How to hire a fractional CFO in the UK
What the seat covers and costs is on the fractional CFO page. This is the part that usually goes unwritten: how to interview for it, what should be true by day ninety, and when this hire is the wrong answer entirely.
UK day rates for the seat run £800–£1,500. All eleven seats compared →
Six questions to ask, and what a strong answer sounds like
Every question here asks for something that happened, not something they believe. An operator who has genuinely held the seat answers from memory; one who has advised from the sidelines answers in the abstract, and the difference is audible within a minute.
1. Walk me through the last runway conversation you had to force. What triggered it, and what changed afterwards?
Listen for: A strong answer names the trigger (burn creeping up, a raise slipping a quarter) and the decision that followed: a cut, a bridge, a price rise, with rough numbers attached. A weak answer is abstract, or the conversation somehow never needed forcing.
2. An investor asks for the data room on Friday and wants it Monday. What is in it by Monday, and what do you refuse to rush?
Listen for: Strong candidates list the contents from memory: the model with assumptions stated, cap table, key contracts, filed accounts, and they flag the gaps honestly rather than papering over them. Weak ones talk about making it look polished, or claim everything is always ready.
3. Tell me about a forecast of yours that was badly wrong. What broke, and what did you change in the model?
Listen for: You want a named assumption that failed, such as collection timing or churn, and a structural fix to how they forecast, not just a corrected number. Blaming the market, or claiming their forecasts always land, is the weak answer.
4. We want to make two hires next quarter. How do you decide whether we can afford them?
Listen for: Strong answers work through cash timing, contribution margin and what happens if the hires do not perform, and they ask what the hires are for before answering. Weak answers reach for a rule of thumb about revenue multiples and stop there.
5. What does month-end look like when you run it, and how fast should a company our size close?
Listen for: A good operator has a working close of five to ten working days in mind, knows which parts they would automate, and can describe the mechanics even if the bookkeeper does the typing. Someone who says close speed does not matter, or who clearly has never run one hands-on, will struggle at this stage of company.
6. Tell me about a pricing or margin change you pushed through against resistance. What happened to the number?
Listen for: The strong version has a specific change, who resisted it and why, and the result measured months later. If every story they have is about reporting and none is about a commercial intervention, they have been a controller, not a CFO.
Red flags
- They lead with the reporting pack they will build instead of asking about your cash position in the first conversation. Reporting is the output; cash is the job.
- They cannot name a single assumption their last model got wrong. Every experienced CFO has been wrong in a way they can describe precisely.
- They want to hire a finance team before they have looked at whether the bookkeeper and the existing stack can carry the load. Headcount first is an employee's instinct, not an operator's.
- They pitch fundraising as introductions to investors. The CFO's contribution to a raise is the model, the data room and surviving diligence; a contact book is a different, and usually oversold, service.
What day ninety should look like
Agree these before they start, in writing, in the brief. A fractional engagement without a ninety-day marker drifts into a retainer nobody remembers the point of.
- A rolling 13-week cash forecast that has been reforecast at least twice and tracked against actuals, so you can see how close it runs, not just that it exists.
- One agreed set of numbers. The competing spreadsheets are retired, the board pack comes from that set, and the board has actually engaged with it rather than filed it.
- A written view of unit economics: what a customer costs to acquire, what one is worth, and the two or three changes that would move margin, each with a number against it.
When a fractional CFO is the wrong answer
- The books are months behind, VAT is late and the bank feed has not been reconciled since spring. That is a bookkeeping problem, and paying £1,000 a day to fix it is the wrong use of the seat. Get the books current first, then hire the judgement.
- The business is in or near a formal distress process and needs someone on it every day. That is full-time interim turnaround work, and two days a week will not hold it.
- What you actually want is warm introductions to investors. That is not what the seat is, and a candidate who sells it that way is telling you something.
If one of those is you, say so in a brief anyway and we will tell you straight. Sometimes the honest answer is interim or full-time, and pointing that out costs us nothing because the operator never pays us either way.
What to put in the brief
- State the scope and the time honestly: which part of the seat you need first (raise prep, cash control, board reporting) and how many days a month. Two days a month and two days a week are different jobs and attract different operators.
- Write down the decision rights. Can they change payment runs, renegotiate supplier terms, replace the bookkeeper, or does everything route back to you? Senior operators decline seats where nothing is theirs to decide.
- The thing founders always leave out: the state of the books and the stack. Say whether it is Xero or Sage, who reconciles it, and when the last accounts were filed. It is the first thing a good CFO asks, and putting it in the brief lets the right one say yes quickly.
Two ways in, one of them free
Browse verified fractional fractional CFOs on the bench and book direct at no cost, or brief Operator Search and we run the interviews above for you.