CGS Content General
Services Ltd

Est. London — Content operations for the constantly publishing

We run the content engine so your team can run the business.

Content General Services Ltd is a managed content operations partner for UK organisations. One calendar, one editorial standard, one accountable team — from research and writing to design, publishing and measurement.

Since
2016
Base
Shoreditch, London
Coverage
UK & Ireland
Content operations team mapping an editorial workflow on a whiteboard in a London studio
Editorial workflow mapping, Charlotte Road studio
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Assets published for clients each year

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Active retainer programmes across the UK

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Deadlines met on first submission in 2025

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Average editorial experience per lead writer

01 — Services

Everything a content function needs, without hiring one.

Most teams do not have a content problem. They have a capacity problem, a consistency problem and a governance problem. We solve all three with a single managed service.

01

Editorial strategy & planning

Audience research, message architecture, tone-of-voice documentation and a rolling 90-day content calendar your stakeholders actually sign off on.

  • Content audit & gap analysis
  • Message house & voice guide
  • Quarterly planning workshops
02

Longform & editorial production

Reports, whitepapers, thought leadership, interviews and case studies written by specialist editors who understand your sector and your compliance limits.

  • Research & subject-matter interviews
  • Two-stage editing
  • Fact and source checking
03

Website & product copy

Page-by-page copy that carries the proposition, satisfies search intent and survives a legal review. Delivered in your CMS, not in a document graveyard.

  • Sitemap-level copy decks
  • Microcopy & conversion paths
  • CMS upload & QA
04

Search-led content briefs

Keyword clustering, intent mapping and writer briefs that make organic growth repeatable rather than accidental. Every brief ships with success criteria.

  • Cluster & intent mapping
  • Internal linking plans
  • Refresh programmes
05

Content governance

Style guides, approval workflows, taxonomy and archive policy. The unglamorous layer that stops a content programme collapsing at month nine.

  • House style & UK English standards
  • Approval & sign-off matrices
  • Accessibility checks
06

Publishing operations

Scheduling, formatting, metadata, imagery, distribution and reporting. We do the last mile so nothing sits finished-but-unpublished.

  • CMS & newsletter publishing
  • Metadata & schema
  • Monthly performance reporting

02 — Method

A five-stage operating rhythm.

We are deliberately unromantic about process. Predictability is the product; creativity is what the process protects.

  1. I

    Audit

    Two weeks reviewing what exists: performance, duplication, tone drift, ownership gaps and the pages quietly costing you credibility.

  2. II

    Architect

    We agree the content model — formats, cadence, owners, channels and definitions of done. Everything downstream references this document.

  3. III

    Assemble

    Your named pod is formed: editor, writers, designer, publisher. The same faces every month, briefed on your sector and your constraints.

  4. IV

    Produce

    Weekly production cycles with a fixed review window. Drafts land on the day they are promised; feedback is consolidated, never scattered.

  5. V

    Assess

    Monthly reporting against agreed measures, a quarterly retrospective and a rolling plan for the next ninety days.

Editors and clients running a quarterly content planning workshop with printed briefs
Quarterly planning: every retainer resets its calendar in the open.

03 — Sectors

Where our editors already speak the language.

Professional services

Accountancy, legal and consultancy firms publishing under partner review and regulatory scrutiny.

Financial services

Fintech, wealth and insurance content produced with a compliance-first workflow and clear audit trails.

Technology & SaaS

Documentation, release notes, comparison pages and technical thought leadership for product-led teams.

Higher education

Course pages, prospectus copy and research communications with an accessible, plain-English standard.

Healthcare & life sciences

Patient-facing and practitioner content written carefully, sourced properly and reviewed twice.

Property & construction

Development narratives, sustainability reporting and long sales cycles supported by consistent publishing.

Editor's desk with laptop, notebook and coffee during a content review

04 — Why CGS

Agency range. In-house behaviour.

Named people, not a resource pool

You meet the editor who will read every draft. Nobody is swapped out mid-quarter without a conversation first.

Written for the UK, in UK English

Spelling, date formats, regulatory references, regional nuance. Our clients never receive Americanised copy that needs re-editing.

Fixed monthly cost

Retainers are scoped in output units, not vague hours. You know what arrives each month before the month begins.

Your systems, not ours

We work inside your CMS, your project tool and your review process. No portal to learn, no lock-in to unpick later.

05 — Case notes

Three programmes, plainly described.

A Midlands accountancy group

Retainer — 18 months

Nine offices publishing separately, four tones of voice and a compliance backlog. We consolidated to one calendar, one style guide and a single approval route.

  • 3× increase in published output per month
  • -62% time from draft to approval
  • 41 legacy pages retired or merged

A UK B2B software company

Search-led programme — 12 months

A strong product with almost no discoverable content. We built a 140-brief roadmap around buying-stage intent and shipped weekly without missing a cycle.

  • +118% non-branded organic sessions
  • 2,900 newsletter subscribers added
  • 27 sales-enablement assets produced

A London university department

Project — 5 months

A course-page rewrite covering 60 programmes, delivered to an accessibility standard and uploaded directly to the institution’s CMS.

  • 60 pages rewritten and QA’d
  • AA readability standard maintained
  • 0 missed publication dates

06 — Clients

What partners say.

“They removed an entire category of internal argument. There is one calendar now, and everyone can see it.”

Head of Marketing, professional services group — Birmingham

“The first agency we have used that treats governance as part of the work rather than an afterthought.”

Communications Director, higher education — London

“Consistent, on time, and written in a voice our compliance team stopped rewriting after month two.”

Marketing Lead, financial services — Manchester

07 — People

A small, senior team.

We stay deliberately compact. Every account is run by someone who has held an in-house content role themselves.

HR

Harriet Rowe

Managing Editor

Fifteen years across publishing and B2B marketing. Owns editorial standards and final read on longform.

DA

Daniel Ashcroft

Head of Content Operations

Builds the workflows, taxonomies and calendars. Formerly in-house at a UK insurance group.

PM

Priya Mehta

Search & Insight Lead

Turns search demand into briefs writers can actually use, and reports on what the content moved.

TO

Tomas Olsen

Design & Publishing

Layout, imagery, accessibility and the last-mile publishing that keeps schedules honest.

08 — Retainers

Three ways to work with us.

All figures are indicative monthly investments excluding VAT. Programmes are scoped after the audit, never before.

Foundation

from £2,400/month

For teams establishing a consistent publishing habit.

  • Rolling 90-day calendar
  • 4 editorial assets per month
  • Style guide & voice documentation
  • Monthly performance report
  • One review cycle per asset
Discuss Foundation

Enterprise

bespoke/scoped

Multi-brand, multi-region or regulated publishing at volume.

  • Multi-team governance model
  • Unlimited stakeholder workshops
  • Compliance-aware workflows
  • Migration & archive projects
  • Named account director
Discuss Enterprise

09 — FAQ

Questions we are asked first.

How quickly can a programme start?

Discovery usually begins within ten working days of a signed scope. The first published assets typically land in week four, after the audit and the style documentation are agreed.

Do you write in sectors with regulatory constraints?

Yes. We work in financial services, healthcare and education, and we design the approval workflow around your compliance requirements rather than asking you to adapt to ours.

Who owns the content you produce?

You do. Full rights transfer to your organisation on payment of the relevant invoice, including source files, briefs and research notes.

Will the same writers stay on our account?

That is the point of the pod model. Writers are assigned for the length of the programme, and any change is discussed with you in advance.

Can you work inside our CMS and project tools?

We work in WordPress, Craft, Contentful, Umbraco, HubSpot, Sitecore and most headless setups, and we join your Asana, Jira, Monday or Trello board rather than running a separate one.

Do you offer one-off projects?

Yes, for audits, migrations and defined rewrites. Ongoing publishing is better served by a retainer, because consistency is where the value accumulates.

What are your notice terms?

Retainers run on a rolling three-month basis with 60 days’ written notice, so neither side is locked into work that has stopped being useful.

10 — Contact

Start with an audit, not a pitch.

Tell us what you publish today and what keeps slipping. We will come back with a written view of what is working, what is duplicated and what a realistic operating rhythm looks like for your team.