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Hire a Fractional Head of Growth · Fractional Head of Growth Jobs UK

Fractional Head of Growth Jobs · Hire a fractional head of growth, or hire a head of growth

Hire a fractional head of growth — a senior operator who owns acquisition, activation and retention as one number, runs the experiments that move it, and works across marketing, product and data on part of the week. Browse live fractional head of growth jobs across the UK, or brief us and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 candidates.

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How a brief runswhat we undertake

  1. 01Brief30-MINUTE SCOPING CALLDay 0
  2. 02Shortlist of 3–5VETTED · RATE BENCHMARK · IR35After the brief
  3. 03InterviewsYOU MEET THE SHORTLISTYour diary
  4. 04Scoped startFIRST-MONTH OUTCOMES AGREEDYou set the date
  5. 05Fractional, interim and permanentIR35 POSITION SET OUTOn every brief

Shortlist3–5

Full funnel
Remit · acquisition to retention
Experiments
Method · test, measure, keep what works
3–5
Our shortlist · candidates per brief
Five stages
Our vetting · on every shortlisted candidate

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional Head of Growth

Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Head of Growth 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
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Pick a day that suits · live availability

Live roles · last 3 months

Live Fractional head of growth jobs

0 Fractional head of growth · 9 fractional executive

No live Fractional head of growth roles in the last three months. Showing live fractional executive roles instead.

Browse all live UK roles →

Current fractional Head of Growth opportunities

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

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01/ the role

What is a Fractional Head of Growth?

A fractional head of growth owns the company's growth number across the whole customer journey — how people find the product, whether they reach the point where it proves its value, whether they pay, and whether they stay — on part of the week. Companies hire a fractional head of growth when growth has stalled somewhere in that journey and no single person owns all of it.

The method is the difference. A head of growth works by experiment: a hypothesis, a test, a measure, and a decision to scale it or stop. That puts them across marketing, product and data, and it means the role needs authority to change onboarding, pricing pages and lifecycle messages — not only campaigns.

Typical fits: SaaS and subscription businesses with early traction and data to learn from, consumer and ecommerce brands where retention decides the economics, and companies whose paid acquisition has grown expensive without anyone owning conversion and retention downstream.

02/ scope

What a Fractional Head of Growth Actually Does

Acquisition: the channel mix across paid, organic, partnerships and referral, judged on the customers each channel brings rather than the traffic.

Activation and lifecycle: onboarding, trial-to-paid conversion, and the email and in-product messages that move people along — sent within the consent rules that govern them.

Retention and measurement: cohort reporting, the causes of churn, and the experiment backlog — what is being tested, what it is expected to move, and what was learned.

How to hire a fractional head of growth

Name the number that is stuck — acquisition cost, activation, conversion or churn — and the data the candidate will have to work with. Agree their authority over product surfaces before they start. Brief us and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 candidates, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

03/ comparison

Head of Growth vs Head of Sales different numbers

Both are commercial roles; they are measured on different parts of the journey.

Head of GrowthHead of Sales
OwnsAcquisition, activation, retentionPipeline, sales process, the sales team
Works withMarketing, product, dataMarketing, customer success, finance
MethodExperiments across the funnelProcess, coaching, forecasting
Best forSelf-serve, subscription and high-volume modelsSales-led models with a team to run

04/ timing

Hire a Fractional Head of Growth — which situations it fits

Where part-time growth leadership is the right hire, and where it is too early.

Scenario 01

Traction, no system

Build the growth engine

Customers are arriving, but nobody can say which channel, message or onboarding step is doing the work.

Scenario 02

Paid acquisition getting expensive

Fix the funnel, not the spend

The cost of each new customer keeps rising and nobody owns what happens after the click.

Scenario 03

Churn deciding the economics

Retention first

A subscription or repeat-purchase business is losing customers faster than marketing replaces them.

Scenario 04

Founder running growth

Hand over the experiments

The founder has been running tests by instinct and needs one owner for the backlog, the data and the results.

Scenario 05

Honest caveat

Too early

Before there is traction and data to learn from, a growth marketer or a founding go-to-market lead usually fits better than a head of growth.

05/ vetting

How we vet fractional heads of growth

What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.

  1. 01

    Qualification screen

    Verify Head of Growth tenure, sector context and stage fit.

    SOURCING
  2. 02

    Mandate fit

    Match to your situation — stage, board dynamics, timing.

    MATCHING
  3. 03

    Reference deep-dive

    We take references ourselves, from recent past clients — real outcomes, not titles.

    VERIFY
  4. 04

    Shortlist

    Three to five candidates with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

    SHORTLIST OF 3–5

06/ the difference

Head of growth vs head of marketing — which one to hire

The two roles overlap on acquisition and differ on almost everything else. A head of marketing runs the marketing function — positioning, brand, campaigns, content, and the team and agencies that deliver them — and is usually measured on demand and pipeline. A head of growth owns a number across the whole journey, from first visit to renewal, and works by experiment, often spending more time in product and data than in campaigns.

The head of growth vs head of marketing choice comes down to where the business is stuck. If the market doesn't know you, or the brand and pipeline need building, hire a fractional head of marketing. If people arrive but don't convert or don't stay, hire for growth. Many businesses need both in time; few need both at once. Where the need is board-level marketing strategy, look at a fractional CMO instead.

Both roles work within rules on consent and fair design. Tracking and lifecycle messaging fall under the ICO's guidance on cookies and similar technologies and its direct marketing guidance. The CMA's work on online choice architecture sets out how interface design can harm consumers — required reading for anyone running conversion experiments.

07/ timing

When to hire a head of growth — and when it is too early

A head of growth needs something to grow. Without traction there is little data to experiment on and no reliable way to tell a winning test from noise. Kyle Poyar, writing for OpenView, argues that a head of growth tends to be most effective scaling a product-led company that already has product-market fit, rather than building one from zero — and that an earlier business is often better served by a go-to-market lead or a growth marketer. For that seat, see our founding GTM lead page.

So the signal for when to hire a head of growth is usually a working product, customers arriving through more than one channel, enough volume to measure change, and a growth number that has stalled somewhere between first visit and renewal. A fractional head of growth suits that moment: senior ownership of the experiments while you learn whether the role needs to be full-time.

Retention work has its own rules. If you sell subscriptions, the subscription contracts provisions in Part 4, Chapter 2 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 set duties on pre-contract information, reminders, cooling-off and easy exit, and the government's consultation response explains how the regime will be implemented. Anyone designing renewal and cancellation flows should be working to them.

08/ questions

Fractional Head of Growth FAQ

The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional Head of Growth.

Name the number that is stuck — acquisition cost, activation, conversion or churn — describe the data the candidate will inherit, agree their authority over product surfaces, and set the days per week. Then brief us: we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 fractional heads of growth, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, taken through the stages on our vetting page.

No UK source we can verify publishes a fractional head of growth day rate, so we don't quote one. Cost depends on the days per week, the stage of the business and how much of the work is hands-on. Every candidate on our shortlist comes with their own day rate set out, so you compare real figures rather than a published range.

A head of marketing runs the marketing function — brand, campaigns, content and the team — and is usually measured on demand and pipeline. A head of growth owns a number across the whole journey, from first visit to retention, and works by experiment across marketing, product and data. If the problem is awareness and pipeline, see fractional head of marketing; if it is conversion and retention, hire for growth.

Usually once there is a working product, customers arriving through more than one channel, and enough volume to measure change. Before that, a growth marketer or a founding GTM lead often fits better — Kyle Poyar makes this case in Growth Unhinged. A fractional head of growth lets you test the role before committing to a full-time hire.

Hire a head of growth when customers mostly buy without talking to a salesperson — self-serve, subscription or high-volume models — and the work is conversion and retention. Hire a fractional head of sales when revenue comes through a sales team and the work is pipeline, process and coaching.

It depends on how the engagement runs in practice, not on the title or the contract alone. Where the client is medium or large, the client makes the status determination under HMRC's off-payroll working rules; CEST gives HMRC's view on a specific engagement. Every candidate on our shortlist comes with their IR35 position set out — see our IR35 guide.

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.

Book a call →Submit a brief

09/ related

Keep exploring

Adjacent roles and reading.

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When the gap is brand, campaigns and pipeline.

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Founding GTM Lead

The earlier-stage go-to-market seat.

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Hire a Fractional CMO

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Hire a Fractional Marketing Director

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Fractional Marketing Jobs UK

/ir35-guide

IR35 guide

Fractional Quest logo — how to hire a fractional head of growth, fractional head of growth jobs UK