Private clients, their advisers and developers come back to NU Projects for a small number of concrete reasons. Here they are, without the adjectives.
Founder-led delivery
Nick Jeffries founded NU Projects in 2010, and his background is sixteen years of prime and super-prime residential construction in London: complex refurbishments, new builds, basements and architecturally sensitive houses.
Clients deal with the people making the decisions rather than with an account manager reporting back to them. On a project where a decision is needed the same day, that is the difference between a week lost and an hour.
Design and build, run as one thing
A lot of firms offer design and build. Fewer run it as a single structure. At NU the strategy, the planning, the design coordination, the cost control and the construction all sit in one team under one contract.
For a client that means:
- One place where accountability sits, from day one
- Programmes and budgets tested against buildability as the design develops
- Fewer variations, because fewer things are discovered late
- Design decisions checked against construction reality while they can still change
Written standards, not improvised ones
Every project runs to internal benchmarks covering workmanship, materials, sequencing, site management and client communication. Trades are selected on quality and reliability rather than on availability. Details are resolved on a drawing rather than on site.
That is what decides whether a house still looks right in ten years, which is the only test that matters.
Discretion
A lot of our clients need privacy. That means managing the neighbours, the consultants and the authorities so a project proceeds quietly, and it means we do not publish what we are not asked to publish. Most of the houses we are proudest of will never appear anywhere with a name attached.
Where we have built
West London townhouses, complex basements, listed buildings and contemporary new builds, across Chelsea, Notting Hill, Fulham, Knightsbridge and N2. Those areas need judgement about the planning position and the neighbours as much as they need construction capability.
See the work in the project portfolio.
Not the cheapest
We are not positioned as the cheapest contractor, and that is deliberate. What a client is buying is lower risk, fewer delays and a house that performs, and the saving shows up in the final account rather than the first quotation.
That argument is set out in full in why NU Projects is not the cheapest.
Talk to us
If you are choosing a design and build contractor in London, tell us about the property. Read how a project runs in our 12-stage process, or price the work with the cost calculator.
Published 6 February 2026. Written by the NU Projects studio, edited since for house style and accuracy.