About Steel City Consulting
Steel City Consulting is a UK-based technology partner specialising in enterprise IT infrastructure, data centre hardware, and lifecycle services. We help organisations navigate complex technology challenges with practical, sustainable solutions that align with long-term business goals.
Our team has decades of combined experience supporting demanding IT environments with non‑negotiable uptime, compliance, and scalability requirements.
Our Team
Steel City Consulting combines strategic IT infrastructure expertise with hands-on commercial and project support. Our customers work directly with experienced professionals who understand both the technical requirements and commercial considerations behind infrastructure investment, providing continuity, accountability and informed guidance from initial consultation through to delivery.
Daniel Birch – Founder
Daniel founded Steel City Consulting in 2018 and has 15 years’ experience in IT sales, delivering IT infrastructure solutions for data centres, ISPs and enterprise businesses across the UK and internationally.
Daniel’s expertise lies in IT infrastructure strategy, technology evaluation and the commercial considerations behind complex infrastructure investments. Working across enterprise networking, compute, storage and emerging AI infrastructure technologies, Daniel helps organisations evaluate their options and align technology decisions with operational requirements, business objectives and long-term growth.
His experience includes supporting service providers planning for increased network capacity, helping enterprises assess infrastructure requirements for AI workloads, and advising organisations on vendor selection, infrastructure modernisation and technology lifecycle strategies.
Daniel manages Steel City Consulting’s relationships with leading technology manufacturers and authorised distributors, giving him broad exposure to different vendor technologies, market developments and commercial models. This enables him to offer an informed, comparative perspective on infrastructure investment, balancing performance, scalability, cost and long-term value.
His areas of expertise include enterprise IT infrastructure strategy, AI infrastructure investment, networking technologies, vendor evaluation, technology procurement and the commercial impact of emerging IT trends.
Paul Simpson – Business Development Manager
Paul has 27 years’ experience in the IT industry, specialising in IT infrastructure procurement, account management and the commercial delivery of technology projects.
As the main point of contact for Steel City Consulting’s customers, Paul works closely with IT teams, procurement professionals and business leaders to understand their technical requirements, commercial priorities and project timelines.
His extensive industry experience gives him a practical understanding of the challenges organisations face when purchasing and deploying enterprise technology, from hardware compatibility and software licensing to product availability, supply chain constraints and changing vendor commercial models.
Paul works directly with manufacturers, distributors and logistics partners to manage procurement and delivery, helping customers navigate lead times, pricing considerations and deployment deadlines. His involvement throughout the process provides customers with continuity and a single point of accountability.
Through his day-to-day involvement in infrastructure procurement, Paul has developed considerable insight into the practical and commercial challenges facing IT buyers, including hardware lifecycle management, technology refresh programmes, procurement planning and the evolving enterprise technology supply chain.
His areas of expertise include IT infrastructure procurement, technology supply chains, vendor licensing, hardware availability, infrastructure lifecycle management and commercial project delivery.
Our Clients
Steel City Consulting supports international organisations operating complex, business-critical IT environments – including, but not limited to:
- Large enterprises with multi-vendor networking, server, and data storage estates.
- Data centre operators supporting regulated or performance-critical workloads.
- Multi-site organisations planning infrastructure refresh, consolidation, or expansion.
- Healthcare organisations balancing compliance, cost control, and sustainability.
- Arts, media, and entertainment organisations with performance-sensitive and high-availability needs.
- Manufacturers supporting operational systems, production environments, and security.
- Professional services from legal to hospitality, with essential uptime and data integrity requirements.
- Service providers including internet, telecommunications, energy, and utilities.
We provide actionable IT strategy that takes a holistic view of the role technology plays within the business, ensuring infrastructure decisions align with long-term operational and commercial goals. Our work includes:
- Designing, building, and refreshing complex network environments to improve security, availability, and scalability.
- Developing storage solutions that balance performance, capacity growth, protection, and retention requirements.
- Advising on server architecture in environments shaped by legacy systems, virtualisation, and evolving workloads.
- Assessing and strengthening security platforms to provide risk reduction, operational resilience, and continuity.
- Aligning infrastructure design and delivery with defined technical, financial, and operational requirements.
- Solving sustainability challenges through responsible lifecycle management and efficient platform design.
- Decommissioning of infrastructure in a secured manner ensuring the recovery of any potential asset value.
Alongside our experienced account managers, these services are supported by our qualified engineers, whose skills span networking, compute, storage, and hybrid cloud environments. From design through to deployment and ongoing support, we are well-positioned to collaborate with your business.
Our Values
Steel City Consulting was founded on deep technical expertise, long-standing vendor partnerships, and a commitment to commercial fairness. We take time to understand each client’s environment, operational constraints, budget framework, and long-term objectives before making recommendations.
Steel City holds true to our four core values:
Accountability – We take ownership of our recommendations and implementations, ensuring clients can rely on us to deliver on commitments and outcomes.
Integrity – We make decisions and provide guidance that are right for the client, not the vendor, building trust through transparency and fairness.
Collaboration – We work closely with clients to turn complex challenges into shared solutions, informed by a deep understanding of their environment and objectives.
Creativity – We combine technical expertise with innovative thinking to design practical, adaptable solutions that solve complex, real-world problems.
This approach is reflected in how we work every day:
1. Clear, evidence-based guidance
We provide technically-justified recommendations that align with operational requirements and long-term objectives. Our advice is intended to support informed decision-making, with clarity around suitability, trade-offs, and expected outcomes.
2. Predictable delivery in production environments
We focus on solutions that can be deployed, supported, and scaled reliably in live enterprise environments. This means realistic lead times, validated configurations, and outcomes that align with agreed expectations.
3. Thorough problem-solving for complex challenges
We regularly support environments shaped by legacy platforms, compliance requirements, or multi-vendor dependencies. Our teams work through these complexities methodically, ensuring solutions are resilient for long-term operation.
4. Solutions designed for real-world operations
Our recommendations take into account compatibility, supportability, lifecycle planning, and the way infrastructure is operated day-to-day. This helps to ensure solutions integrate smoothly into existing environments and remain manageable over time.
5. Long-term accountability
Our approach is built around long-term relationships, with technical and commercial support extending beyond initial deployment. This allows returning clients to adapt their platforms and make informed investment decisions as requirements evolve.
Technology with a wider purpose
We firmly believe that sustainability and commercial viability don’t have to be mutually exclusive. At the heart of everything we do is a passion to help companies affordably lower their carbon footprint and prevent asset lifecycles ending in landfills.
Through secure data destruction, hardware remanufacturing, and end-to-end lifecycle services, we enable organisations to extend asset performance, recover value from IT investments, and lead by example in sourcing, deploying, and retiring technology through responsible and secure methods.
See figures on our positive impact in 2025 below.
Our Positive Climate Impact
Repurposing IT hardware delivers immediate carbon savings before even a single watt of electricity is used.
In 2025, we repurposed 2,150 units of used and refurbished IT hardware, helping to avoid an estimated 935,000kg CO₂e in emissions by reducing demand for newly manufactured hardware. Simultaneously, keeping 21.5 tonnes of equipment in productive use and out of landfill.
Repurposed Devices
2,150 total units
Switches: 2,000 units
Servers: 200 units
Storage Arrays: 100 units
Carbon Impact
935,000kg CO₂e avoided
Switches: 700,000kg CO₂e
Servers: 110,000kg CO₂e
Storage arrays: 125,000kg CO₂e
(Manufacturing-stage emissions)
Circular Economy
21,500kg hardware kept in use
Switches: 16,000kg
Servers: 2,500kg
Storage arrays: 3,000kg
Figures calculated based on used & refurbished IT hardware sold in 2025.
This year, we are aiming to deliver even greater impact, with a target of saving 1.5 million kg CO₂e in avoided emissions.
Join our battle against climate change!
By trading in legacy devices, your business can keep enterprise hardware re-purposed and in active circulation, significantly reducing environmental impact by extending its usable life and diverting it from landfill.
Hardware Trade-In
Our structured buy-back programme unlocks business capital from surplus or end-of-life IT hardware, applying returns as cash or credit to support strategic upgrade plans.
IT Asset Disposal (ITAD)
Our secure, compliant ITAD process protects enterprise data and provides auditable asset tracking through controlled end-of-life hardware disposal.
Our Partners
Steel City Consulting works with industry-leading manufacturers across enterprise networking, compute, storage and AI infrastructure. That breadth means technologies can be compared on their merits; balancing performance, scalability, cost and long-term value against each organisation’s technical and commercial requirements.
These relationships also give practical insight into product availability, lead times and changing licensing models, so IT infrastructure investments can be planned with confidence.
Our latest case study
From an ageing IT infrastructure and costly downtime, to £400,000 in savings by choosing refurbished servers from HPE Renew over the cloud.
In 2025, we supported STS Commercial to remove system bottlenecks, future-proof their data storage, and handle the financial sector’s heavy processing demands – all delivered well under budget.
Discover how our expertise and partnerships can strengthen your IT infrastructure. Contact us today to discuss your challenges and explore tailored solutions.