Fractional executive day rates in the UK, 2026
Edition 2026-Q4. Last reviewed 1 November 2026.
A fractional executive in the UK costs £600 to £1,500 a day in 2026, depending on the seat: a fractional CFO £800 to £1,500, and most engagements run one to three days a week. This page sets out every seat on the bench, what it costs per day, and what moves a rate to the top of its band. Some firms publish a rate for the seat they place; this is the only open dataset across all eleven, with the method stated and the file free to download and reuse.
What does each fractional seat cost per day in the UK?
- A fractional CFO in the UK costs £800 to £1,500 a day in 2026. Higher end for fundraise or exit work, and for regulated sectors.
- A fractional CMO in the UK costs £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026. Higher end for category creation, rebrands and full funnel rebuilds.
- A fractional CTO in the UK costs £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026. Higher end for regulated sectors, AI systems and technical due diligence.
- A fractional COO in the UK costs £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026. Higher end for turnarounds, scale-ups past 50 people and multi-site operations.
- A fractional Sales Director in the UK costs £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026. Often part fixed fee, part performance-linked. Agree the structure in writing before starting.
- A fractional Growth Lead in the UK costs £600 to £1,100 a day in 2026. Higher end for marketplaces, subscription products and anything with a complex funnel.
- A fractional Product Lead in the UK costs £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026. Higher end for complex B2B products and platform or API work.
- A fractional People Lead in the UK costs £600 to £1,100 a day in 2026. Higher end for scale-ups hiring at pace and for TUPE, restructures or redundancy work.
- A fractional CISO in the UK costs £900 to £1,500 a day in 2026. Among the highest fractional rates, driven by certification work and regulated sectors.
- A fractional Data Lead in the UK costs £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026. Higher end for machine learning and AI strategy work as well as pipeline building.
- A fractional General Counsel in the UK costs £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026. Still materially below partner-level law firm rates for equivalent seniority.
Where in the band does a mid-market or private equity backed company sit?
Usually in the upper half, and that is a judgement rather than a measured figure. A private equity backed company tends to want the operator who has already done the specific thing in front of it: a value creation plan, a lender reporting pack, a buy-and-build integration or an exit. That experience is what the top of each band pays for. A mid-market company with no investor and a steady brief more often sits around the middle, and the number of days a week usually moves the monthly cost more than the rate does. What changes in a private equity or venture backed company has its own page.
Hiring for a charity? See what changes
What about head-of-function roles like RevOps, customer success or paid media?
They have no band of their own here, because they are a level below the seats on this page. The nearest seat is the ceiling for each of them, not its rate: a head of RevOps or of customer success prices below the sales director band of £700 to £1,300 a day, and a paid media lead below the growth band of £600 to £1,100. If the brief is really the whole function, with the number and the team, it is the seat itself and belongs in the table above.
What about CRO, CDO, chief AI officer, HR director, CIO and chief of staff day rates?
Most fractional titles in the UK are one of these eleven seats under another name, and they are priced as that seat. A chief revenue officer, head of sales or VP of sales is priced as a sales director at £700 to £1,300 a day, an HR director as the people seat at £600 to £1,100, a CIO as a CTO at £800 to £1,400, a chief data officer or chief AI officer as a head of data at £700 to £1,200, and a chief of staff as a COO at £700 to £1,300. The chief AI officer seat has its own page, with what the role covers and the rules that apply to it.
| Title | Priced as | UK day rate, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Marketing, sales and retention under one number Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Sales, partnerships and pricing under one seat Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| Chief Sales Officer (CSO) The sales seat with a board-level title Chief Sales Officer (CSO) is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| Commercial Director Sales plus pricing, margin and partnerships Commercial Director is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| Head of Sales The sales seat below board level Head of Sales is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| VP of Sales The US name for the same sales seat VP of Sales is priced as the Sales Director seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Sales Director | £700 to £1,300 |
| HR Director or CHRO The people seat with a board-level title HR Director or CHRO is priced as the People Lead seat: £600 to £1,100 a day in 2026, about £4,600 to £8,400 a month at two days a week. | Fractional People Lead | £600 to £1,100 |
| Chief Information Officer (CIO) Technology leadership, run inward rather than on product Chief Information Officer (CIO) is priced as the CTO seat: £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026, about £6,100 to £10,700 a month at two days a week. | Fractional CTO | £800 to £1,400 |
| Head of IT Runs systems and infrastructure rather than product Head of IT is priced as the CTO seat: £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026, about £6,100 to £10,700 a month at two days a week. | Fractional CTO | £800 to £1,400 |
| Chief AI Officer AI strategy is what takes the data band to its top Chief AI Officer is priced as the Data Lead seat: £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £9,200 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Data Lead | £700 to £1,200 |
| Chief Data Officer (CDO) The data seat with a board-level title Chief Data Officer (CDO) is priced as the Data Lead seat: £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £9,200 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Data Lead | £700 to £1,200 |
| Part-time Finance Director (FD) The same seat under its older British name Part-time Finance Director (FD) is priced as the CFO seat: £800 to £1,500 a day in 2026, about £6,100 to £11,500 a month at two days a week. | Fractional CFO | £800 to £1,500 |
| Part-time Marketing Director The same seat with fewer days Part-time Marketing Director is priced as the CMO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional CMO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Chief of Staff Usually listed alongside the COO title Chief of Staff is priced as the COO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional COO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Operations Director In a smaller company, often the same seat Operations Director is priced as the COO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional COO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Head of Operations The operations seat below board level Head of Operations is priced as the COO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional COO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Interim Operations Director The same seat held full-time for a stretch, priced by the day Interim Operations Director is priced as the COO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional COO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Integrator (EOS) The EOS name for the person who runs the business day to day Integrator (EOS) is priced as the COO seat: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £10,000 a month at two days a week. | Fractional COO | £700 to £1,300 |
| Head of Product The product seat below board level Head of Product is priced as the Product Lead seat: £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £9,200 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Product Lead | £700 to £1,200 |
| Product Director The product seat with a director title Product Director is priced as the Product Lead seat: £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026, about £5,400 to £9,200 a month at two days a week. | Fractional Product Lead | £700 to £1,200 |
| Head of Legal or interim legal counsel In-house legal leadership, held part-time Head of Legal or interim legal counsel is priced as the General Counsel seat: £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026, about £6,100 to £10,700 a month at two days a week. | Fractional General Counsel | £800 to £1,400 |
How do you read these day rate bands?
These are day rates for genuinely senior operators: people who have held the seat before, verified against their LinkedIn and CV before they appear on the bench. Most engagements run one to three days a week, so the monthly cost is a fraction of the equivalent full-time hire, with none of the employer costs on top.
London typically prices at the top of each band, and most engagements now run remote or hybrid, so a strong operator based elsewhere often does the same work for less. Each seat page covers what the role owns, the signs you need one, and the questions worth asking: work out the monthly cost against a full-time hire in the cost calculator, start from the full list of seats, or brief us and we run the search for you.
What do these seats cost in the US and the UAE?
This page is the UK set and it is the one with the most data behind it, because most of its bands are checked against live listings on the bench. The same eleven seats are worked out for the US and the UAE, in their own currencies, with the same monthly and annual arithmetic and the same open JSON and CSV behind them. Those two are market observation rather than listing data, and they say so.
Where do these day rates come from?
Three sources: the rates operators set on their own listings on the bench, rates quoted to us by operators during Operator Search briefs, and published UK market rates for the equivalent full-time seats. They are reviewed whenever the bench grows enough to move a band, and stamped with the edition shown under the heading.
What this is not. These are bands, not survey means, and the bench is young enough that no seat has a sample worth quoting a median from. If you need a figure with an n against it, this is not yet that, and we would rather say so than dress a range up as research. A proper rate survey across the eleven seats is the next edition’s job.
Cite this data
Free to reuse and republish with attribution, under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. The line for a footnote or a reference list:
getoperators (2026). UK fractional executive day rates, edition 2026-Q4. https://getoperators.co/day-rates. CC BY 4.0.
The same bands as data: JSON at /api/day-rates or CSV at /api/day-rates?format=csv, with every other name each seat goes by in an also_called column, and the UK, US and UAE bands as one Markdown file. Each row above has its own anchor, so a citation can point at one seat or one title, for example /day-rates#cfo or /day-rates#cro. On a web page the link below does the same job and can be pasted as it stands.
<a href="https://getoperators.co/day-rates">UK fractional executive day rates, getoperators (2026-Q4)</a>
If you are writing about fractional pay and need the working, email support@getoperators.co and you will get a straight answer from the person who compiled it.
Changes to the bands
- : Edition 1, first published 13 September 2026.
No band has moved since. The current edition, 2026-Q4, added the titles priced as each seat; the seat bands themselves are unchanged.
Setting a rate rather than paying one?
- Setting your own rate? What to charge as a fractional executive
- The other side of the comparison: full-time UK executive salaries
- A board seat is priced differently again: non-executive director fees
Common questions
How is a fractional day rate different from a salary?
A day rate covers only the days worked, with no employer pension, national insurance, equipment or paid leave on top. Two days a week of a £1,000-a-day CFO is about £7,667 a month all-in, against £13,464 or more for the equivalent full-time hire once those costs are counted.
What moves a fractional executive's rate to the top of the band?
Scarce, provable experience against a live deadline: a fundraise or exit in flight, a regulated sector, enterprise security reviews, or a turnaround. Rates at the bottom of a band usually reflect a lighter brief or a longer, steadier engagement, not a weaker operator.
Where do these numbers come from?
They are the bands we publish on each seat page, drawn from the operators on the getoperators bench and current UK market rates. Operators on the bench set their own rate, which is also why we can publish the numbers at all.
What is a fractional chief revenue officer's day rate in the UK?
A fractional CRO is priced as a fractional sales director: £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026. A chief commercial officer, a commercial director, a head of sales and a VP of sales all sit in the same band. Part of the fee is often performance-linked, so agree the structure in writing first.
What does a fractional chief of staff cost per day in the UK?
No separate UK band is published for a fractional chief of staff. In practice the operators who take the seat usually also hold the COO title and price within the fractional COO band, £700 to £1,300 a day in 2026. At two days a week that is roughly £5,367 to £9,967 a month.
What is a fractional HR director's day rate?
A fractional HR director or CHRO is priced as a fractional Chief People Officer: £600 to £1,100 a day in the UK in 2026. The higher end is for scale-ups hiring at pace and for restructures, TUPE or redundancy work.
What does a fractional CIO or head of IT charge per day?
A fractional CIO is priced as a fractional CTO: £800 to £1,400 a day in the UK in 2026, with regulated sectors, AI systems and due diligence at the top. A head of IT brief is usually lighter and sits lower in the same band.
What is a fractional chief AI officer's day rate?
No UK body publishes a benchmark for a fractional chief AI officer. In practice the seat is priced as a fractional head of data, £700 to £1,200 a day in 2026, and AI strategy work is what takes a rate to the top of that band.
Is a fractional financial controller the same as a fractional CFO?
No. A financial controller runs the monthly close, the ledgers and the controls; a CFO owns forecasting, funding and the decisions. A controller prices below the £800 to £1,500 CFO band. A finance director (FD) is a different matter: in a UK SME the FD and the CFO are the same seat under two names, priced in the same band.
What is a fractional general counsel's day rate in the UK?
A fractional general counsel in the UK costs £800 to £1,400 a day in 2026, about £3,067 to £5,367 a month at one day a week. A head of legal or in-house legal counsel held part-time is priced in the same band. That is still materially below partner-level law firm rates for equivalent seniority.