Hire a Fractional CIO · Fractional CIO Jobs UK
Fractional CIO Jobs · Hire fractional CIO, or hire CIO
Hire a fractional CIO across the UK — or browse live fractional CIO roles. £800–£2,000/day (Exec Capital, 2026), 1–3 days a week: strategic IT and digital leadership for scale-ups, PE-backed businesses and SMEs, without a permanent hire.
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 fractional CIO
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Fractional 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
Pick a day that suits · live availability
Live roles · last 3 months
Live Fractional CIO jobs
No live Fractional CIO roles in the last three months. Showing live fractional executive roles instead.
- FractionalSyndicated
Fractional CISO (Contract / Project Based)
Cambridge Spark · United Kingdom
est £1,500/day2 d/wk - FractionalSyndicated
Head of Medical Compliance, Governance & Diligence (Fractional)
CNX Therapeutics Ltd · Greater London
est £1,000/dayGreater London - FractionalSyndicated
Head of Applied Legal – AI Product (Fractional)
Stealth Startup · London
est £1,600/day2 d/wk - FractionalSyndicated
Fractional Product Practice Leader - 9 Month Contract
Tails.com · London
est £1,000/day2 d/wk - FractionalSyndicated
Fractional CPO
Log my Care · City of London
est £3,250/day3 d/wk - FractionalSyndicated
Fractional Finance Directors
PWF Associates Limited · Manchester
est £750/dayManchester - FractionalSyndicated
Fractional legal counsel
Nifina · London
est £750/dayLondon - FractionalExclusive
Fractional COO
Confidential client (Fractional Quest mandate) · London
Rate n/aLondon - FractionalSyndicated
Fractional Financial Controller
MarcoPolo Learning · City of Westminster
est £750/day2 d/wk
Live Fractional CIO Job Opportunities
Fractional recruitment works differently from a permanent search — shorter, scoped by days a week, and priced on the engagement. Send a Fractional CIO brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.
01/ the role
What is a Fractional CIO?
A fractional Chief Information Officer owns IT and digital strategy part-time — typically 1–3 days a week — for a business that needs board-level technology leadership but not a full-time hire. Businesses hire a fractional CIO to set the technology roadmap, govern cyber and data risk, lead vendor and systems decisions, and increasingly own AI adoption and governance.
Fractional CIO vs interim CIO vs fractional CTO
A fractional CIO is an ongoing part-time engagement, often running alongside other clients. An interim CIO is full-time for a defined term — cover, transformation or transition — see interim CIO jobs UK. A fractional CTO owns product and engineering rather than enterprise IT and information systems — see fractional CTO jobs UK. Get the brief right before you search: the costly mistake is hiring one model when you needed another.
02/ scope
What a Fractional CIO Actually Does
Core remit: technology strategy and roadmap, enterprise systems and architecture, cyber and information-security governance, data strategy, vendor and budget management, and IT operating-model design. The fractional CIO is accountable at board level, not just for keeping the lights on.
The AI mandate is now central. Nash Squared's 2025 Digital Leadership Report — the world's largest tech-leadership survey — found AI has become the #1 scarcest technology skill in the UK, with 89% of UK tech leaders piloting or investing in AI but 69% seeing no measurable ROI yet (Nash Squared, 2025). A fractional CIO is one way to put AI-literate technology leadership in front of the board without a permanent hire.
How to hire a fractional CIO
Start with a written brief — stage, sector, and the days per week you need. We come back with a shortlist of 3–5 fractional CIOs, each matched on transformation track record and, where the mandate calls for it, AI-adoption experience. In PE-backed portfolio companies, technology value-creation and diligence-readiness usually sit at the top of the agenda.
03/ rates by stage
Fractional CIO rates by company type
Exec Capital's 2026 fractional CIO day rates by mandate. Permanent benchmark: ITJobsWatch puts the median advertised CIO salary at £125,000 (£112,500 outside London, as at June 2026), and Exec Capital publishes permanent CIO base bands of £100,000–£180,000 (mid-market) and £200,000–£350,000+ (large or regulated).
04/ timing
When to hire a fractional CIO
Common scenarios where ongoing part-time technology leadership beats both a full-time hire and a consultancy
Scenario 01
Scale-up, no CIO
enterprise tech strategy before a permanent CIO hire is justified
Scenario 02
AI on the board agenda
adoption, vendor selection and governance without a permanent AI-literate CIO in seat
Scenario 03
PE-backed value creation
portfolio technology transformation and diligence-readiness
Scenario 04
Cyber & regulatory pressure
information-security governance and compliance for a growing SME
05/ vetting
How vetting and shortlisting work
Our structured 5-stage process for matching fractional CIOs with the right mandate — current-state assessment early, roadmap and governance next
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify Fractional 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
06/ the role
The fractional chief information officer — what the seat owns at board level
A fractional chief information officer is the business's senior technology executive for part of the week: accountable at board level for IT and information strategy, the systems estate, suppliers and technology risk, without a permanent hire. The difference from an IT manager or a managed-service provider is accountability. A fractional CIO decides what to buy, what to retire and what risk the business accepts, and answers to the board for it; the day-to-day running stays with the in-house team or the provider.
Governance is now the core of the brief. The government's Cyber Governance Code of Practice, co-designed with the NCSC, sets out what boards and directors should do to govern cyber risk, and a fractional CIO is often the person who turns it into a board report and a working risk register. Where AI is on the agenda, the ICO's guidance on AI and data protection covers accountability, impact assessments and transparency — the questions a board should ask before an AI tool touches customer or staff data.
The fractional model is ongoing and part-time. If you need a CIO full-time for a defined term — to cover a departure or run a heavy transformation — you want an interim CIO instead. If the technology that needs leading is the product you sell rather than the systems you run, look at a fractional CTO. For scope and engagement models, see fractional CIO services.
07/ questions
Fractional CIO FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional CIO.
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.
