Fractional head of engineering jobs · Engineering leadership · Delivery
Fractional head of engineering jobs · hire a fractional head of engineering, or hire one for good
Fractional head of engineering jobs are engineering leadership roles held for part of the week: one person who runs the team’s delivery, process and people while a founder or CTO sets the technical direction. To hire a fractional head of engineering, be clear which of those two jobs is empty.
We recruit fractional, interim, part-time, temporary and permanent technology 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? Technology leadership 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
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional head of engineering
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with head of engineering 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
Technology roles jobs on the board
No Technology roles roles on the board in the last three months. Showing technology leadership roles instead.
Live technology leadership roles
How fractional recruitment agencies compare is set out in one place, including how we work: a head of engineering brief and a shortlist of three to five.
01/ the role
Fractional head of engineering jobs: what the seat runs
A head of engineering runs the engineering team as a working unit: how work is planned and shipped, how code is reviewed and released, how incidents are handled, who is hired and how they grow. The title varies (VP of engineering, engineering director, head of software development) but the job is delivery and people. Fractional head of engineering jobs are that seat, held for part of the week.
Management track, not the top of the technical ladder
Engineering careers split in two at senior level. The government’s Digital and Data capability framework separates its senior, lead and principal developer levels into a technical role and a management role. A head of engineering sits on the management side: still technical enough to judge a design and a pull request, but measured by what the team delivers rather than by the code they write.
When a business brings one in
The usual moments: a team that has outgrown a founder-CTO’s spare hours, delivery that keeps slipping, a first product built by contractors that now needs an in-house team, or a raise or sale on the horizon where investors will look at how engineering runs (see technology due diligence). A fractional head of engineering fixes the operating rhythm, helps you hire the next leads and hands over.
02/ scope
How to hire a fractional head of engineering
1. Name the gap: delivery, people or direction
If the gap is delivery and people, hire a head of engineering. If nobody owns the architecture, the technical choices and the board conversation, hire a fractional CTO instead, or a part-time CTO on fixed days. If the seat is empty and needs someone full-time for a fixed period, bring in an interim CTO.
2. Find out what state the engineering is in
If you do not know whether the problem is the code, the process or the people, a technology audit answers that before you hire, and gives the new head of engineering a written starting point.
3. Test for the level, and for the team they built
SFIA’s levels of responsibility are a useful yardstick: a head of engineering should work at “ensure, advise” or “initiate, influence”, accountable for significant outcomes and shaping how the organisation works, not at “apply” or “enable”. Ask for a team they grew, an incident they ran and a release process they changed. BCS’s Chartered IT Professional registration is useful evidence of competence and conduct where a candidate holds it.
What we do on a head of engineering 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/ comparison
Head of engineering vs CTO vs a hands-on engineer
Three seats sold under “fractional engineering”. Choose by what is missing.
04/ vetting
How we vet fractional heads of engineering
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify head of engineering 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
05/ fractional engineering jobs
Fractional engineering jobs: backend, DevOps and the leadership seat
Search for fractional engineering jobs and two kinds of role come back. Some are leadership seats: head of engineering, engineering director, CTO. Others are hands-on: a fractional backend engineer or a fractional DevOps engineer, a few days a week. Both are real; they are different people to hire.
A backend engineer builds and runs the server-side software; the government framework describes the software developer as someone who designs, runs and improves software that meets user needs (DDaT). A DevOps engineer, in the same framework, supports the development and operation of software through tools, environments and practices: managing tools and test environments, central code control, development standards and software that automates systems. A fractional DevOps engineer is usually brought in to build that toolchain, then hand it to the team.
Be honest about what a hands-on seat is. An engineer embedded in your team, whose manager decides what they work on and how, looks more like an employee on GOV.UK’s indicators, whatever the invoice says. Where they work through their own company, the off-payroll rules apply and a medium or large client makes the determination; status turns on how the engagement runs. Defined, bounded work is easier to scope and to assess. We recruit the leadership seat, and the board below lists leadership roles.
06/ head of engineering vs cto
Head of engineering vs CTO: direction, or delivery?
The CTO decides what the business builds its technology on and why: the architecture, the major technical bets, technology risk, and the conversation with the board and investors. The head of engineering decides how the team builds it: planning, standards, releases, incidents, hiring and line management. In a start-up the founding CTO does both until the team outgrows one person.
That moment produces the two common fractional briefs. A founder-CTO who wants to stay on architecture and product can hire a fractional head of engineering to run the team. Or a business with a strong engineering lead but nobody owning technical direction brings in a fractional CTO above them. For a permanent chief technology officer, see CTO headhunter; for the CTO’s duties in full, what does a CTO do.
Pay reflects the difference. Robert Half’s 2026 guide puts a full-time UK CTO at £120,000 (25th percentile) to £201,500 (75th), median £160,500 (Robert Half). We have not found a published head of engineering figure we can source, so we set out each candidate’s pay or day rate on the shortlist.
07/ secure delivery
Security in the pipeline: part of the head of engineering’s job
How code is built and shipped is a security question as much as a delivery one. The NCSC’s secure development and deployment guidance sets out principles for evaluating development practices, yours or a supplier’s, and notes that version control, peer review and automated testing should lead to more secure development when used properly.
If you sell software, the government’s voluntary Software Security Code of Practice sets out what software vendors are expected to do to establish a baseline of security and resilience. A head of engineering owns the evidence: who can merge, what is tested, how dependencies are managed and how a vulnerability is fixed and communicated. For a specialist security lead, see fractional CISO jobs.
08/ questions
Fractional head of engineering jobs FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional head of engineering.
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.
