Fractional ecommerce director jobs · Fractional ecommerce CMO · Ecommerce leadership
Fractional ecommerce director jobs · hire a fractional ecommerce director, or hire one for good
Fractional ecommerce director jobs are senior roles that run a company’s online sales for part of the week: the store, trading, acquisition, conversion and retention, owned by one leader for an agreed number of days.
To hire a fractional ecommerce director, write down what the online channel must deliver, then the days it needs.
We recruit fractional, interim, part-time, temporary and permanent ecommerce and marketing leaders.
On every brief we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, after five-stage vetting.
Looking for work?
The roles are on the board below.
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
Marketing Week Demand for fractional CMOs ‘driven by expertise over cost’ · 27 May 2026
Research on why companies bring in a fractional CMO: senior expertise at a growth moment rather than a saving. The same reasoning applies when the growth moment is the online channel.
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional ecommerce director
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Ecommerce Director 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
Fractional ecommerce and growth jobs on the board
No Fractional ecommerce and growth roles on the board in the last three months. Showing marketing leadership roles instead.
Live growth and marketing leadership roles
Fractional Quest is a fractional recruitment agency: send a Ecommerce Director brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.
01/ the role
Fractional ecommerce director jobs: what the seat owns
A fractional ecommerce director runs the online channel as a business, not a campaign.
The usual scope: the storefront and its platform; trading, merchandising and promotions; paid and organic acquisition; conversion on the site and in the basket; email, CRM and repeat purchase; marketplaces; and the handovers to fulfilment, customer service and finance.
The difference from an agency is ownership.
The director is named on the leadership team and answers for the channel’s numbers between visits.
Where the seat sits among marketing roles
The same work is advertised under several titles.
When the brief is brand, positioning and the whole marketing budget, it is a CMO seat: hire a fractional CMO.
When the brief is acquisition, activation and retention run as experiments, it is a fractional head of growth.
When digital channels are most of your marketing but not your sales, see fractional digital marketing.
For the wider marketing function, hire a fractional marketing director.
What fractional ecommerce director jobs pay
No source we trust publishes an ecommerce director day rate, so we do not quote one; every candidate on a shortlist states their own.
The nearest full-time benchmarks are published.
Robert Half’s 2026 guide puts a marketing director at £70,000 (25th percentile) to £90,000 (75th), median £79,500, and a chief marketing officer at £110,250 to £183,750, median £147,000.
A fractional fee is the day rate times the days worked.
02/ scope
How to hire a fractional ecommerce director
1. Write down what the channel must do
Start with the problem, not the title.
Traffic that does not convert, a platform move, a first push onto marketplaces, margin lost to discounting, or a board that wants the online channel run as its own profit line.
Then decide the days a week you can fund and who the role reports to.
2. Match the candidate to your model
Direct-to-consumer, retail with stores, B2B ordering and subscription each run differently.
Ask for a trading calendar they built, a conversion problem they fixed and a retention programme they ran, in a business of your size.
Take references from the founders and finance leads they worked with.
3. Check the rules they will own
An ecommerce director signs off pricing, promotions, reviews and marketing emails, so the rules below are part of the job.
Professional training helps: the Chartered Institute of Marketing runs qualifications up to a postgraduate diploma for experienced marketers who lead strategy.
It is one signal among several; the record matters more.
4. Settle the engagement
Agree the days, the outcomes for the first three months, the budget the director can commit alone, and who covers trading issues between their days.
If they will work through their own company, check IR35 before the start date (below).
What we do on an ecommerce brief
We send a shortlist of 3–5 candidates, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
Every candidate goes through our five-stage vetting first.
03/ the week
How a week divides.
Part of a week is the point of the model: the days you buy are yours, the rest of the week goes to other clients. Move the days a week and the week redraws.
Illustration only: one way a fractional ecommerce director’s week can divide at 2 days a week for you. Each block is half a day.
04/ 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 · 1 role · marketing leadership
Engagement
- Temporary1
Days a week
- Stated in the posting0
- Not stated1
Day rate
- Verified rate0
- Estimated (est)0
- Rate not stated1
Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)
- Remote0
- Hybrid0
- On-site1
Newest posting on the board: 16 Oct 2026.
05/ the route
Fractional, interim or permanent?
Four taps. The answer names the route for the seat and the page that covers it.
The route · Fractional
A fractional ecommerce director.The work fills part of the week, so buy the days it needs.
A fractional ecommerce director holds the seat on agreed days for as long as the seat is needed, and works for other clients on the rest.
The route · Interim
An interim ecommerce director.The work fills the week, and it has an end: a programme, a cover, a transaction.
An interim ecommerce director takes the seat full time for that stretch and hands it over when it is done.
The route · Interim, then permanent
Interim now, a permanent ecommerce director after.The seat is full time and long term, and the need is now.
An interim ecommerce director holds it while the permanent search runs, so the seat is not left empty.
The route · Permanent
A permanent ecommerce director.A full-time seat that sits at the table for years is a permanent hire.
There is time to run a search, so run one.
06/ comparison
Ecommerce director vs CMO vs head of growth
Three seats that overlap in an online business. Choose by what the brief must own.
07/ vetting
How we vet fractional ecommerce directors
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify Ecommerce Director 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
08/ fractional ecommerce cmo
Fractional ecommerce CMO: when online is most of the business
A fractional ecommerce CMO is a chief marketing officer for a company that sells mainly online.
When most revenue comes through the website and marketplaces, the marketing seat and the ecommerce seat meet.
The CMO still owns brand, positioning and the whole budget, but the plan is written in conversion rates, repeat purchase and the cost of each new customer.
Choose the CMO title when the brief is strategic: a repositioning, a new category, a board that wants one marketing plan across online, retail and wholesale.
Choose the ecommerce director title when the brief is running the channel well: trading, the store, the promotions calendar.
Many online businesses start with a director and add a CMO later.
See what a CMO does, or hire a fractional CMO.
For pay, Robert Half’s 2026 guide puts a full-time chief marketing officer at a median of £147,000.
There is no published figure for an ecommerce CMO as a separate role, and we do not invent one.
Our shortlist states each candidate’s day rate.
09/ growth marketing
E-commerce growth marketing expert roles and where they fit
“E-commerce growth marketing expert” is a title used on fractional boards for a senior specialist who grows an online store’s revenue: paid search and social, conversion testing, email and retention, and the reporting that ties them together.
It is often a hands-on seat rather than a leadership one.
If the brief is one or two channels and someone to run them, it is a specialist hire.
If it spans acquisition to retention and needs someone to set the targets and lead others, it is a fractional head of growth.
If it also owns the store and trading, it is an ecommerce director.
Write the brief first and the title follows.
10/ fractional ecommerce manager
Fractional ecommerce manager roles: what we do and do not cover
A fractional ecommerce manager runs the store day to day: product listings, promotions, site content, orders and the weekly numbers.
It is a valuable role, and a more junior one than this page covers.
We recruit at director and head level, so we do not run manager-level ecommerce searches.
If the gap is day-to-day digital marketing, see fractional digital marketing.
If it is the store as a product, with a roadmap and a backlog, see fractional product manager.
If the manager needs someone senior to report to, that is the ecommerce director this page is about.
11/ selling online
The rules an ecommerce director should own
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Selling online carries legal duties, and the ecommerce director is usually the person who has to meet them.
GOV.UK’s distance selling guidance sets out what customers must be told before they order (price including taxes, delivery, how to cancel) and what must follow once they have.
Pricing, promotions and reviews are covered by consumer law.
The Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance on unfair commercial practices under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 sits alongside its guidance on fake reviews and price transparency.
Advertising follows the CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, which has sections on misleading advertising and distance selling.
Marketing email is the last one.
The ICO’s guidance on electronic mail marketing says you must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without specific consent, with a limited exception for your own previous customers (the “soft opt-in”).
A director who has run a store before will know these rules and take advice where the facts are unclear.
12/ ir35
IR35 and fractional ecommerce roles employed part-time or through a company
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A fractional ecommerce director is either employed on a part-time contract or works through their own limited company.
Where they work through a company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply.
In most cases a medium or large client decides the worker’s status; for a small client outside the public sector, the worker’s own company decides.
Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, not on its label.
Set out control, substitution and the days in the contract, then run it that way.
Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
13/ questions
Fractional ecommerce director jobs FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional ecommerce director.
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.
