LLM Fine-Tuning · Durham
LLM Fine-Tuning in Durham
Fine-tuning language models on Durham organisations' own examples, where prompting has hit a genuine ceiling. Fine-tuning teaches a model a style, a format or a task — it does not teach it facts, which is the single most common misunderstanding and the reason a good many fine-tuning projects deliver nothing.
Why this comes up
The problem
Prompts have grown to several pages trying to pin down the output format, and results are still inconsistent. Every new edge case makes the prompt longer and the behaviour less predictable.
What you get
What we deliver
- A judgement on whether the problem is a fine-tuning problem or a retrieval one
- Training examples assembled and made consistent, which is where quality is won or lost
- A held-out evaluation set kept separate, so results are not self-congratulatory
- Fine-tuning run and compared against the prompted baseline
- Cost comparison, since a smaller tuned model often beats a larger prompted one
- A re-training path for when your requirements change, as they will
Want this scoped for your business in Durham?
Thirty minutes, no charge, no sales script. You leave with a written summary of what llm fine-tuning would actually involve — whether or not you use us.
Working in Durham
North East
Durham's economy is dominated by its university and cathedral, so the commercial base is small and much of the local demand comes from spinouts and suppliers attached to the institutions rather than from independent industry.
Research spinout software and visitor systems, usually on institutional procurement timelines rather than commercial ones.
Sectors we work with in Durham
- Higher Education
- Tourism & Heritage
- Public Sector
- Retail
- Research
What we work with
Technologies and platforms
- OpenAI
- Hugging Face
- PyTorch
- Python
- AWS
Who we work with
Industries we serve
- Financial services
- Legal
- Healthcare
- Ecommerce
- Media and publishing
Why us
Why Durham businesses choose Asionis
- Projects typically launched within 4–8 weeks
- No long-term contracts required
- All team members UK-based
- Dedicated account manager and development team
- Transparent reporting with monthly performance metrics
- Scalable from startup to enterprise
How we work
- Step 1
Free consultation
A 30-minute call to understand the problem. You keep the written summary either way.
- Step 2
Proposal
Scope, timeline and a fixed price, in writing, before anything starts.
- Step 3
Build
Short cycles with regular check-ins, so you see progress rather than hear about it.
- Step 4
Launch and support
We handle the go-live and stay available afterwards.
Other services in Durham
Looking for the full picture? See our LLM Fine-Tuning services, everything we do in Durham or browse everything we do.
LLM Fine-Tuning in Durham — common questions
- Will fine-tuning teach the model our company information?
- No, and this is the expensive misconception. Fine-tuning shapes behaviour — tone, structure, task format. Facts belong in retrieval, where they can be updated by editing a document rather than by re-training a model.
- When is fine-tuning the right call?
- When you need a consistent output format, a specific house style, or a narrow classification the model keeps getting subtly wrong — and when you have examples demonstrating the right answer. Those conditions together are less common than the interest in fine-tuning suggests.
- Can it reduce our costs?
- Often, yes. A fine-tuned smaller model can match a much larger prompted one on a narrow task, at lower cost per request and with a far shorter prompt. At high volume that is frequently the strongest argument for doing it.
- How many examples do we need?
- Fewer than most people expect — often a few hundred well-chosen, consistent ones. Consistency is the constraint: if two examples handle the same situation differently, you are training the model to be unpredictable in exactly that situation.
- Do you work with businesses across County Durham?
- Yes. We are based in Leicester, United Kingdom and work with clients throughout North East, including Durham and the surrounding County Durham area. Most collaboration happens remotely, and we travel for kick-offs and key milestones.
- What kind of Durham businesses do you usually work with?
- Research spinout software and visitor systems, usually on institutional procurement timelines rather than commercial ones. Beyond that we work across Higher Education, Tourism & Heritage, Public Sector, Retail and Research.
- Do you cover the areas around Durham?
- Yes — we work throughout North East, including Newcastle, Sunderland, York. Durham is an urban area of roughly 70,000+, and we take on work across the wider County Durham region rather than the city boundary alone.
Talk to us about LLM Fine-Tuning in Durham
A 30-minute call with someone who would actually work on it. No sales script, no obligation.
- Projects typically launched within 4–8 weeks
- No long-term contracts required
- All team members UK-based
- Dedicated account manager and development team
- Transparent reporting with monthly performance metrics
- Scalable from startup to enterprise