Golding Homes provides high-quality, affordable housing and community services for over 20,000 people across Kent. They're not just a landlord — they're a regenerator, with a substantial growth plan to build hundreds of new homes and a long-running outreach programme that pulls technology in alongside everything else.
In 2019, an ambitious office relocation was the trigger to rethink the connectivity behind all of it. We won the open tender, recommended Fortinet, and delivered a Security Fabric platform that gave Golding Homes the resilience, the visibility and the headroom they needed to grow.
What we didn't know at the time was how long the partnership would run. Wi-Fi 7 in 2024. A fresh firewall and switching refresh just contracted for 2026. And — somewhere along the way — Fortinet liked the work enough to publish their own case study about it on fortinet.com.
What was breaking in 2019
- Issue:
Network access was unreliable — staff were limited to working in particular areas of the building, and bandwidth dropouts at busy times were routine
- Issue:
Multi-vendor sprawl — the legacy estate spanned several vendors, slow to troubleshoot and expensive to run
- Issue:
No single pane of glass — visibility across firewall, switching, wireless and security was fragmented
- Issue:
Limited control over third-party access — Golding Homes work with a number of external suppliers and needed clean policy enforcement
- Issue:
Modern services were on hold — flexible and remote working couldn't be properly enabled until the underlying network was rebuilt
How we approached it
The 2019 office relocation was the catalyst. Golding Homes ran an open tender; we won it on the strength of the Fortinet Security Fabric and the single management plane it gives you across firewall, switching, wireless and analytics.
Open tender, 2019
Recommended Fortinet's Security Fabric — a single management plane across firewall, switching, wireless and analytics. Selected against a multi-vendor incumbent on visibility and TCO.
Design
Target architecture mapped to the new HQ: a pair of FortiGates with enterprise protection, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiAPs and Edge / Fibre core FortiSwitches.
Deploy, just over a week
Build, integration, validation and cutover delivered in just over a week — timed against the office move, no surprises on the day.
Wi-Fi 7 refresh, 2024
Replaced the original FortiAPs with the latest Wi-Fi 7 access points — staying ahead of bandwidth demand as Golding Homes grows.
Firewall & switching refresh, 2026
Just contracted: refresh of the FortiGate and FortiSwitch estate to the current generation. Continuing the modernisation cadence that has kept the platform calm.
Run
Continuous managed support and strategic advice between every refresh cycle. The platform never sits still, and neither do we.
What we delivered (and have kept building)
Next-gen firewall with enterprise protection — the security backbone for Golding Homes' connectivity, refreshed in 2026.
Single management plane across the Fortinet estate — every policy, device and update governed from one place.
Centralised analytics, visibility and troubleshooting. Cited by Golding Homes as one of the most valuable products in the deployment.
Refreshed in 2024 to the latest Wi-Fi 7 generation. Coverage across the entire HQ, with capacity to spare for future growth.
Edge and fibre-core switching, integrated with the wider Fabric and refreshed in 2026 to the current generation.
We're delighted with the service we've received from M-Tech Systems, and the Fortinet solution is a fantastic way to give us proper insight into our network. The performance of the products has been brilliant.
What changed
Resilience
Network coverage across the entire new HQ. Wireless that keeps serving even if Ethernet access is lost. No more "drops at busy times".
Visibility
A single pane of glass across firewall, switching, wireless and analytics. Threat patterns surface fast; troubleshooting is minutes, not hours.
Security posture
A built-from-scratch Fortinet Security Fabric. Web filtering consolidated into the platform — Golding Homes retired a separate paid service.
Headroom to grow
The platform was sized with future growth in mind. CPU utilisation remains low — and successive refreshes (Wi-Fi 7, firewall/switch) have kept pace with demand.
Platform at a glance
- Client
- Golding Homes — Kent-based social landlord
- People served
- 20,000 across Kent
- Original engagement
- 2019 — office relocation + full Fortinet rollout
- Wi-Fi 7 refresh
- 2024
- Firewall & switching refresh
- 2026 (in flight)
- Original deployment time
- just over one week
- Stack
- FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiAP, FortiSwitch
- Joint case study
- published by Fortinet at fortinet.com (2019)
In numbers
- 02 / 04Years of partnership since 20190
- 03 / 04Refresh cycles delivered0
- 04 / 04Joint Fortinet case study0
Beyond the rollout
- Initial Fortinet Security Fabric deployment (2019)
- Wi-Fi 7 access point refresh (2024)
- Firewall & switching refreshin flight
- Continuous managed support and strategic advice
- Joint case study co-published with Fortinet
- Trusted technology partner across every phase of growth
The 2019 deployment was always meant to give Golding Homes a foundation to grow on. Seven years later, the platform has been refreshed twice and the partnership has earned its third project together — and a joint case study with the vendor along the way.
Networks that don't drop. Visibility that doesn't lie. And a partner that's been there for every refresh since the day Golding Homes moved in.