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

Fractional Head of Marketing Jobs · Hire a fractional head of marketing, or hire head of marketing

Hire a fractional head of marketing — a senior marketer who runs the marketing team, the agencies and the campaigns on a set number of days each week, against a strategy agreed with the CEO. Browse live fractional head of marketing 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

£400–£800
Interim Head of Marketing, growth stage · a day
Exec Capital
3–5
Our shortlist · candidates per brief
5 stages
Vetting · before a candidate reaches you

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional Head of Marketing

Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Head of Marketing 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

Live roles · last 3 months

Live Fractional head of marketing jobs

0 Fractional head of marketing · 9 fractional executive

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

Browse all live UK roles →

Current fractional Head of Marketing opportunities

Fractional Quest is a fractional recruitment agency: send a Head of Marketing brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.

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01/ the role

What is a Fractional Head of Marketing?

A fractional head of marketing leads the marketing function part-time: the plan, the team, the agencies and the campaigns, reported against agreed measures. Companies hire a fractional head of marketing when they need someone senior running marketing week to week, but not a full-time salary or a board-level marketing seat.

Head of marketing vs marketing director. The head of marketing mandate is usually more executional than strategic — delivering campaigns, managing agencies and leading the team against a brief set by more senior commercial leadership — while a marketing director sets the strategy and owns the budget with accountability for its return. If you need that strategic ownership, look at a fractional marketing director; for board-level marketing, a fractional CMO.

Typical fits: a first senior marketing hire after the founder has run marketing, a team of specialists with nobody leading them, a business whose strategy is set at CEO level and needs someone to deliver it, and companies that want one channel — demand, brand, content or search — led by a senior specialist.

02/ scope

What a Fractional Head of Marketing Actually Does

The plan: turning the company's commercial goals into a quarterly marketing plan — channels, campaigns, content and how the budget is split between them.

The team and suppliers: leading in-house marketers, briefing agencies and freelancers, and setting the review rhythm that keeps work shipping on the days they are not in.

The measures: reporting on pipeline and the channel metrics that feed it, and telling the CEO what to stop as well as what to fund.

How to hire a fractional head of marketing

Decide first whether the gap is delivery or direction — a head of marketing delivers against a strategy; a marketing director sets one. Then write the brief: the channels that matter, the team they will lead, the days per week and the budget. 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 Marketing vs Marketing Director vs CMO

Three levels of marketing leadership, each available part-time.

Head of MarketingMarketing DirectorCMO
MandateRuns the function and its outputSets marketing strategy and owns the budgetBoard-level marketing and commercial direction
StrategyDelivers against an agreed strategyWrites the strategySets direction with the board
Reports toCEO, MD or a marketing directorCEO or COOCEO; sits on the executive team
Best forA first senior hire or a channel-led planBuilding and leading the whole functionMarketing represented at board level

04/ timing

Hire a Fractional Head of Marketing — which situations it fits

Where a part-time head of marketing is the right hire, and where it isn't.

Scenario 01

First senior marketing hire

Take it off the founder

The founder has been running marketing alongside everything else and needs one person to own the plan and the output.

Scenario 02

Specialists, no lead

Someone to run the team

There are good channel specialists or freelancers, but nobody setting priorities, reviewing work or reporting on it.

Scenario 03

Strategy set, delivery missing

Execute the plan

The CEO or board has agreed the direction. What is missing is a senior marketer to turn it into campaigns and results.

Scenario 04

One channel carries the plan

A specialist head

Search, brand or ecommerce marketing decides growth and needs a senior owner rather than a generalist.

Scenario 05

Honest caveat

When you need strategy

If nobody has set the marketing strategy yet, a head of marketing will be working without a brief — hire a marketing director or CMO first.

05/ vetting

How we vet fractional heads of marketing

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

  1. 01

    Qualification screen

    Verify Head of Marketing 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 title question

Hire a VP of Marketing — or a fractional head of marketing?

Businesses that set out to hire a vice president of marketing are often using a US title for a UK seat. In most UK organisations the same job is advertised as head of marketing or marketing director; VP Marketing is more common in venture-backed and US-owned companies. The title matters less than the mandate: does the role set the marketing strategy and own the budget, or run the function against a strategy already agreed?

If it runs the function, a head of marketing is the right brief, and a fractional one if the work fills only part of the week. If it sets strategy and answers to the board, you are describing a fractional marketing director or a part-time CMO. A fractional VP of marketing is usually one of those, under a different name — ask candidates which they have actually done, and take references from the people they reported to.

For an employed hire, the ordinary steps apply: Acas covers job descriptions, interviews and offers, and every employee needs a right-to-work check. For a contracted one, status for tax depends on how the engagement runs in practice, not on the title; HMRC's CEST tool gives HMRC's view on a specific engagement.

07/ specialist heads

Fractional head of SEO — and other specialist heads of marketing

Some head-of-marketing briefs are really a channel brief. A fractional head of SEO owns organic search as a managed channel: the roadmap, the order of technical and content work, the agency or freelancers doing it, and reporting in pipeline terms rather than rankings alone. The same model applies to a fractional head of brand or of ecommerce marketing — one senior owner for one channel, on part of the week.

Hire a specialist when one channel carries the growth plan and nobody senior owns it; hire a generalist head of marketing when the problem is how the channels fit together. A good specialist knows their channel's rulebook. Google's Search Essentials and SEO Starter Guide set out what Google asks of a site, and state plainly that there is no guarantee any page will be indexed — so treat a promise of guaranteed rankings as a warning sign.

Brand and ecommerce heads work to their own rules: the UK Advertising Codes for claims, and the ICO's direct marketing and PECR guidance for email, SMS and cookies. Whichever specialist you brief, we shortlist 3–5 against the channel, not the title. For the wider market, see fractional marketing jobs.

08/ questions

Fractional Head of Marketing FAQ

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

Decide whether you need delivery against an agreed strategy (a head of marketing) or someone to set the strategy (a marketing director). Then define the channels that matter, the team they will lead, the days per week and the budget, and brief us: we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 fractional heads of marketing, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, taken through the stages on our vetting page.

No source we can verify publishes a UK fractional head of marketing day rate, so we don't quote one. The nearest published benchmark is interim: Exec Capital puts an interim Head of Marketing at a growth-stage business at £400–£800 a day. What a fractional engagement costs depends on the days per week, the scope and the channels; every candidate on our shortlist comes with their own day rate set out.

A head of marketing runs the marketing function and delivers against a strategy agreed with the CEO or a more senior leader. A marketing director writes that strategy, owns the budget and answers for its return. In small businesses the titles blur; the useful question is which of those jobs you need done. For the strategic seat, see fractional marketing director.

They are often the same job under different titles — VP Marketing is more common in venture-backed and US-owned companies. Decide by mandate: if the role runs the function against an agreed plan, brief a head of marketing; if it sets strategy and reports to the board, brief a marketing director or a part-time CMO.

Full-time when running the function fills the week: a sizeable team, several channels in flight and decisions every day. We take permanent briefs as well as fractional ones. Fractionally when the plan needs a senior marketer on some days, not all of them — a first senior hire, a small team of specialists, or one channel that carries the growth plan. Either way the brief is the same: the channels, the team, the days and the budget, and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5.

A fractional head of SEO owns organic search part-time: the roadmap, the priority order of technical and content work, direction of the agency or freelancers, and reporting in business terms. Hire one when search carries the growth plan and nobody senior owns it. Google's Search Essentials are the baseline any candidate should work to.

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

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Fractional Marketing Jobs UK

/vetting

How we vet

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