CTO salary · base, bonus, equity and notice
What a CTO earns, in base, bonus and equity
A CTO salary in 2026 has a median of £160,500 in Robert Half’s salary guide, and its national range runs from £120,000 to £201,500 in base pay.
In London, Robert Half’s median is £218,250.
Job ads quote less: ITJobsWatch puts the median advertised CTO salary at £100,000 over the six months to 5 October 2026.
Bonus and equity sit on top of the base, and they often move the package more than the base does.
When you hire a CTO through us, permanent, interim or fractional, we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
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 technology lead is enough. Read it before you set a permanent salary for a seat that may not need someone every day.
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
On the board · last 3 months
CTO roles jobs on the board
No CTO roles roles on the board in the last three months. Showing technology leadership roles instead.
CTO and technology leadership roles on the board
Fractional Quest is a fractional recruitment agency: send a CTO brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.
01/ the cross
Where a permanent hire becomes cheaper.
Move the day rate and the days a week: the rising line is a month of part-week cost, the flat line a permanent hire’s month. Where they cross, the seat should go full-time.
At 3.5 days a week a permanent hire costs less.
Our arithmetic. Permanent a month = the salary ÷ 12 plus 15% employer NI, plus the 30% search fee spread over 12 months — the calculator’s inputs. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for each step.
Permanent = the £160,500 Robert Half 2026 median salary. The full calculator below adds the months, the totals and the currency tabs.
- The fractional CTO at 2 days a week never passes permanent inside 24 months.
- Interim passes permanent at month 4.
Our arithmetic, cumulative. Permanent = the salary’s 30% search fee in month 0, then salary ÷ 12 plus 15% employer NI each month. Interim = the midpoint of the published interim band (£1,300 a day, Exec Capital 2026) × 5 days × 4.33 weeks. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for each month.
02/ the role
CTO salaries: what the sources measure
CTO salaries are published three ways, and each answers a different question.
A salary guide reports what employers agree to pay.
A job-ad count reports what adverts offer before any negotiation.
A recruiter’s tier table reports the range it sees by company size.
Quote the one that matches your question, and name it.
Robert Half’s 2026 guide gives the agreed-pay view: a national median of £160,500, with the range running from £120,000 for a CTO new to the seat to £201,500 for one with above-average experience.
Robert Half describes these as starting salaries, built from its own placements and 350,000 third-party vacancies.
ITJobsWatch gives the advertised view.
Over the six months to 5 October 2026 it counted 57 permanent CTO ads with a salary, at a median of £100,000.
One ad in ten quoted £84,200 or less; one in ten quoted £148,000 or more.
The same six months of 2025 had a median of £120,000.
The official series is the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.
It reports employee earnings by occupation, and the SOC 2020 classification puts technology leadership in a wider directors’ group than the CTO title.
Use it as a cross-check, not as a CTO benchmark.
03/ scope
What moves the package beyond the base
Company size
Exec Capital’s 2026 technology salary guide sets the base by tier: £130,000–£220,000 at a scale-up or SME with £10–50m revenue, £150,000–£250,000 in the mid-market, and £200,000–£350,000+ at a large or listed company.
At the largest private and listed firms, it says base starts at £400,000.
Bonus
The same guide puts the annual bonus at 20–40% of base at a scale-up, 25–45% in the mid-market and 50–100% at a large or listed company.
Tie the bonus to what the seat controls, such as delivery, uptime or the cost of the platform, and write the targets into the offer.
Equity
In a venture-backed business, equity often carries most of the upside.
Exec Capital’s indicative CTO grants, fully diluted, run from 0.5%–1.5% at seed to 0.05%–0.2% from Series C.
Qualifying companies can grant Enterprise Management Incentive options, which carry tax advantages but include a minimum working-time test.
Notice and benefits
Exec Capital’s executive guide says C-suite notice periods are typically six to twelve months, and that pension contributions of 10–15% of base, or cash in lieu, are standard in a C-suite package.
A long notice period is also a lead time: a CTO you offer today may not start for months.
Professional standing
Chartered IT Professional (CITP) registration with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is independent evidence of technical and leadership competence.
It is worth asking about.
It is not a requirement for the seat, and no source we can cite prices it.
04/ the maths
What the seat costs, by the days a week
Move the day rate, the days a week and the months: the totals and the permanent comparison for the period. The curve above shows where a permanent hire becomes the cheaper seat.
The slider runs across the published band for a fractional CTO: £1,000–£1,600 a day (Leadership Services 2026).
Cost over 12 months
£135,200
104 working days · 2 d/wk · 12 mo · before tax
Fractional costs less over 12 months£97,525
Fractional CTO, 12 months£135,200
Fractional CTO, a month at 2 d/wk£11,258
Permanent CTO, same period£232,725
Fractional CTO, 12 months$179,126
Fractional CTO, a month at 2 d/wk$14,916
Permanent CTO, same period$308,337
Converted from £ at $1.3249 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a US market rate. Source ↗
Fractional CTO, 12 months€158,806
Fractional CTO, a month at 2 d/wk€13,224
Permanent CTO, same period€273,359
Converted from £ at €1.1746 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a EU market rate. Source ↗
Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £160,500 Robert Half 2026 median salary pro rata for the same months, plus 15% employer NI, plus a 30% search fee on the annual base (UK retained search runs 25–35%, Headhunters.co.uk). Excludes pension, bonus and equity.
05/ the week
How a week divides.
The days you buy are yours; the rest of the week goes to other clients. Move the days a week in the calculator above and the week redraws.
Illustration only: one way a fractional CTO’s week can divide at 2 days a week for you. Each block is half a day.
06/ the board
What the board holds.
A read of the roles on the board on this page, counted as they stand: how each is engaged, whether the posting gives the days and the rate, and where the work happens.
On this board, last 90 days · 2 roles · technology leadership
Engagement
- Fractional2
Seat
- CISO1
- CPO1
Days a week
- Stated in the posting2
- Not stated0
Day rate
- Verified rate0
- Estimated (est)2
- Rate not stated0
Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)
- Remote1
- Hybrid1
- On-site0
Newest posting on the board: 27 Sept 2026.
07/ rates by stage
CTO salary UK by source, size and stage
Permanent base salary for a Chief Technology Officer, each figure as its source publishes it. Robert Half reports starting salaries; ITJobsWatch counts salaries quoted in permanent IT job ads; Exec Capital (a search firm) and Cooply (which sells CTO services) publish their own ranges.
08/ economics
Salary to total cost: what the employer pays
A salary is not the whole cost of an employee.
For 2026 to 2027, employer’s National Insurance is 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year (HMRC rates and thresholds).
On Robert Half’s £160,500 median that is £23,325 a year: (£160,500 − £5,000) × 15%, our arithmetic.
Under automatic enrolment the employer must pay at least 3% into a workplace pension on qualifying earnings, and bonuses count as earnings (GOV.UK).
That is a legal floor, not a C-suite norm: Exec Capital’s executive guide puts C-suite pension contributions at 10–15% of base.
Budget the bonus too.
Employer’s National Insurance is due on a cash bonus as well as on the base, so a 25% bonus raises the National Insurance bill with it.
09/ 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
10/ average cto salary
Average CTO salary: why the figures disagree
The average CTO salary you find depends on the source.
Robert Half’s 2026 median is £160,500.
ITJobsWatch’s median advertised salary is £100,000.
Neither is wrong: one reports agreed starting pay across its placements, the other the base quoted in job ads.
Job ads count only the roles that publish a salary, so the ITJobsWatch sample is the advertised market, not the whole of it.
For a CTO average salary in the UK, quote the median with its source and its date, never a figure on its own.
11/ cto salary london
CTO salary in London: the capital’s premium
Robert Half’s 2026 CTO salary in London has a median of £218,250, with the range running from £163,250 to £274,000.
Against its national median of £160,500, that is a gap of £57,750 (our arithmetic).
Exec Capital puts the London premium at roughly 20–40% over equivalent regional roles; Cooply, looking at startups, puts it at 20–30%.
Job ads show less of a gap.
ITJobsWatch’s London count has a median of £100,000 on 23 ads over the six months to 5 October 2026, the same as its median outside London.
The London ads spread higher: one in ten quoted £159,500 or more.
12/ cto salary startup
CTO salary at a startup: base by funding stage
Cooply’s 2026 figures for a CTO salary at a startup rise with each round: £75,000–£95,000 in London at seed (£60,000–£80,000 regionally), £95,000–£130,000 at Series A (£85,000–£115,000) and £130,000–£180,000 from Series B (£110,000–£150,000).
Cooply sells CTO services to startups, so read these as one firm’s published view.
At this stage equity carries much of the value.
Exec Capital’s indicative grants are 0.5%–1.5% at seed and 0.3%–0.7% at Series A, fully diluted.
If the business cannot yet fund a full-time seat, see fractional CTO for the part-time route.
13/ chief technology officer salary
Chief technology officer salary: what the title covers
A chief technology officer salary follows scope more than title.
At seed the CTO often still writes code and hires the first engineers.
At a scale-up the role moves to architecture, security and an engineering leadership team.
At a large or listed company it becomes a board-facing role, which is where Exec Capital’s £200,000–£350,000+ tier and its 50–100% bonus sit.
Check the brief before you set the number.
If the job is hands-on delivery of one product, it may be closer to engineering leadership than a C-suite seat.
For the role itself, see what a CTO does; for open roles, see CTO jobs.
14/ other routes
Permanent, interim or fractional: three ways to pay for the seat
A permanent salary buys a technology lead every day, with the notice period and the package that come with it.
An interim is paid by the day for a fixed term: Exec Capital’s 2026 guide publishes £800–£1,800 a day for an interim CTO, and the interim CTO salary page sets out what that adds up to.
A fractional CTO is paid a day rate or retainer for part of the week; see fractional CTO salary.
If you are still choosing the route, hire a CTO sets out each one, and CTO recruitment covers the permanent search.
15/ questions
CTO salary 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.
