CIO jobs · Chief information officer vacancies · Permanent, interim and fractional

CIO jobs · permanent, interim and fractional

CIO jobs are chief information officer roles: the most senior seat for the systems, data and IT a business runs on, setting IT strategy, owning the budget and the suppliers, and advising the board on technology risk. They come as permanent full-time posts, interim assignments and fractional or part-time seats. The board below shows the CIO roles on our board, with permanent roles first where the posting says full-time.

We recruit permanent, interim, fractional and part-time technology leaders, and non-executive directors. Hiring rather than looking? On every brief we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

Brief us on a CIO hire →See the roles

How a brief runswhat we undertake

01Brief30-MINUTE SCOPING CALLDay 0
02Shortlist of 3–5VETTED · RATE BENCHMARK · IR35After the brief
03InterviewsYOU MEET THE SHORTLISTYour diary
04Scoped startFIRST-MONTH OUTCOMES AGREEDYou set the date
05Fractional, interim and permanentIR35 POSITION SET OUTOn every brief

Shortlist3–5

In the press

Fast Company 16 leaders on when fractional C-suite hires make sense · 24 Jun 2026
Leaders disagree on when a part-time C-suite seat works and when a role needs a full-time owner. Read it before choosing between a permanent CIO job and a fractional or interim one.

3–5

Shortlist · with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 set out

Vetting · stages before a candidate reaches a client

£150,250

Full-time CIO salary, median · 50th percentile

Robert Half, 2026

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to hire a CIO

Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with CIO candidates, their day rates and availability.

0115 minutes, video or phone
02We scope the role and the days a week
03A shortlist of 3–5 after the call
04Fractional, interim and permanent briefs

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On the board · last 3 months

CIO jobs jobs on the board

0 CIO jobs · 1 technology leadership

No CIO jobs roles on the board in the last three months. Showing technology leadership roles instead.

FractionalSyndicated
Fractional CISO (Contract / Project Based)
Cambridge Spark · United Kingdom
est £1,500/day2 d/wk

Browse every role on the board →

Current CIO roles on our board

Fractional recruitment works differently from a permanent search — shorter, scoped by days a week, and priced on the engagement. Send a CIO brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.

01/ the role

CIO jobs: what the board holds

The board on this page holds the CIO roles on our board: chief information officer, chief digital and information officer, group CIO and CIO roles in every mode of work. Roles whose posting says full-time come first. Interim, fractional and part-time CIO roles follow, and where a posting states how the role is engaged, the listing says so. When there are few CIO roles, the board widens to the CTO and CISO seats beside it, and says that it has.

What the seat does

Robert Half’s CIO profile calls the role typically the most senior position a technology professional can reach: a business leadership seat that meets the company’s objectives through IT services and systems. Its list of duties runs from the IT budget and supplier management to data management, IT security and information risk, and the IT team. In government the same seat is the chief digital and information officer, described as a trusted adviser to the board on digital, data and technology. For the day-to-day picture, see what a CIO does.

One seat, several ways to hold it

A permanent CIO is employed full-time and owns IT for years. An interim CIO holds the seat for a fixed period, to cover a departure or carry a migration, a merger or a recovery. A fractional CIO holds it for agreed days a week, often in a mid-sized business that needs board-level IT leadership without a full-time salary. The job title is the same; the contract, the days and the tax position are not.

CIO, CTO or IT director?

Where a company has both, the CIO looks after the systems the business runs on and the CTO the technology it sells or builds on; seats facing the product are listed under CTO jobs. The ONS’s occupational classification (SOC 2020) puts chief information officers and IT directors in the same unit group, 1137 information technology directors. In practice the CIO title usually carries the board seat and the strategy, and the IT director runs delivery. See IT director jobs.

02/ scope

How to get a CIO job

1. Run IT before you run it all

Robert Half’s CIO profile says a CIO should ideally start with a degree in computer science, information technology, software engineering or information systems, and calls IT management experience crucial, with business experience beside it. The usual path runs through IT manager, head of IT and IT director. Our guide on how to become a CIO sets out the steps.

2. Show the level

SFIA’s levels of responsibility run from Follow to Set strategy, inspire, mobilise; a CIO works at the top of that scale. BCS’s Chartered IT Professional (CITP) registration is assessed on written evidence of competence and conduct. Neither is required, but both give a hiring panel something to test against.

3. Show the board work

A CIO shortlist is decided on budget, suppliers, risk and change. The government’s Cyber Governance Code of Practice sets out the governance actions directors of medium and large organisations are responsible for, and the NCSC’s Cyber Security Toolkit for Boards explains how to carry them out. A CIO is often the person who briefs the board on both. Bring examples of programmes you led to the end, with what they cost and what they changed.

4. Pick the route in

Not every CIO job is permanent. Interim CIO jobs cover a gap, a migration or a recovery for a set period; fractional CIO jobs hold the seat for set days a week. If you work through your own company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply: status turns on how the engagement runs, and a medium or large client makes the determination. Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.

03/ related roles

CIO jobs by type

Every page we keep for the CIO seat, one per kind of role or question. We recruit permanent, interim, fractional and part-time CIOs.

Fractional CIO jobsInterim CIO jobsFractional CIOInterim CIOFractional CIO servicesCIO headhunterCIO salaryWhat is a CIO?How to become a CIOCIO job description

04/ vetting

How we vet CIOs

What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.

01
Qualification screen
Verify CIO tenure, sector context and stage fit.
SOURCING
02
Mandate fit
Match to your situation — stage, board dynamics, timing.
MATCHING
03
Reference deep-dive
We take references ourselves, from recent past clients — real outcomes, not titles.
VERIFY
04
Shortlist
Three to five candidates with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
SHORTLIST OF 3–5

05/ chief information officer jobs

Chief information officer jobs the seat and its titles

Chief information officer jobs are advertised under several titles. Chief information officer and CIO are the same seat; chief digital and information officer adds digital services to it; group CIO runs IT across a group of companies. In mid-sized businesses the top IT seat is often called IT director or head of IT, with the same work at a smaller scale.

Read the posting for what the seat owns: infrastructure, business systems, data, security, digital change or all of them. Ask whether a chief information security officer reports to the CIO or beside it, and who owns data. Seats with security at their centre are listed under CISO jobs, and data-led seats under chief data officer jobs.

Ask who the seat reports to. A CIO reporting to the CEO and attending the board is a different job from one reporting to the CFO or COO, even with the same title.

06/ permanent cio jobs

Permanent CIO jobs the market and the pay

Permanent CIO jobs are full-time employed roles, and they are the ones listed first on this page. Robert Half’s 2026 salary guide puts a full-time UK CIO at £108,000 at the 25th percentile, £150,250 at the median and £200,000 at the 75th percentile (Robert Half). In London it puts the CIO at £147,000, £204,250 and £272,000 at the same points (Robert Half, London). Robert Half is a recruiter, and these are its own starting-salary projections.

Base pay is one part of a permanent package. Bonus, pension and notice period vary with the size and ownership of the business, and regulated sectors ask more of the seat. For the pay picture across permanent, interim and fractional seats, see our CIO salary guide.

Some permanent CIO searches are run by a headhunter rather than an open advert. Our CIO headhunter page sets out how a permanent CIO search works from the hiring side.

07/ questions

CIO jobs FAQ

The questions people ask before bringing in a CIO.

On this page: the board shows the CIO roles on our board, permanent roles first where the posting says full-time, then interim, fractional and part-time. Each kind of CIO role also has its own page, from interim CIO jobs to fractional CIO jobs.

Roles leading the systems, data and IT a business runs on: IT strategy, the budget, suppliers, security and information risk, and the IT team. Robert Half’s CIO profile calls it typically the most senior position a technology professional can reach.

Robert Half’s 2026 guide puts a full-time UK CIO at £108,000 (25th percentile), £150,250 (median) and £200,000 (75th percentile) (Robert Half); its London median is £204,250. Interim and fractional CIOs are paid by the day; see our CIO salary page.

Run IT at growing scale first, usually as IT manager, head of IT and IT director, and build a record with the board on budgets, suppliers, risk and change programmes. Interim and fractional CIO roles are another way into the seat. Our guide on how to become a CIO sets out the steps.

Often scale and scope. The ONS’s SOC 2020 classifies both in unit group 1137, information technology directors. Where a company has both, the CIO sets IT strategy and sits with the board, and the IT director runs delivery. See IT director jobs.

Where a company has both, the CIO leads the systems and IT the company runs on, and the CTO leads the technology the company sells or builds on. In smaller companies one person often does both. See CTO jobs for that seat.

It depends on how the engagement runs in practice, not on its label. In most cases a medium or large client makes the determination; for a small client outside the public sector, the worker’s own company decides (HMRC). We set out each candidate’s IR35 position on the shortlist and do not promise an outcome.

Decide whether the seat is permanent, interim or for set days a week, then write down what it owns and who it reports to. For a permanent search, start with our CIO headhunter page; to hire a fractional CIO, see fractional CIO jobs. On every brief we send a shortlist of 3–5 after five-stage vetting.

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Bring the brief. We architect the team.

A shortlist of 3–5 with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, after five-stage vetting.

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