C-suite executive search for founders and boards
Retained executive search in the UK runs 25 to 33 per cent of first-year salary, which is £37,500 to £49,500 on a £150,000 seat. Most firms will not put that on a page. What follows is what the fee buys, what changes depending on who is buying, and the cases where a search is the wrong instrument entirely.
Start from who you are
The process is broadly the same everywhere and the things that go wrong are not. These pages carry what actually changes.
The brief is the deliverable before the shortlist is
If the seat is part-time, if the need is urgent, or if the company is not sure the role is permanent yet, a full retained search is the expensive way to find out. A fractional executive answers the same question in weeks and converts to permanent if the answer is yes.
The board is a decision-maker and should be one from the start
If the round has not closed, a permanent senior hire is a commitment against money that does not exist yet, and candidates can tell. Fractional cover until the wire lands is the honest version, and it costs less than an offer withdrawn.
Some seats need approval before the person can perform them
If the firm is pre-authorisation and the immediate question is whether the permission arrives, a permanent senior hire is early. Fractional cover through the application, converting on approval, is cheaper and carries less risk for both sides.
The fee is a share of annualised value, not of a salary
If the seat is genuinely full-time and permanent from day one, a fractional search is the wrong instrument and a retained search is the right one. The pages on executive search cost and the firms compared set out that route honestly. Fractional search is for a seat that is part-time, urgent, or not yet certainly permanent, and most first executive hires at a growth company are at least one of those.
Stage decides the candidate pool before the salary does
If the real requirement is a model, a board pack and a monthly close, that is two days a week of judgement rather than a full-time officer, and a fractional CFO fills it in days at a fraction of the loaded cost. Many permanent CFO searches should start as fractional cover and convert once the seat has proved it needs five days.
Architect, builder or manager, and the company usually needs a different one than it had
A company with a strong head of engineering that needs architectural judgement a day or two a week does not need a full-time chief technology officer; it needs a fractional CTO who makes the platform decisions and leaves the running to the person already doing it. The permanent search is right when the seat is the organisation itself.
Growth operator or brand leader, and the board usually wants one while describing the other
A company that has not yet found its positioning does not need a full-time chief marketing officer; it needs the founder to do that work with a fractional CMO two days a week, then hire permanently once there is a message to scale. Searching for a permanent CMO before the positioning exists hires somebody to execute a strategy that has not been written.
The seat has to be defined from the founder outward
A founder who needs the operating rhythm built, the hiring plan run and the board pack produced, two or three days a week, does not yet have a full-time chief operating officer's job; a fractional COO builds the machine and hands it to the permanent hire when the company is large enough to need one all week. Hiring full-time first often hires the person to design a job that does not exist yet.
Why sales-leadership searches fail
If the company still sells through the founder and has not proved that anybody else can close, a full-time sales leader on a full variable plan is an expensive way to find out. A fractional sales director writes the process and hires the first sellers two days a week, and the permanent brief is written once the motion works.
25 to 33 per cent retained, 15 to 25 per cent contingency, and the five details that cost the most to leave unagreed.
A £150,000 CFO at both ends of the 25 to 33 per cent band: the thirds, VAT, employer costs, and a bonus in the basis.
Base, bonus and equity bands for the CFO, CTO, CMO and COO seats in UK companies of twenty to two hundred people, beside the fractional day rate.
Grouped by what kind of firm each one is rather than ranked, by a company that is on the list and says so.
What the fee looks like
| First-year salary | Retained fee, low | Retained fee, high |
|---|---|---|
| £80,000 | £20,000 | £26,400 |
| £100,000 | £25,000 | £33,000 |
| £120,000 | £30,000 | £39,600 |
| £150,000 | £37,500 | £49,500 |
| £200,000 | £50,000 | £66,000 |
Market range rather than a rate we set. Your exact number is written down and agreed before any work starts. What sits inside it.
Ex-Goldman Sachs. UK, US and UAE.
C-suite recruitment, c-level search, executive search
Three names for one thing, and no standard behind any of them. A c-suite recruitment agency, a c-level executive recruiter and an executive search firm are describing the same work: a retained, approach-led search for a senior appointment, paid as a percentage of first-year salary. The words move with who is writing them rather than with what gets done.
So the question worth asking is not which label a firm uses. It is whether the search is retained and approach-led, or contingent and database-led. Those genuinely differ, they cost differently, and a firm will tell you which it is if you ask directly. The questions that settle it take one meeting.
Choosing a firm is its own decision: choosing an executive search firm in the UK, and in the US, executive search against a recruitment agency, what recruitment agencies charge and how a C-suite hiring process runs.
When a search is the wrong instrument
A search is the right answer for a seat that is genuinely full-time, permanent and hard to fill. It is an expensive way to discover that a role was none of those. If the seat is under three days a week, or you are not yet certain it is permanent, a fractional executive answers the same question in weeks, at 15% of annualised value on appointment, minimum £3,500.
That is not a smaller version of a search. It is a different product, and the calculator does the arithmetic on both so the comparison is yours rather than ours.
A board seat is a different search again. What a non-executive director is, what one is paid and how a board search runs are set out separately.
Common questions
What is executive search?
A retained process for filling a senior seat: the scope is written down, the market is mapped, people who are not looking are approached directly, and candidates are assessed against the written standard. It differs from contingency recruitment in that the firm is paid to run the search rather than only on a placement, and works the mandate exclusively.
What does executive search cost in the UK?
25 to 33 per cent of first-year salary for retained search, billed in thirds, plus VAT. Contingency runs 15 to 25 per cent and is paid only on a placement.
How long does an executive search take?
Eight to twelve weeks to an accepted offer for a C-suite seat, then whatever notice the person has to serve. In regulated firms, add regulatory approval and referencing on top of that.
When is a fractional hire better than an executive search?
When the seat is under three days a week, when the role is not certainly permanent, or when the need is immediate. A fractional executive is in the seat in weeks rather than months and converts to permanent if the answer turns out to be yes.
Permanent, or part-time first
Retained search for a full-time appointment, run end to end. Operator Search for the fractional version: five researched candidates against a written brief in five business days. Or browse the bench and approach somebody direct.