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

Fractional Head of Sales Jobs · Hire a fractional head of sales, or hire head of sales

Hire a fractional head of sales at 1–3 days a week — senior commercial leadership for growing companies. Exec Capital puts a UK fractional Sales Director at £500–£1,000 a day, commonly 4–12 days a month; a fractional or part-time sales director is £1,500–£5,000 a month. Build and scale your revenue engine without full-time overhead.

Hire a Fractional Head of Sales → →See live roles

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

£500–£1,000
Day Rates · per day, fractional Sales Director (Exec Capital)
£100k–£160k
Full-time Range · full-time Sales Director, plus on-costs
Retainer · Day rate · Commission
Models · engagement types
4–12 days
Engagement · a month, commonly (Exec Capital)

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional Head of Sales

Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Head of Sales 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 sales jobs

0 Fractional head of sales · 9 fractional executive

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

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Live Fractional Sales Job Opportunities

Fractional Quest is a fractional recruitment agency: send a Head of Sales 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 Sales / Sales Director?

Most companies weigh this against a permanent hire. If the seat really is full-time, specialist GTM recruitment agencies run that search; the fractional route suits a business that needs senior sales leadership now but cannot yet justify, or define, the permanent role. Where the pipeline runs through public-sector buyers, business development also means bids: a fractional sales lead will expect RFP software to track public sector tenders alongside the CRM.

A fractional sales leader is an experienced commercial leader who runs or rebuilds a company's sales function part-time — commonly four to twelve days a month, per Exec Capital.

Depending on stage and scale you might engage a fractional Head of Sales or Sales Director (own the team, pipeline and commercial model), a fractional CSO/VP Sales (senior strategy across revenue), or a fractional sales consultant (lighter advisory).

They set the commercial strategy, build and coach the team, design the sales process and comp plans, and own the number — without the full-time salary, OTE liability, or employer overhead.

Companies hire a fractional Head of Sales for exactly this trade: £500–£1,000 a day for a fractional Sales Director (Exec Capital, 2026), or £1,500–£5,000 a month for a fractional or part-time sales director, versus £100k–£160k a year plus on-costs for a full-time Sales Director — and £160k–£260k OTE in the mid-market (Exec Capital).

*Sources: Exec Capital fractional Sales Director page and Executive Salary Guide 2026; Fractional Quest.*

02/ scope

Core Skills for Fractional Sales Leadership

Essential skills include commercial strategy development, sales process design, pipeline management, team leadership, CRM implementation, and comp plan design.

Successful fractional sales leaders combine strategic thinking with hands-on coaching to drive predictable revenue growth.

Specialized expertise spans lead generation, sales methodology (Challenger, MEDDIC, etc.), forecasting, territory planning, channel partnerships, and measurement frameworks.

Different levels focus on execution (Head of Sales) vs strategic oversight (Sales Director/CSO).

How to hire a fractional Head of Sales

Whether you set out to hire a fractional sales director or a part-time sales leader in the UK, the process is the same: define your commercial priorities and stage (team building vs strategy), match the level to the mandate — Head of Sales for execution, Sales Director/CSO for strategy — budget from £500–£1,000 a day (Exec Capital) for a few days a month, and shortlist candidates with proven sales builds in your business type.

03/ rates by stage

Sales leadership rates & full-time comparison

What each sales-leadership model costs, as the named source publishes it. No UK source splits fractional rates by Head of Sales vs VP Sales, so we don't either.

ModelPublished costSourceBest For
Fractional Sales Director£500–£1,000 a day, 4–12 days a monthExec Capital, 2026Building or fixing a sales function
Fractional / part-time retainer£1,500–£5,000 a monthFractional QuestSME with a small sales team
Interim Sales Director£600–£1,800 a day, full-time coverExec Capital, 2026Gap cover or turnaround
Full-time Sales Director£100k–£160k plus on-costs; £160k–£260k OTE mid-marketFractional Quest; Exec CapitalMature sales organisation
CRO (see CRO page)→ CRO page—Board-level ownership of all revenue

04/ timing

Hire a Fractional Head of Sales — which sales leader fits your business?

Context-specific guidance by business type — serves agency, consulting, professional services, SaaS and SME growth scenarios

Scenario 01

Marketing / creative agency

Project revenue discipline

Owner-led, project-based revenue — needs process + pipeline discipline, often lighter engagement

Scenario 02

Consulting / professional services firm

Partner-led selling

Relationship-led selling — needs commercial structure without disrupting established partner model

Scenario 03

B2B SaaS / scale-up

Repeatable pipeline

Needs systematic lead generation, SDR/AE structure, comp design and forecastable growth engine

Scenario 04

SME scaling past founder sales

Build the engine

Founder still closing deals — needs a leader to build repeatable process while founder focuses elsewhere

Scenario 05

Complex B2B / long sales cycles

Honest caveat

If you need daily hands-on management of large sales teams or complex enterprise deals, permanent hire

05/ vetting

How vetting and shortlisting work

Rigorous 5-stage process ensuring optimal sales leadership alignment and measurable commercial outcomes

  1. 01

    Qualification screen

    Verify Head of Sales 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 director engagement

Fractional sales director — what to scope before you hire

A fractional sales director owns the commercial number for part of the month: the sales strategy, the pipeline and forecast, the team's targets and the comp plan that pays them. The engagement works when the mandate is written down — which revenue the director is accountable for, which people report to them, what they can change without sign-off, and how often they report to the board.

Match the director to the selling motion. Partner-led professional services need commercial structure without disturbing client relationships; founder-led B2B needs someone to take deals off the founder and build a repeatable process; SaaS needs pipeline coverage, forecasting and a clean handover between SDRs and account executives. Ask each candidate for a sales process they built, the forecast they reported against, and a hire they got wrong and fixed. Professional standing is one more check: the Institute of Sales Professionals is the UK membership body for sales and awards recognised sales qualifications.

Budget against the published figures in the table above. If the seat is board-level ownership of all revenue — sales, marketing and customer success — hire a fractional CRO instead; if what you need is pipeline activity rather than leadership, see fractional SDR jobs.

07/ permanent or fractional

Head of sales recruitment — permanent search or a fractional hire

Head of sales recruitment usually starts as a permanent search. Before briefing one, test whether the seat is ready to be permanent: is there a proven sales process for a new head of sales to run, a pipeline big enough to manage, and a team to lead? If the answer to any of those is 'not yet', a fractional head of sales can build them first and then write the brief for the permanent hire.

For a permanent hire, the ordinary employment steps apply. Acas's guidance on hiring covers job descriptions, fair interviewing and offers, and every employee needs a right-to-work check before they start. Put the commission plan in the offer letter rather than leaving it for later — sales hires turn on the variable pay as much as the base.

For a fractional or permanent head of sales, our part is fixed: a shortlist of 3–5 candidates, each taken through our five-stage vetting with day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position set out. If you are comparing firms for the search, our guide to fractional executive search firms sets out how the models differ.

08/ agencies and founder-led firms

Finding the best fractional sales leader for a marketing agency — UK agencies and founder-led firms

We don't rank sales leaders, and no published data would let anyone name the best fractional sales consultant for an agency owner, UK or elsewhere. What separates candidates is fit with how you sell. For a marketing or creative agency, revenue is project-based and often still won by the owner, so the useful leader brings pipeline discipline, pricing and a new-business process the owner can hand over — usually on fewer days a month than a SaaS business needs.

Fractional sales director for a founder-led B2B business. UK founders usually hire one while they are still closing most deals themselves. The first job is to take deals off the founder, write down the process that wins them, and hire the first salespeople against it. When you compare the best fractional sales consultants for founder-led businesses, UK-based or not, ask each for a process they built and a handover they made.

The same goes for pay. There is no best commission-based fractional sales leader UK buyers can pick off a list: commission-heavy terms suit short sales cycles and clear attribution, and a retainer usually fits long B2B cycles better (see the FAQ below). Brief us and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

09/ questions

Fractional Head of Sales FAQ

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

A fractional sales director owns the commercial function part-time: sets sales strategy, builds and coaches the team, designs process and comp plans, implements CRM discipline, and is accountable for the numbers. They provide senior sales leadership without the full-time salary, OTE liability, and employer overhead.

Exec Capital puts a UK fractional Sales Director at £500–£1,000 a day, usually 4–12 days a month over a three-to-six-month minimum; a fractional or part-time sales director is £1,500–£5,000 a month. A full-time Sales Director is £100k–£160k a year plus on-costs, with mid-market OTE of £160k–£260k (Exec Capital).

Some fractional sales leaders take lower base/retainer plus commission or revenue share — aligns incentives but works best where the leader genuinely controls growth levers and attribution is clear. Pure-commission fractional is rarer and suits short sales cycles. For complex/long-cycle B2B, a retainer typically aligns better. This is our description of how these engagements are structured, not a published benchmark.

Fractional: an embedded leader for a set number of days a month — £500–£1,000 a day (Exec Capital). Interim: full-time temporary cover for a vacancy or turnaround — £600–£1,800 a day (Exec Capital Executive Salary Guide 2026). Choose fractional for building; interim for covering gaps or crisis turnaround.

Head of Sales: execution and team management. Sales Director: strategy and commercial ownership — £100k–£160k full-time. VP Sales / CSO: senior revenue leadership across several teams. CRO: board-level ownership of all revenue — sales, marketing and customer success. Titles often compress in SMEs, and no UK source we can verify splits fractional rates by these titles.

Marketing agencies needing project revenue discipline, professional services firms wanting commercial structure, B2B SaaS requiring repeatable pipeline, SMEs scaling past founder-led sales. Each needs different engagement depth and sales methodology.

Commercial strategy and process come first, then pipeline discipline and CRM implementation, then team hiring and comp plan design. When revenue impact becomes measurable depends mainly on your sales cycle length — agree milestones for each stage in the brief rather than relying on a generic timeline.

Define your commercial priorities and stage (team building vs strategy), assess whether you need Head of Sales execution or Sales Director strategy, budget from £500–£1,000 a day for a few days a month (Exec Capital), and engage through specialist fractional recruiters who understand sales leadership markets and commission structures.

Consulting and professional services firms sell through partners — relationship-led, not pipeline-led. A fractional Sales Director adds commercial structure (process, pipeline discipline, measurement) without disrupting the established partner model. Look for candidates with professional-services experience, typically at Sales Director level (£500–£1,000 a day, Exec Capital).

Many fractional sales leaders operate via a limited company; IR35 status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination. Commission/revenue-share structures need careful IR35 and tax treatment consideration — consult qualified advisor for specific arrangements.

Write down the revenue they are accountable for, who reports to them, what they can change without sign-off and how often they report to the board — then agree the days a month. Exec Capital puts a UK fractional Sales Director at £500–£1,000 a day, commonly 4–12 days a month.

Use a permanent search when the sales process is proven and there is a team and pipeline to run; follow Acas's guidance on hiring for the employment steps. Hire a fractional head of sales when those still need building — they can build them and write the brief for the permanent hire. For a fractional or permanent brief we come back with a shortlist of 3–5.

Not quite. A fractional sales manager usually runs the team day to day — pipeline reviews, coaching, activity — against a process someone else has set. A fractional head of sales or sales director sets that process, the targets and the comp plan, and answers to the board for the number. If the process itself is missing, start with the head of sales; if what you need is pipeline activity rather than management, see fractional SDR jobs.

Start with the live board on this page, drawn from our jobs feed: it lists fractional sales jobs from head of sales to sales director level, with a rate shown only where the posting states one. For board-level revenue roles see fractional CRO jobs, and for every function, fractional jobs UK. Applying is free.

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

10/ related

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