CTO salary in the UK, 2026
A full-time chief technology officer in a UK company of twenty to two hundred people is paid a base of £115,000 to £185,000 in 2026, with equity that is usually the largest grant of any hired executive at the same stage and a cash bonus that is smaller or absent. The band is what this practice briefs against for hired CTOs, as distinct from technical co-founders, and London engineering salaries sit at its top.
The package in one table
| Component | 2026 band | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | £115,000 to £185,000 | Midpoint £145,000, the figure the cost calculator assumes. |
| Bonus | Up to 20 per cent | Often no cash bonus at all; the variable component is equity. |
| Employer costs | £22,321 a year at the midpoint | Employer National Insurance and the statutory pension minimum, on top of base. |
| Search fee, year of hire | £36,250 to £47,850 | 25 to 33 per cent of first-year earnings for a retained search, on the base alone here. |
Equity
One to two per cent of fully diluted equity for a CTO hired after a seed round, falling to a quarter to three quarters of a per cent by Series C, vesting over four years. Candidates leaving unvested options at a well-funded company commonly negotiate a make-whole, either a signing payment or accelerated vesting on the first tranche.
By stage and kind of company
| Company | Base band | What the seat is |
|---|---|---|
| Seed, first technical leader | £100,000 to £130,000 | Usually a co-founder on founder equity, or a fractional CTO; a hired full-time CTO this early is unusual. |
| Series A, ten to thirty engineers | £120,000 to £160,000 | Hands-on, grows the first managers. Equity carries the offer. |
| Series B to C, thirty to a hundred engineers | £150,000 to £200,000 | Manages managers, often alongside a VP of Engineering. |
| Platform, deep tech or regulated | £160,000 to £220,000 | Security, compliance or research depth priced on top of leadership. |
What moves the number
Architect, builder or manager
The market pays the most for the person who can do two of the three: set technical direction and run a growing organisation. A pure engineering manager without architectural authority is a VP of Engineering and is paid a little under the band; a pure architect who will not manage is a principal engineer and is paid differently again. The brief should say which the company is buying.
The stack and the scarcity in it
Leaders with production experience in machine learning systems, security engineering or hardware-adjacent software command a premium over general web and mobile backgrounds, because there are fewer of them and the large technology companies compete for the same people. The premium is on base and on equity both.
What the engineers underneath are paid
A CTO has to earn more than the senior engineers reporting in, and UK senior and staff engineers at funded companies are well paid. In London a staff engineer can be on £120,000 or more, which pushes the CTO's base to the top of the band whatever the company's size.
Equity left behind
The strongest candidates are usually sitting on unvested options somewhere else. A company that will not discuss a make-whole loses them to a company that will, and the cost of a signing payment is often less than the cost of the second-choice candidate. This is the single largest influence on whether a CTO offer is accepted.
London and the rest of the UK
London and Cambridge pay the top of every band, driven by competition from the large technology companies and from well-funded startups. Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh pay towards the middle for equivalent scope. Fully remote engineering organisations now pay a national rate close to the London figure, because the candidate pool is national.
The fractional alternative, in the same units
A fractional CTO at the published UK band of £800 to £1,400 a day, two days a week for forty-six weeks, costs £73,600 to £128,800 a year, with no employer National Insurance, pension, holiday or search fee on top. Against a full-time midpoint of £145,000 plus £22,321 of employer costs, the fractional seat costs less until it needs about three days a week. The cost calculator runs the comparison at any day rate and any number of days, and the fractional CTO cost page sets out the monthly and annual figures.
Where the figures come from
The bands are the ones this practice briefs against when running a full-time CTO search for a company of twenty to two hundred people, cross-checked against offers made and accepted in the last year and against the published salary ranges on UK job adverts for the seat. They are not survey means across the whole market, which is why they are narrower than the job-board averages and why the page says what kind of company each row describes. How the numbers on this site are compiled covers the rest.
Common questions
What is a CTO paid in the UK?
For a hired chief technology officer in a UK company of twenty to two hundred people, a base of £115,000 to £185,000 in 2026, with equity of one to two per cent after seed falling to under one per cent by Series C. Technical co-founders are on founder equity and a lower salary and are a different case.
How much equity should a CTO get?
One to two per cent for a CTO hired after a seed round, a quarter to three quarters of a per cent by Series C, vesting over four years with a one-year cliff. The grant is normally the largest of any hired executive at the same stage, and candidates leaving unvested options elsewhere will ask for a make-whole.
Is a CTO paid more than a CFO in the UK?
In scale-ups, often slightly more on base and considerably more on equity, because engineering leaders are scarcer and the large technology companies compete for them. In owner-managed and regulated businesses the CFO is usually the higher paid of the two.
What does a fractional CTO cost compared with a full-time one?
A fractional CTO at the UK band of £800 to £1,400 a day, two days a week, costs £73,600 to £128,800 a year with no equity, employer costs or search fee. It fits a company with a strong head of engineering that needs architectural judgement rather than a full-time leader of the organisation.
What is the difference between a CTO and a VP of Engineering salary?
A VP of Engineering in a UK scale-up is usually paid ten to twenty per cent under the CTO on base and receives a smaller grant, reflecting delivery rather than direction. Where a company has both, the CTO's band above applies to the CTO and the VP sits just beneath it.
Full-time, or the part-time version first
Retained search runs a permanent CTO appointment end to end, and the CTO search page sets out how that search runs. The bench lists verified fractional CTOs with the day rate on the profile, for the company that wants the judgement before the headcount.