Hire a fractional CFO in the UK
A fractional CFO runs your finance function two or three days a week. Not a bookkeeper and not an accountant filing your returns: the person who owns the numbers, sits in the leadership meeting, and tells you what the business can afford before you commit to it.
A fractional CFO in the UK charges £800–£1,500 a day as of 2026, typically one to three days a week, according to the getoperators day-rate dataset.
What does a fractional CFO do?
- Cash flow forecasting, and the runway conversation nobody else wants to start
- Board and investor reporting that survives a hard question
- Pricing, margin and unit economics, usually the first thing they rebuild
- Fundraise preparation: the model, the data room, the diligence answers
- Managing the bookkeeper, the accountant and the audit relationship
When do you need a fractional CFO?
- You are past about £1M revenue and still running the business off a spreadsheet
- A raise is coming and your numbers would not survive diligence
- You cannot answer what a customer costs you or what one is worth
- Your accountant tells you what happened, and nobody tells you what to do next
How much does a fractional CFO cost in the UK?
Higher end for fundraise or exit work, and for regulated sectors.
Rates are set by the operator and paid to them directly.
Where in the UK can you hire a fractional CFO?
Most of our fractional CFOs are in or within reach of London, where day rates sit at the top of the £800–£1,500 band; the same experience costs noticeably less outside it. Part-time FD is the older name for the same seat, and plenty of ours have held it.
Coverage runs across the UK: Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, and Scotland including Edinburgh and Glasgow. Most engagements are remote or hybrid with a monthly day on site, so where the operator sits matters less than it used to.
The seat written up city by city, with who on the bench is based there: fractional CFO in London, fractional CFO in Bristol, fractional CFO in Leeds, fractional CFO in Manchester and fractional CFO in Edinburgh.
What does a fractional CFO cost in each city?
The day rate moves with the market, and so does the paperwork behind the engagement. CFO in London (£800 to £1,500), CFO in Manchester (£650 to £1,200), CFO in Birmingham (£650 to £1,200), CFO in Edinburgh (£650 to £1,250), CFO in New York ($1,200 to $2,400), CFO in San Francisco ($1,400 to $2,600) and CFO in Dubai (AED 3,500 to AED 7,500). Every one of those is a day rate for the seat held one to three days a week, with the full-time comparison beside it.
Outside the UK this seat runs $1,000 to $2,200 a day in the US and AED 3,500 to AED 7,500 a day in the UAE.
Is a fractional CFO worth it against a full-time hire?
A full-time CFO in London is £140k to £200k plus equity, and a company under £10M revenue rarely has enough finance work to fill the week. An accountant closes your books and files your returns, which is compliance rather than judgement. A fractional CFO is the seat itself, held part-time, and the same person stays as you grow.
The longer version is on fractional vs interim vs full-time.
Still on the word itself? What a fractional CFO is, and is not settles the definition and the job description before the comparisons below.
Hiring the seat full-time instead? What a CFO is paid in the UK gives the base, bonus and equity bands by stage, and CFO executive search sets out how the permanent search runs.
How do you choose a fractional CFO?
- They have held the seat before, not advised somebody who did
- Sector fit matters more here than most seats: SaaS, ecommerce and services have different economics
- Ask what they would want to see in week one, and listen for whether it is cash or vanity metrics
- Whether they have taken a company through the raise or the exit you are heading for
The full version, with six interview questions and what a strong answer sounds like, is the guide to hiring a fractional CFO.
Fractional CFOs on the bench
See every CFO on the bench. Names are shown in full once an operator accepts your booking.
Common questions about hiring a fractional CFO
What is a fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO is an experienced chief financial officer who runs your finance function part-time, usually one to three days a week. They own the numbers, the runway and the forecasts: the actual job, not consulting.
What does a fractional CFO cost in the UK?
Most UK fractional CFOs charge £800 to £1,500 a day, typically two to four days a month for an early-stage company and one to two days a week for one at scale. That works out at roughly £2,000 to £12,000 a month depending on how much of the seat you need. The higher end is normal for fundraise work, regulated sectors, or a live exit process.
When should a company hire a fractional CFO rather than a full-time one?
The rough line is when finance decisions start affecting strategy but there is not five days a week of finance work to do. In practice that is often between £1M and £15M of revenue. Below that a good accountant plus a founder who reads the numbers is usually enough. Above it, a full-time CFO starts to pay for itself.
How is a fractional CFO different from an accountant?
An accountant records and reports what already happened, and files what has to be filed. A CFO decides what happens next: what to price, what to cut, when to raise, what the business can afford. Most companies need both, and they are not substitutes.
How quickly can a fractional CFO start?
You can usually meet somebody within days and have them in the seat within one to three weeks, which is much of the point. Operators on our bench mark themselves available when they are taking on work, so the ones showing as available are actively looking now.
Do you have fractional CFOs outside London?
Yes. London holds the deepest pool, but the bench covers the UK, including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh, and most engagements run remote or hybrid. London operators typically price at the top of the band; elsewhere sits lower.
The questions that are not about this seat, on contracts, notice, IR35 and how a booking works, are answered on the fractional executive FAQ.
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Hold this seat yourself rather than hiring for it? Becoming a fractional CFO covers what it earns, how many clients it holds, and when it does not work part-time.
Fractional CFO by company stage
This seat, by industry
The job changes with the sector, and these carry what actually changes rather than the same page with an industry word swapped in.
- Fractional CFO for fintech: safeguarding is an operational job, not an accounting policy
- Fractional CFO for B2B SaaS: arr is a management metric and recognised revenue is an accounting one
- Fractional CFO for banking and payments: capital and liquidity are reported on somebody else's calendar
- Fractional CFO for crypto and digital assets: custody is a finance control, not an engineering preference
- Fractional CFO for family offices: the consolidation is across structures that were never designed to consolidate
- Every seat and industry combination