act readiness checklist covers the sequence.
Four patterns account for most waste. Tools before governance: platforms bought to manage an inventory that was never built, serving dashboards nobody trusts. Policy without machinery: a well written AI policy with no review gate, no owner and no register, which costs money and changes nothing. Panic pricing near deadlines: the same work costs more with less calendar, because remediation replaces design. Ignoring the data layer: AI governance built on unowned, unmeasured data rebuilds itself within a year. Our guide to why data governance is the foundation of safe AI explains the dependency, and the Data Governance QuickScan from £14,500 + VAT measures it.
Before spending anything, score where you stand: the free AI governance readiness scorecard rates fourteen areas in about five minutes and shows which of the components above your budget needs first.
Start with evidence: the QuickScan from £15,000 + VAT tells you what AI you run and which of it carries obligation, which is the difference between budgeting and guessing. Where the EU AI Act is the driver, the readiness assessment prices the compliance work per system. Build the office once, from £30,000 + VAT, piloted on real use cases rather than launched with a policy email. Then choose how it runs: your team with retained support, or the whole function as a service from £8,000 + VAT per month. Certification against ISO/IEC 42001 comes when a customer or market asks for it, reusing the machinery rather than rebuilding it. The wider practice is described under AI governance consulting.
With Intelance: evidence from £15,000 + VAT (the two week QuickScan), the governance office built from £30,000 + VAT, and running costs from £8,000 + VAT per month whether retained or fully managed. EU AI Act readiness runs from £18,000 + VAT. Every fee is fixed in writing before work starts.
It depends on how many systems you run and where they sit in the Act’s tiers, which is why the readiness assessment from £18,000 + VAT prices the work per system rather than guessing. Transparency duties from August 2026 arrive first. High-risk obligations for standalone systems follow from December 2027.
Only when someone who matters asks for it: an enterprise customer, a regulator conversation or a market where certification differentiates. The management system is priced by scope after a scoping call, and it reuses the governance machinery you build anyway, so nothing is wasted by starting with the office.
Yes. AI Risk-as-a-Service runs the function monthly from £8,000 + VAT: the inventory kept current, use cases tiered on arrival, review gates operated and the board reported to, mapped to the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001 and NIST AI RMF.
The QuickScan, from £15,000 + VAT. Two weeks, every AI use case found and tiered, and a costed plan. It converts an unbounded worry into a priced list, which is what a board can decide on.
Emmanuel Olatunji
Chief Enterprise Architecture Partner
Emmanuel founded Intelance in 2017 and has led architecture, AI governance, cyber and deal engagements across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Every Intelance engagement runs under his direction, and every guide he publishes comes from that work.
See his record on LinkedIn About IntelanceThirty minutes with the adviser who wrote this guide. A clear view of your exposure, the sensible first step and its published fee.
Talk to a senior adviser
AI Governance
AI Governance