Gavin Jackson
A Frontend Consultant with over 20 years of professional experience, my consultancy company is called Digital Mojo.based in Bath, UK
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Portfolio Stuff I've done
Technical skills
- JavaScript / HTML / CSS / LESS
- React / Knockout / Vue / Svelte
- node.js / Cypress.io / Electron
I pride myself on delivering modern, responsive, accessible applications with a focus on user experience.
I have an eye for design and animation from the early part of my career creating customer facing Flash sites for some of the biggest brands in the world when I worked in advertising, however most of my career has been spent building financial dashboards and portals.
As a Frontend Consultant, I have been working with early stage start-ups, helping them launch their web applications.
...I also do book covers (for my wife).
What people say about me Testimonials
I like to make an impression, here are some words from people I've worked with.
Jake Hollins
Founder, Topp PerformanceGavin was a vital part of the Topp team. He took my rough MVP and turned it into a polished, market ready product, aligning everything tightly with our existing designs and brand. He works fast, communicates clearly, and consistently delivers a high quality finish. I’d happily work with him again and would recommend him to anyone who needs front end work done properly.
Ihab El-Saie
CEO, Dunstan Thomas
I have had the pleasure of working with Gavin for over a decade in two companies. He is exceptionally talented as a frontend architect/engineer having created several innovative complex software products. He is astoundingly productive and creative.
The combination of his background as a big brand graphics designer combined with his unparalleled technical software skills is very rare. Gavin is one of those lucky individuals who is driven by his passion and love for software technology and frontend aesthetics. I would not hesitate in recommending him.
Graeme Gets
Founder, Digital Keystone
In my 30 odd years of developing software, running teams and running my business, there were only two developers that I hired that were world class. Gavin Jackson was one of them. Gavin's ability, from design, to coding to leadership was extraordinary. He was able to code at twice the speed of my other top developers, with accuracy and at very high standard.
If you have the chance to work with Gavin then I recommend him above any other front end developer.
Justin Belcher
Innovate UK, Business GrowthI’ve worked closely with Gavin for over ten years on front-end projects spanning FinTech and innovation-driven programmes. He is an exceptional developer whose work is consistently creative, reliable, and delivered to a very high professional standard.
Greg Duncan
Frontend Developer, Dunstan Thomas
I had the pleasure of working for Gavin, an exceptionally experienced front-end developer who is both mission-driven and highly skilled. Gavin has a rare ability to combine deep technical expertise with clear, thoughtful communication, making complex ideas easy to understand for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
He consistently takes the time to fully understand requirements before proposing solutions, which results in well-considered, high-quality outcomes. Gavin is also an excellent presenter and collaborator, and his calm, considered approach brings clarity and confidence to any project. He would be a huge asset to any team or initiative.
Basar Niron
Backend Developer, Dunstan ThomasGavin is an exceptionally talented frontend developer with a rare combination of technical excellence, creativity, and professionalism. He consistently delivers high-quality, well-structured solutions while maintaining a strong focus on user experience and visual detail. Gavin is highly reliable, proactive, and a pleasure to work with, bringing clarity and calm even to complex projects. I would recommend him without hesitation for any frontend or UI-focused engagement.
Frontend Consultancy What I can do for you
I am able to quickly build a mental model of complex systems and understand how to translate business requirements into software.
As a Frontend Consultant, I can take your ideas and turn them into a beautiful user interface. I work closely with my clients to ensure that the frontend implementation meets the business requirements and provides an excellent user experience.
I have worked for startups, taking their initial ideas and turning them into fully fledged applications, and in my day job I work with large established corporations, helping them to modernise their existing applications or build new ones from scratch.
As a consultant I can work within my clients budgets, working just 2 days a month and still achieving remarkable results, this allows me to work with multiple clients at the same time.
In 2025 I consulted for a startup building an AI powered training platform for cycling coaches and athletes.
The founder had vibe-coded an MVP and I redesigned it to give it a more professional look and feel, as well as improving the user experience.
Screenshot // Testimonial
Between 2022 and 2024 I consulted a startup building a platform for users to manage multiple short time rentals (e.g. AirBnBs).
I worked closely with the founders to take their initial ideas and refined them into wireframes detailing how the system will work. I then built a prototype in HTML and CSS that showed how their application will look.
Screenshot
My life story (so far) Career summary
I am an established professional,
I've been building web experiences for over 20 years
After university in 2002, where I graduated top of my class, I got a couple of jobs as a web developer (fullstack) in Reading, but
my frontend career really kicked off when I was backpacking in Australia in 2006 where I worked for 6 months in Melbourne at an Advertising agency, I loved that, and then returned home to the UK and became a Senior Flash Developer at a Creative agency in Bristol .
After a few years there, I contracted around Bristol and the South West. In that time I worked on projects for big clients and household names such as Nike, Mattel, Hertz, Estee Lauder, BP, Intel, Barbie and HotWheels.
And In 2011, I contracted for a small financial software company called Digital Keystone. Over the next few years, I built the underlying framework and frontend to an award-winning product called Adaptive Portal. In 2015 I was offered a partnership and became Head of Frontend Development and in 2016 we sold Digital Keystone in a multi-million pound merger to Dunstan Thomas.
This is from 2012, a very. early Adaptive Portal
In 2020, as a shareholder of Dunstan Thomas, I was once again involved in a major acquisition; and Dunstan Thomas was acquired by Curtis Banks, in another multi-million pound deal, roughly 10 times larger than the Digital Keystone deal.
Annual highlights
2025
Moved to part-time hours at Dunstan Thomas, giving me more time to focus on my Frontend Consultancy, Digital Mojo (and cycling).
2024
Wrote an automated site map generator tool which takes the screenshots artifacts from my automated testing engine and collates them into an interactive, self updating visual site map, using test suite hierarchy to organise the images.
Go to start (2022) >
2023
Began porting ICX to React replacing Knockout.js as the rendering engine of ICX because React is so well regarded in the JavaScript landscape. This is a multi-year side-project.
2022
Wrote my own compiler to allow screens in ICX to be written in HTML instead of JSON, and tooling to provide intellisense for ICX syntax directly in the code editors. Improving developer experience and reduces the barrier to entry for developers to work on ICX.
2021
I created ICX Lite, a disconnected, cut down version of ICX which allows it to be used in any project and hooked up to any backend, it includes my frontend testing framework built upon Cypress.io that does screenshot comparisons.
2020
Dunstan Thomas was acquired by Curtis Banks, and I sold my shares. I also wrote a testing framework which automatically captures and compares screenshots at different device sizes, performs a11y audits and validates performance.
2019
Was instrumental in winning the CanadaLife project, a multi-million pound project for Dunstan Thomas, I lead the frontend development team, reviewing each frontend Pull Request and supporting any core development needs.
2018
Became Group Head of Frontend Development across the whole Dunstan Thomas group of companies. Continued to lead the frontend of the Aegon project while also building the core frontend team.
2017
Led the frontend development to replace the entire platform for Financial Advisers for one of the UK's largest wealth management companies, Aegon
2016
Was part of a multi-million pound merger, where my stock options were realised, and the primary shareholders were able to execute their exit strategies. This happened when Dunstan Thomas acquired Digital Keystone, meeting our target valuation three years early. The Adaptive Portal also won the UK Platforms Award for best use of Platform Technology for our work with Aegon.
2015
Offered a partnership, and the permanent position of Head of Frontend Development in order to make Digital Keystone a more realistic proposition to sell in alignment with the founder's exit strategy.
2014
Designed and built the frontend of the multi award-winning Adaptive Portal, while working on client projects, primarily in financial services. The Adaptive Portal is a framework for rendering lazy loaded Apps onto a dashboard and for rendering dynamic complex forms, either as single forms or in complex multi screen workflow (which are used quite a bit in finance). Adaptive Portal also won the Platforum 'Best in show' award.
2013
Built the frontend of QuickPark which used an early build of the Adaptive Portal to render an SVG map showing available parking bays around various South African cities, the project was designed to work on tablets and phones.
2012
When Digital Keystone decided to move away from Flash as a technology I chose the frontend tech stack. I began work on the early prototypes of the Adaptive Portal as the company strategy shifted from purely an on-site programming services company to one that builds and ships it own product, configuring that product for clients.
2011
Joined Digital Keystone as a contract Flex Developer to build and maintain wealth management applications for Novia Financial and Aegon.
2010
Worked on the Jo Malone website for Estee Lauder as a Flex developer and did a number of other Flash/Flex contracts for clients ranging from Fisher Price to Drink Aware.
2009
In my role as Technical Lead at Oakwood DC I led up a team of 8 Flash Developers to deliver a £300k project for Radica the electronics division for Mattel US. We delivered the project on time and on budget.
2007 - 2008
As Senior Flash Developer at Oakwood DC, I worked on a number of Flash projects for globally recognised brands such as Barbie, Hotwheels, Disney's Cars, Scrabble and The Simpsons.
2006
Worked in Australia for Publicis Mojo as a Web Developer for clients such as Nike, Hertz, HP and the Victorian Government. A highlight was working on the Nike Football website for World Cup 2006 and promotions for Australia's big game against Brazil where they dared to believe that history would not repeat itself (but, it did!).
2002 - 2005
Graduated top of my class from De Montfort University in Leicester in 2002 with a first class degree with honours in Multimedia Computing and was also awarded the best student prize for finishing top of my class. My first few years out of university I worked as a Web Developer in Reading writing ASP and ASP.NET web and windows applications and services before travelling for 20 months.
Outside of work Bike, bikes, bikes!
Who am I as a person? I am married with two kids and a dog; feel free to check me out on: Strava, TikTok Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, my posts, likes and comments reflect who I am in my personal life.
Remote
I have been working remotely since 2012, attending a few meetings a year but otherwise working entirely from home, first in Bristol, then from Spain and now from Bath. I have no problem with maintaining productivity and have been a disciplined self-starter since University, demonstrated by graduating top of my class in 2002.
Personal life
I met my wife Lorraine while travelling in Thailand. We have two kids, Daisy and Henry and live in Bath, but have strong connections to Spain as we spent 3 years living there. I enjoy spending time with my family, riding and racing my bikes (either road or mountain) and being outdoors as much as possible. We also have a dog, Bobby who's a Jug (Jack Russel / Pug).