Hire a Fractional COO · Fractional COO Jobs UK

Fractional COO Jobs · Hire fractional COO · hire chief operations officer

Fractional COO jobs involve an agreed share of cross-functional operating leadership. Establish which delivery problems the COO owns, who can resolve competing priorities and who runs daily operations between working days. For remote roles, confirm which sites or handovers require attendance.

Hire a fractional COO — operations leadership, 1–3 days a week — to turn chaos into process for scale-ups and PE-backed portfolios.

Systems, people ops and delivery, without the full-time cost.

  • £800–£1,400 a day · Connectd 2026
  • 1–3 days a week
  • 3–5 candidates per shortlist
  • 5 vetting stages
Make work flowChoose the question to explore

Part 01 / 04

Boundaries

Trace where work crosses teams.
£0.8–1.4k
UK fractional COO day-rate band
Connectd, 2026
£900–1,050
Mid-market fractional COO day rate
Connectd, 2026
3–5
Candidates on every shortlist
Our commitment
5
Vetting stages
Our commitment

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to talk through the brief

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

  1. 0115 minutes, video or phone
  2. 02We scope the role and the days a week
  3. 03A shortlist of 3–5 after the call
  4. 04Fractional, interim and permanent briefs
Prefer email? Use the booking page →

Pick a day that suits · live availability

How fractional recruitment agencies compare is set out in one place, including how we work: a brief and a shortlist of three to five.

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.

Fractional COO, a monthPermanent COO, a month

At 3.2 days a week a permanent hire costs less.

£0k£6k£12k£18k£24k0.511.522.5345days a week →
At 2 days a week: fractional COO £9,526 a month · permanent £14,802 a month

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 £122,500 composite (our median of three 2026 guides) median salary. The full calculator below adds the months, the totals and the currency tabs.

Fractional COO at 2 days a weekInterim COO, five days a weekPermanent COO
  • The fractional COO at 2 days a week never passes permanent inside 24 months.
  • Interim passes permanent at month 2.
£0k£182k£364k£546k£727k06121824months →
Month 12: fractional COO £114,312 · interim £363,720 · permanent £177,625

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 (£1,400 a day, Exec Capital 2026) × 5 days × 4.33 weeks. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for each month.

02/ the route

Fractional, interim or permanent?

Four taps. The answer names the route for the seat and the page that covers it.

How much of the week does the work fill?
Is there a fixed end or a programme?
Does the seat sit on the board for years?
Is the need now, or can it wait for a search?

The route · Fractional

A fractional COO.

The work fills part of the week, so buy the days it needs.

A fractional COO holds the seat on agreed days for as long as the seat is needed, and works for other clients on the rest.

03/ the board

What the board holds.

A read of the roles on the board above, 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 · 4 roles · Fractional COO

Engagement

  • Fractional3
  • Interim1

Days a week

  • Stated in the posting3
  • Not stated1

Day rate

  • Verified rate0
  • Estimated (est)4
  • Rate not stated0

Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)

  • Remote0
  • Hybrid1
  • On-site1
  • Not classified2

Newest posting on the board: 8 Oct 2026.

Postings per week on this board, last 90 days

this week: 013 weeks agonow

4 postings on this board in the last 90 days, counted by the week each was published.

04/ the model

What is a fractional COO?

An experienced operations leader who owns the operating model within a defined scope — not a consultant, not a project engagement.

Four ideas define the model.

01 · cadence

Hire an operations chief, 1–3 days a week.

Senior COO capability across a defined slice of the week. The operating leadership you need without a full-time salary or a five-day commitment.

1–3 daysa week

05/ scope

What a fractional COO delivers.

Accountable for how the company runs — process, systems, people and delivery, answerable to the board exactly like a permanent COO.

01 / PROCESS

Operating model & KPIs

Designs the processes, KPIs and OKR cadence that turn a fast-growing mess into a company that runs predictably.

02 / SYSTEMS

Tooling & infrastructure

Selects and lands the ERP, CRM, HRIS and automation — the systems backbone that lets the business scale without breaking.

03 / PEOPLE OPS

Org design & performance

Org structure, comp frameworks, hiring plans and performance management — building the team and how it works.

04 / DELIVERY

Execution & board reporting

Cross-functional delivery, RevOps and customer ops, plus the operational health metrics the board sees every month.

06/ responsibilities

What a fractional COO owns — and what they don’t.

The fractional COO job description, structured.

A fractional COO carries full board-level accountability for how the company runs — and deliberately hands specialist and transactional work to functional leads.

  • The operating model — process, systems, KPIs, OKRs
  • Scaling infrastructure — ERP, CRM, HRIS, automation
  • People operations — org design, comp, performance
  • Delivery — cross-functional execution & roadmap governance
  • RevOps & customer success operations
  • Supply chain & logistics, where applicable
  • Operational board reporting & hiring plan vs actuals
  • Day-to-day task management for every team
  • Owning a single function long-term
  • Hands-on bookkeeping or payroll runs
  • Pure advisory with no delivery accountability
  • Being a full-time, five-day headcount
Process designERP / systemsPeople opsRevOpsSupply chainP&L management

07/ the difference

Fractional COO vs the alternatives.

“Fractional COO” gets confused with an Ops Director, an operations consultant and a full-time hire.

Switch tabs to see how it differs.

Fractional COOOps Director
ScopeWhole operating model & strategyRuns one function / department
SeniorityC-suite, board-facingSenior management
Engagement1–3 days/week, portfolioFull-time, single company
HorizonMandate: build the machineOngoing line role
Best forScaling the whole orgOwning one ops area

→ A fractional COO owns the operating model. An Ops Director runs a slice of it.

08/ the choice

Fractional COO or interim COO: which the seat needs.

A fractional COO takes responsibility for an agreed part-week share of the role.

Confirm its duration, review point and continuity; the label does not determine when it ends.

An interim COO covers the seat for a defined period of absence or change, such as a vacancy, transaction or turnaround.

Agree the hours, authority and handover for the actual assignment.

Agree responsibility, hours, duration and between-day cover separately.

Fractional and interim describe different aspects of a brief and can overlap.

The calculator illustrates fees at the stated days and assumptions.

Confirm employment, tax and benefit obligations before using it as a total-cost comparison.

09/ by stage

COO rates by seniority.

Connectd publishes its UK fractional COO band by seniority (updated April 2026).

Company stage decides the cadence; the operator’s seniority decides the rate.

Published UK day-rate bands · £ a day · the marker is the calculator’s day rate

  • Fractional£800–£1,400Connectd 2026£1,100
  • Interim£800–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
  • Permanent, per day£432–£682our median of three 2026 guides ÷ 220 days

The permanent band is the published salary ÷ 220 working days — our arithmetic, for comparison only.

Seniority / engagementPublished figureSource
Fractional COO, entry-level (0–2 yrs fractional)£600–£750 a dayConnectd, April 2026
Fractional COO, mid-market (3–7 yrs)£900–£1,050 a dayConnectd, April 2026
Fractional COO, senior / executive (8+ yrs)£1,100–£1,400 a dayConnectd, April 2026
Interim COO (full-time, fixed term)£800–£2,000 a dayExec Capital Executive Salary Guide, 2026
Permanent COO, UK base£95,000–£150,000, median £122,500Our median of three 2026 guides: Glassdoor, Leadership Services, Exec Capital

Two days a week across a 46-week year at the Connectd band is £73,600–£128,800 in day fees — our arithmetic. Compare every role on the rate calculator.

10/ cost

Part-time COO cost.

Drag the sliders — every figure updates live, benchmarked against the published UK fractional COO band.

The slider runs across the published band for a fractional COO: £800–£1,400 a day (Connectd 2026).

Cost over 12 months

£114,400

104 working days · 2 d/wk · 12 mo · before tax

Fractional COO£114,400
Permanent COO, same period£177,625

Fractional costs less over 12 months£63,225

Fractional COO, 12 months£114,400

Fractional COO, a month at 2 d/wk£9,526

Permanent COO, same period£177,625

Book a 15-minute call →

Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £122,500 composite (our median of three 2026 guides) 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.

11/ 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.

Your companyAnother clientA third client

Illustration only: one way a fractional COO’s week can divide at 2 days a week for you. Each block is half a day.

12/ tax

Is the day rate tax-deductible?

The general position under UK rules, with the HMRC source for each point.

Not tax advice: check your own case with your accountant.

01 · DEDUCTIBLE

The fees are a business expense

A fractional COO’s fees, like a salary, are deductible against profits when incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade (HMRC BIM37000). At the 25% main rate, each £1,000 of fees costs a profitable company £750 after relief.

02 · EMPLOYER NI

Employer NI follows IR35 status

A permanent COO carries employer National Insurance at 15% above £5,000 a year. A fractional COO engaged through their own company carries none when the engagement is outside IR35; inside IR35, the fee-payer deducts tax and NI and pays employer NI. Status depends on how the engagement runs in practice.

03 · WHO DECIDES

IR35 status, by company size

Medium and large clients determine the status themselves; for a small private-sector client, the fractional COO’s own company decides (HMRC off-payroll guidance).

13/ the contract

Fractional chief operating officer: how the engagement is contracted.

A fractional COO engagement is written around a defined mandate — the outcome, the days a week and the notice.

IR35 status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination.

What HMRC looks at, in brief — full detail in the IR35 guide, and at source in HMRC’s off-payroll working guidance and the CEST tool.

01 / CONTROL

Control of the “how”

HMRC looks at who decides how, when and where the work is done — whether the company sets the outcome or directs the method.

✓ In the contract

02 / SUBSTITUTION

Right to substitute

HMRC looks at whether the COO could send a suitably qualified substitute, and whether that right is genuine in practice.

✓ In the contract

03 / MUTUALITY

Mutuality of obligation

HMRC looks at whether the company must offer work beyond the agreed mandate, and whether the COO must accept it.

✓ In the contract

What HMRC looks at in a COO engagement

Whether there is a genuine right of substitution; whether there is mutuality of obligation beyond the agreed scope; who controls how, when and where the work is done; whether the engagement is a defined outcome or an open-ended seat; and whether the COO works for other clients.

What changed in April 2026

From 6 April 2026 the off-payroll small-company test is turnover up to £15 million, balance sheet up to £7.5 million and up to 50 employees — any two of the three — up from £10.2 million and £5.1 million (BDO). More clients now count as small, and for a small client the COO’s own company decides IR35 status. The test looks at the client’s previous financial year.

14/ when to hire

When to hire a fractional COO.

Four situations where the right call is to hire a fractional COO — match yours.

Which sounds like you?

You’ve grown fast and nothing connects — no ERP, people ops on spreadsheets. A COO builds the machine.

  • → Rapid headcount growth · process and systems gaps

Post-acquisition, you need operational rigour landed before a permanent COO arrives.

  • → Recent acquisition · sponsor reporting

The founder is drowning in internal ops. A COO takes people, systems and process off their plate.

  • → Founder overloaded · internal ops sprawl

Demand has outgrown the tooling. You need RevOps, automation and a team — built by someone senior.

  • → ERP / RevOps build · hire and mentor the team

15/ the buyer’s guide

How to hire a fractional COO.

Scope the mandate, write the job description, then choose the route.

STEP 01

Write the mandate, not a title

Name the outcome — a process build, a 100-day plan, an ERP rollout — and the days a week it needs. The owns / hands-off list above is a ready-made fractional COO job description.

→ Outcome, cadence and a date

STEP 02

Pick the route: fractional, interim or permanent

Part-week responsibilities: fractional. Defined-period cover or change, with hours agreed separately: interim COO. A permanent Chief Operating Officer: a retained search — see COO headhunters.

→ Match the engagement to the gap

STEP 03

Start with a scoped trial

Agree first-month outcomes before the start date, review at 90 days, and extend once the operating cadence is working.

→ Scoped start · 90-day review

16/ the terms

What to get right when you hire.

Five things to settle before a fractional COO starts, so the days you buy go on the work.

01

The outcome, not the hours

Write down what has to be true at three, six and twelve months. Days a week follow from that list, not the other way round.

02

The days and the review

Fix the days a week, which days, and a review point where either side can change them. Most of the value is in the rhythm.

03

Access and authority

Put in writing what the role can see, sign and decide: systems, data, budget and the board. A part-week leader without access is an adviser.

04

How it ends

Agree notice on both sides and the handover: documents, logins and who inherits each piece of work.

05

Status, early

Settle how the engagement will run before it starts, because IR35 status follows the working practice. See the IR35 guide.

17/ the broad hire

Hire a COO — fractional, interim or permanent.

Anyone looking to hire a COO is choosing between four arrangements, often without saying so.

A permanent COO is an employee, full-time, running the operating model — process, delivery, systems and the people who run them — with no end date.

An interim COO works for a defined term with agreed hours: an integration after an acquisition, a restructure, or cover for an empty seat.

A fractional COO owns operations for part of each week, ongoing, and builds the cadence the business runs on.

A part-time COO takes the same seat on regular days with a single company.

The deciding question is how much COO-level work exists each week.

If running the operation, managing the heads of function and turning the plan into a weekly rhythm fill the week, hire a COO on a permanent contract — our COO headhunter page covers that search.

If the founder or CEO still carries most of the operational load and needs a senior partner for part of it, a fractional COO closes the gap without a full-time salary; fractional COO cost sets out the published figures.

However you hire a COO, the brief needs the same answers: scope, stage, the systems and team already in place, days a week, budget and IR35 position.

Give us that and we put together a shortlist of 3–5, and you interview.

For a COO engaged through their own company, status is decided by how the work is actually done, not by the heading on the contract — check it with HMRC’s CEST tool and our IR35 guide.

18/ operations director

Fractional operations director or fractional COO?

Many buyers search for a fractional operations director when they want the same seat, and in smaller companies the two titles often describe one person.

The difference that matters is scope.

The Institute of Directors describes an operations director as overseeing the operational side of company strategy and carrying operations information to the chief executive and the board.

Its COO role profile goes wider: directing and controlling all of the organisation’s operations in line with the strategy the chief executive and board have agreed, and maintaining the structure and processes the organisation runs on.

In practice: if the problem sits inside one function — delivery, fulfilment, service quality, suppliers — a fractional operations director running that function part of the week is the right shape.

If it sits between functions — how sales hands over to delivery, how the hiring plan follows the forecast, who decides when two teams want the same resource — it is COO work, whatever the title on the brief.

The comparison above sets an Ops Director beside a fractional COO, and the owns / hands-off list works as a starting brief for either.

The same work is advertised as fractional operations director, fractional head of operations and fractional COO, so search and brief on the scope, not the title.

For consistent-days roles see part-time COO jobs; for full-time, fixed-term cover, interim COO jobs.

Hiring?

Brief us on the scope and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

19/ full-time or fractional

How to hire a Chief Operations Officer.

To hire a Chief Operations Officer — the title is used interchangeably with Chief Operating Officer — first decide whether the seat is full-time work yet.

The IoD’s COO profile describes a role that directs all organisational operations, develops and controls operational budgets, and maintains the systems that keep operations compliant with legal requirements.

Before you hire Chief Operations Officer capacity, count the days of COO work there actually are.

If that is five days every week, hire permanently.

If the need is a build — a process overhaul, an integration, a systems rollout — a fractional or interim COO can deliver it without creating a permanent seat.

A permanent hire usually runs through a retained search — see COO headhunters — and brings employment obligations with it: a right to work check before employment starts, and a written statement of employment particulars on or before the first day (Acas).

If the COO will also join the board as a statutory director, they take on the legal duties of a company director, and changes to the company’s officers must be reported to Companies House.

A fractional COO is usually engaged through their own company rather than employed, on a defined mandate, with the IR35 position set out on the brief and settled by how the engagement runs in practice — see the IR35 guide.

Brief us and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5, vetted through the five stages on how we vet.

20/ across the uk

Fractional COO UK: roles, cadence and seniority.

Many fractional COO UK engagements are hybrid: a regular day on site for the leadership meeting and the operating cadence, the rest remote.

We shortlist fractional COOs across the UK for hybrid or remote engagements, wherever the company is based.

Fractional COO roles on the board above show the location and days, and the day rate only where the posting states one.

Fractional ops is the broader shorthand: fractional operations leadership at any level, from a fractional operations manager running processes week to week to a COO who owns the operating model.

Settle which you need before you brief, because seniority sets the rate: Connectd’s published band runs from £600–£750 a day for operators with up to two years of fractional work to £1,100–£1,400 at senior level (rates above).

When you hire COO cover, decide the cadence before the title: one to three days a week is fractional, full-time for a fixed term is interim, and a permanent seat is a search.

Chief operating officer recruitment for a permanent seat often runs through a retained search firm — see COO headhunters.

We take all three kinds of brief and answer each with a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position set out.

21/ vetting

How we vet every candidate.

What we undertake on every brief — real operational validation, not CV-sifting.

  1. 01

    Operations screen

    Verify a real track record running ops at your stage — process, systems, people ops, P&L exposure. No Head of Ops presenting as a COO.

    SOURCING
  2. 02

    Mandate fit

    Match to your situation — chaos-to-process, a 100-day plan, an ERP build or scale.

    MATCHING
  3. 03

    Reference deep-dive

    We take references ourselves, from recent clients, founders and investors: operational outcomes, not titles.

    VERIFY
  4. 04

    Shortlist

    3–5 candidates, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

    SHORTLIST OF 3–5

Practical guide · Updated

The working brief · 01

Find the break between teams

A practical scope checklist for an operating brief: follow work across its handovers.

GOV.UK: setting meaningful performance metrics ↗

  1. 1

    Trace a real task

    Choose a customer request or internal commitment and follow it through the organisation. Note where information is missing, decisions wait or responsibility changes. Describe the actual operating problem before asking for a new process or another layer of management.

  2. 2

    Name the decision-maker

    Identify who can settle priorities when functions disagree and who owns delivery after the decision. Explain the relationship with the CEO and department heads. A COO needs a workable mandate across those boundaries; a title alone does not create it.

  3. 3

    Define useful evidence

    Agree what shows the service working for customers and colleagues, with a baseline and a named source. GOV.UK measurement guidance offers a useful principle: combine performance information with user insight. Its public-service reporting requirements are not a private-company checklist.

The working brief · 02

An order nobody quite owns

Fictional worked example, not a client case study: customer requests lose context between sales and delivery.

  1. 1

    Observe the handover

    In this fictional company, sales considers an order complete when it is signed, while delivery waits for missing requirements. The first task is to inspect examples and speak to both teams. Hiring additional managers before understanding the handover could preserve the same confusion.

  2. 2

    Agree the boundary

    The brief asks the operating leader to propose what information a handover needs, who accepts it and how exceptions are resolved. Sales and delivery agree their responsibilities. The CEO decides any commercial trade-off that exceeds the leader’s authority.

  3. 3

    Check acceptance

    The teams try the agreed handover and record what remains unresolved. No cycle-time improvement or customer outcome is invented. The example shows how a broad operations brief becomes a concrete responsibility with evidence the business can inspect.

The working brief · 03

Choose the level of operating presence

Match fractional, interim or permanent leadership to who can act when the leader is away.

The decision

Recurring coordination

Fractional leadership can suit a defined operating mandate supported by capable department owners. Specify which decisions are scheduled and which need immediate escalation. Do not imply continuous presence simply because the leader has executive accountability.

Temporary command

Interim cover can suit a vacancy or a change requiring active operating leadership for a defined period or exit condition. Name what must stay stable during the work and what the successor will inherit. Temporary cover still needs clear authority.

Daily executive ownership

Permanent leadership may suit continuing cross-functional decisions and management that need daily attention. Distinguish company-wide operating responsibility from an operations director’s bounded remit, using the actual scope rather than assuming identical titles mean identical jobs.

The working brief · 04

Show what changed in the way work ran

For applicants: explain an operating intervention without claiming every business result as your own.

  1. 1

    Explain the boundary

    Describe the process, functions and decision rights you inherited. Identify the people you managed and those you influenced. An employer needs to understand whether you held company-wide responsibility or led a particular operational function.

  2. 2

    Explain the intervention

    Use an approved example of a decision log, operating review or changed handover. Say what you did personally, what other owners changed and how the organisation reviewed it. Keep predictions separate from observed results and disclose no confidential customer information.

  3. 3

    Ask about the mandate

    Ask which department heads support the change, what the CEO will delegate and who resolves competing priorities. Confirm the location and on-site expectations. An operations role described as remote may still include work that depends on seeing delivery happen.

The working brief · 05

Make the routine belong to the team

A staged transfer protects operational knowledge and makes unresolved exceptions visible.

  1. Stage 101

    Capture the operating system

    Document meeting purposes, decision owners, process boundaries and current exceptions. Explain where evidence comes from and what each review is meant to decide. Preserve useful routines without requiring every team to adopt the outgoing leader’s preferred format.
  2. Stage 202

    Let owners run it

    Ask department owners to run the operating review and resolve a representative exception. Observe where the routine still depends on the departing leader. Transfer supplier and stakeholder relationships with clear context and agreed contacts.
  3. Stage 303

    Agree what remains

    Record unresolved decisions and the person who accepts them. Confirm the future escalation route and the incoming leader’s authority. Completion rests on the receiving organisation owning the routine, rather than on the outgoing leader declaring the change finished.

The working brief · 06

Choose location around the operation

A useful location agreement reflects what the leader needs to observe and whom they need to reach.

The decision

Remote coordination

Reviews and cross-functional decisions can be organised remotely when department owners and trustworthy information are available. Confirm how exceptions are raised and who can act locally. A distributed operation still needs a clear route from evidence to decision.

On-site understanding

Ask whether the mandate depends on observing physical delivery, facilities or service handovers. State where and why presence is needed. An applicant should be able to judge the requirement rather than discover it behind a vague hybrid label.

Practical agreement

Record travel expectations, local deputies and the way urgent decisions are escalated. Revisit the arrangement if the operating scope changes. Location and executive authority are separate questions; being present does not by itself give a leader a workable mandate.

The working brief · 07

Discuss an exception the process cannot solve

An editorial interview checklist for judging practical operating leadership.

  1. 1

    Provide the problem

    Describe a hypothetical service handover with conflicting priorities and incomplete information. Give candidates the same account of the constraints and team. Ask which people they would speak to and what evidence they need before changing the process.

  2. 2

    Explore the intervention

    Ask how they would assign ownership, resolve disagreement and keep routine work moving during the change. Probe what they would leave alone. The response should explain a practical intervention instead of proposing a new framework regardless of the problem.

  3. 3

    Test the mandate

    Ask where their authority ends and what they would take to the CEO. Use criteria tied to the advertised scope and record the reasoning. Keep the exercise bounded rather than asking candidates to redesign a live operation as unpaid work.

The working brief · 08

Keep local owners inside the change

A company-wide mandate should clarify the responsibility of department leaders and delivery teams.

  1. 1

    Map the responsibility

    State which department heads retain control of people and delivery and which decisions the COO coordinates. Identify the parts of the operation with specialist requirements. Do not turn a broad operating title into an assumption that one person can replace every local owner.

  2. 2

    Agree the exception

    Name who resolves a conflict crossing departments and what evidence they need. Make the route usable by colleagues closest to the work. An executive review should settle a decision, not merely collect status reports with no owner for the next action.

  3. 3

    Keep learning local

    Ask the people who run the work to explain whether the changed routine is usable. Record where the operating plan depends on their input. A lasting improvement needs owners who can maintain it and raise exceptions after the external leader leaves.

22/ questions

Questions, answered.

The common questions, answered.

A part-time chief operating officer who owns operations within a defined scope — process, systems, people ops and delivery.

Not a consultant, not a project hire: the COO, 1–3 days a week.

Runs how the company operates, part of the week: the operating model and KPIs, the systems (ERP, CRM, HRIS), people operations, cross-functional delivery and the operational numbers the board sees.

A fractional chief operating officer sits in the leadership team and is accountable for outcomes, not advice.

The scope section sets out what the role owns and hands off.

Connectd publishes a UK fractional COO band of £800–£1,400 a day (mid-market £900–£1,050), typically 2 days a week — £73,600–£128,800 a year across 46 weeks, our arithmetic.

A permanent COO is a £122,500 median base before on-costs — our median of three published 2026 UK guides (Glassdoor, Leadership Services, Exec Capital).

See the fractional COO cost guide.

It is priced by the day.

Connectd’s published UK band is £800–£1,400 a day, and it rises with seniority: £600–£750 for operators with up to two years of fractional work, £900–£1,050 mid-market and £1,100–£1,400 at senior level (Connectd, April 2026).

Two days a week across a 46-week year at the full band is £73,600–£128,800 in day fees — our arithmetic.

A full-time interim COO is a different purchase, at £800–£2,000 a day (Exec Capital).

The rates section sets the bands side by side.

You send a brief — the outcome, the days a week, stage and budget — and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 fractional COOs, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

You interview and choose.

It depends on how each engagement runs in practice — HMRC looks at control, substitution and mutuality of obligation.

A medium or large client makes the status determination; each engagement can be checked against HMRC’s CEST tool on its own facts.

Submit a brief via our form, outlining your situation and needs.

We come back with a shortlist of 3–5 fractional COOs, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

You interview and choose.

The outcome and the date, the days a week, who the COO reports to, and a clear owns / hands-off split — the operating model, systems, people ops and delivery on one side; day-to-day task management and single-function ownership on the other.

The scope section above is a ready-made starting point.

A fractional COO is strategic — owns the whole operating model and is board-facing.

A Head of Ops typically runs one function.

We shortlist for both.

An interim COO works for a defined term with agreed hours — Exec Capital puts the day rate at £800–£2,000 — for a turnaround, an integration or cover.

A fractional COO works agreed part-week days for an agreed duration.

See hire an interim COO.

Yes.

We recruit fractional, interim and permanent COOs: a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position set out.

For a permanent Chief Operating Officer, a retained search is another route; UK retained search runs 25–35% of approximate first-year base salary (Headhunters.co.uk).

See COO headhunters for how that works, and when a fractional COO is the better first step.

Often the same person, not always the same scope.

An operations director typically runs operational delivery — process, suppliers, service quality — and reports operations information to the chief executive and board; a COO directs all of the organisation’s operations against the strategy the board has agreed (IoD).

Brief the scope rather than the title and we shortlist for either: 3–5 candidates, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

See fractional operations director or fractional COO.

Usually through a retained search — see COO recruitment.

As an employer you must carry out a right to work check before employment starts and give a written statement of employment particulars on or before the first day (Acas); if the COO joins the board as a director, they take on the duties of a company director.

If the need is a defined build rather than a five-day seat, a fractional COO is the alternative.

See how to hire a Chief Operations Officer.

When there are five days of COO work every week and there will be for years: a large or complex operation, several sites, or a regulated business that needs the seat filled every day.

When the need is a build — a process overhaul, a systems rollout, a post-deal integration — or the company needs COO judgement but not yet five days of it, a fractional COO on one to three days fits better, often as the step before a permanent hire.

See how to hire a Chief Operations Officer.

Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5

Ready to hire a fractional COO?

Submit your brief. We come back with a shortlist of three to five.

For hiring companies

Book a call or submit your fractional COO brief; we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 candidates.

For fractional COOs

Browse the operations leadership roles from our jobs feed, or talk to us first about the searches we run.

For executives

Your next role, read against your repo.

Sign up now →Browse the board

  1. Build your repo once; every job on the board is read against it
  2. Fractional, interim, part-time, permanent and board roles
  3. Nothing goes on your repo until you confirm it
  4. A call when it suits you — five minutes, then it is written down for your yes
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