CTO recruitment · Executive search · UK
Hire a CTO — CTO recruitment agency and headhunter, UK
How to hire a CTO in the UK: what the role covers, when you need one, how to assess candidates, what search costs, and when a fractional or interim CTO is the better fit.
On a permanent or senior contract brief we send a shortlist of 3–5 Chief Technology Officers, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position where relevant set out, after five-stage vetting.
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
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a CTO
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with CTO 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
Pick a day that suits · live availability
Live roles · last 3 months
Live CTO jobs
No live CTO roles in the last three months. Showing live technology leadership roles instead.
Current CTO and technology leadership roles
How fractional recruitment agencies compare is set out in one place, including how we work: a CTO brief and a shortlist of three to five.
01/ the role
What a CTO does, and when you need one
A Chief Technology Officer owns the technology a company builds and sells: the architecture, the engineering team and how it is hired, the build-or-buy calls, security and platform risk, and the technology budget. In a product company the CTO is usually the most senior technical voice in front of the board and investors. That is different from a Chief Information Officer, who runs the systems the business runs on — see the CIO headhunter page if that is the seat you are filling.
When a company needs a CTO
The usual triggers: decisions that are expensive to reverse — the stack, the platform, the first senior engineering hires — are being made without a senior technical owner; investors are asking technical due-diligence questions nobody on the leadership team can answer; the engineering team has grown past the point where the founder can lead it and still do their own job; or a regulator, customer or insurer wants a named person accountable for technology risk.
Board duties come with the seat. A CTO appointed as a statutory director owes the company the general duties of directors in the Companies Act 2006. On security, the NCSC’s Cyber Security Toolkit for Boards helps boards embed cyber resilience and risk management across people, systems and processes — a useful test of whether a candidate can explain risk to non-technical directors. In an FCA-regulated firm, the person with overall responsibility for managing the firm’s internal operations or technology may perform the chief operations function (SMF24).
02/ scope
How to hire a CTO in the UK
1. Scope the seat before the search
Write down what the CTO will own, what they inherit, what stays with the CEO, and what they must leave behind in two years. A CTO for a seed-stage product and a CTO for a regulated platform with a hundred engineers are different hires with different pay. Decide, too, whether the seat carries a board role.
2. Choose the route: full-time, fractional or interim
A permanent CTO suits a company whose technology is the product and needs a senior owner every day. If the need is senior judgement for part of the week — architecture, investor diligence, the first engineering hires — hire a fractional CTO instead; for a set number of days on an ongoing basis, hire a part-time CTO. If the seat is empty mid-programme and needs a full-time leader for a fixed term, hire an interim CTO. Day rates for the flexible routes are on the fractional CTO cost page.
3. Assess candidates against the level of the role
The title covers everything from a lead engineer at a ten-person start-up to an executive who has run technology for a listed company. The SFIA framework’s levels of responsibility give a common yardstick: level 7 operates at the highest organisational level, sets overall vision and strategy, and is accountable for overall success. Professional registration is one signal among several — BCS describes Chartered IT Professional (CITP) registration as recognition of technical and professional competence matched by ethical integrity. The CIPD’s guidance on selection methods favours clear, objective, structured processes: the same questions for every candidate, a work-based exercise (a real architecture or hiring problem from your business), and references taken rather than read.
4. Run the checks before the offer
For an employee, you must check their right to work before they start. Past and current directorships, and disqualified directors, can be searched on the Companies House register. In an FCA-regulated firm, senior management functions need FCA or PRA approval before the person starts — build that into the timetable.
5. What CTO search costs
Two costs: the salary and the search. On salary, Robert Half’s 2026 figures for a Chief Technology Officer in the United Kingdom run from £120,000 at the 25th percentile to £201,500 at the 75th, with a median of £160,500. Advertised vacancies sit lower: ITJobsWatch gives a median of £100,000 for permanent Chief Technology Officer vacancies in the six months to 26 July 2026, from 54 quoted salaries. On search, retained firms are engaged exclusively and paid in stages as the search runs; contingent recruiters are paid only if their candidate is hired. Both usually charge a share of first-year pay — get the percentage, the base it applies to and the payment dates in writing.
What we do on a CTO brief
We send a shortlist of 3–5 candidates, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position where relevant set out. Every candidate goes through our five-stage vetting first.
03/ vetting
How we vet CTOs
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify CTO 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
04/ cto for hire
CTO for hire: employee, contractor or consultant?
People searching for a CTO for hire usually mean one of three arrangements. A permanent CTO is an employee: an employment contract, PAYE, and employment rights. A CTO contractor works through their own limited company for a fixed term or on a rolling contract — the interim route. A consultant or fractional CTO advises for part of the week, usually on architecture, diligence or hiring — see CTO consultant roles.
The label on the contract does not settle the status. GOV.UK notes that a person may be an employee in employment law but have a different status for tax purposes, and that employers must work out both. Where a CTO provides services through their own company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply: in most cases the client decides the worker’s status, while a small client outside the public sector leaves that to the worker’s own company. Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice. Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
Whichever arrangement you choose, the shortlist we send sets out each candidate’s pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position where relevant, so you can compare a contract CTO with a permanent one on the same page.
05/ cto headhunter
CTO headhunter or CTO executive search: what to check first
A CTO headhunter and a CTO executive search firm do the same core job: find and approach technology leaders, including people who are not looking, and bring you a shortlist. The same law covers them as any recruitment agency. GOV.UK guidance on the Conduct Regulations says the Employment Agencies Act applies to executive search consultants, that agencies are prohibited from charging workers a fee for finding them work, and that the fee charged to you, the hirer, is a commercial agreement between you and the firm.
Before you sign, ask four things in writing: the fee, the base it is calculated on, and when each part falls due; who runs the search day to day; how candidates are assessed and referenced; and what happens if the appointment does not work out. Check the firm itself on the Companies House register. Many retained firms belong to the AESC, whose members are guided by its Code of Professional Conduct.
A headhunter that holds candidates’ details takes on data-protection duties too: the ICO’s recruitment and selection guidance is written for recruitment agencies and head-hunters as well as employers. What we undertake: a shortlist of 3–5 and five-stage vetting. For a wider view of the market, see fractional executive search firms.
06/ questions
CTO headhunter FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a CTO.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
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.
