Web Development
Laravel Development
A mature, well-documented PHP framework with a large developer pool in the UK. That last point matters more than it sounds when you think about maintenance.
Laravel development builds applications and APIs for business logic that will never fit a content management system. The Nexclick writes tested, documented code with a clear architecture, so another team could take it over — which matters more on bespoke software than on a website.
Is this you?
What usually prompts the call
- You need business logic no CMS or off-the-shelf product will accommodate.
- You have a Laravel application built by someone who has since left.
- Your PHP application is on an old framework or no framework at all.
- You need an internal system that integrates with several existing tools.
What we do
The actual deliverables
Things that appear on an invoice, not adjectives.
- Architecture decided before features
- Domain modelling, service structure and data design agreed up front. Laravel makes it easy to start quickly and to end up with everything in a controller.
- Database design and migrations
- Schema modelled properly with version-controlled migrations, so environments stay consistent and a change is reviewable rather than applied by hand.
- Authentication, roles and authorisation
- Policies and gates applied consistently, so permissions are enforced in one place rather than checked ad hoc in each controller.
- Queues and background processing
- Anything slow — emails, exports, integrations, reports — moved off the request cycle with retry and failure handling.
- Automated testing
- Feature tests on the critical paths, so a change in month eight cannot silently break something built in month two.
- API development
- Versioned, documented, rate-limited APIs where the application serves a front end, a mobile app or a partner.
- Deployment and monitoring
- CI/CD, environment configuration, error reporting and structured logging. An application without error reporting is one where you hear about failures from users.
Checklist
How to assess an inherited Laravel codebase
If you have an application built by someone who has left, work through this. It tells you within a day whether you have an asset or a liability, and what a handover realistically costs.
- 01Is the code in version control, with a readable commit history?
- 02Which Laravel version is it on, and is that version still receiving security updates?
- 03Are there automated tests, and do they pass?
- 04Are database changes in migrations, or were they applied by hand?
- 05Is there a .env.example, or do you need the original developer to configure an environment?
- 06Can a new developer run it locally from the README alone?
- 07Are authorisation checks in policies, or scattered through controllers?
- 08Is business logic in services, or is everything in controllers and models?
- 09Are there queued jobs, and is a queue worker actually running in production?
- 10Is there error monitoring, or do failures go into a log nobody reads?
- 11Are dependencies current, and does composer audit report known vulnerabilities?
- 12Is there a deployment process, or does someone upload files?
- 13Are backups running, and has a restore been tested?
- 14Is there any documentation beyond the code itself?
How it works
Step by step, with timeframes
Timeframes are typical rather than guaranteed, and they assume we get account access and approvals when we ask.
- 01Week 1–3
Scope and model
Requirements, domain model, permissions and integrations, written down before code. Applications are quoted from this rather than a feature list.
- 02Week 3–6
Foundations
Schema, authentication, authorisation, queues and CI. Little visible output and everything after it depends on this.
- 03Week 6–16
Build features
In increments with working software every fortnight, ordered so you can use part before all of it exists.
- 04Week 16–20
Test, deploy, hand over
Full testing including permissions and failure paths, deployment with monitoring, documentation and a walkthrough.
What you get
Reporting and ownership
- A written domain model and architecture document before code is written.
- Version-controlled migrations, so environments stay consistent and changes are reviewable.
- Automated tests on critical paths, so later changes cannot silently break earlier work.
- Error monitoring and structured logging configured from launch.
- Full repository ownership, and code any competent Laravel developer can continue.
Tools and platforms
- Laravel
- PHP 8.x
- MySQL or PostgreSQL
- Redis (queues and cache)
- Pest or PHPUnit
- Laravel Forge / Envoyer or containers
- Sentry
Timeline
How long this actually takes
Sixteen to twenty weeks for a substantial application, of which two to three are scoping. One practical argument for Laravel worth stating plainly: the UK developer pool is large. If we disappeared tomorrow, you could hire someone to maintain a well-written Laravel application without difficulty. That is a genuine commercial consideration on bespoke software and it is rarely discussed when frameworks are chosen — the more fashionable option is often the harder one to staff in three years.
Pricing model
Project, then retainer
A fixed-price scoping engagement first, then either a fixed price against the specification or a monthly team rate for ongoing development.
Questions
Laravel Development questions
Why Laravel rather than Node or Python?
Maturity, an excellent standard library for business applications, and a large UK developer pool. Node suits real-time and high-concurrency work; Python suits data and machine learning. For a business application with forms, permissions, reports and integrations, Laravel is hard to beat on total cost of ownership.
Is PHP not outdated?
Modern PHP is a different language from its reputation — typed, fast, and well-tooled. Laravel on PHP 8 is a productive, maintainable stack. The reputation dates from a decade ago and persists mainly among people who have not written it recently.
Can you take over an application someone else built?
Usually, and we will assess it first. The checklist above is what we run. Where an application has no tests, no migrations and business logic scattered through controllers, we will tell you honestly what a handover costs and whether a rewrite of parts is cheaper.
Do we need Laravel Forge, Vapor or containers?
Forge is straightforward for most applications and easy for a future developer to understand. Containers suit teams already running them. Vapor suits serverless workloads with spiky traffic. The right answer is usually the one your future maintainer will recognise.
How do you handle long-running work?
Queues. Emails, exports, integrations and report generation go to background jobs with retries and failure handling. Applications that do this work inside the request cycle time out under load, and it is one of the most common problems in inherited codebases.
Will our own developers be able to work on it?
If they know PHP, yes. We follow Laravel conventions rather than inventing our own patterns, precisely so a competent Laravel developer recognises the structure immediately. Clever architecture nobody else recognises is a liability dressed as craftsmanship.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
Tell us what you are trying to fix
A 20-minute call, no pitch deck. The Nexclick will tell you what we would do, roughly what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it.