Fractional HR jobs · Fractional HR director · Head of people
Fractional HR jobs · hire fractional HR
Fractional HR jobs are senior people-leadership roles taken for part of the week: an HR director, a head of people or a CHRO who leads HR at one business for an agreed number of days, often alongside other clients.
To hire a fractional HR director, decide what the seat must own, then how many days it needs.
We recruit fractional, interim, part-time, temporary and permanent HR 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?
HR 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
In the press
Financial Times The executives going ‘fractional’, not freelance (paywall)
On senior people who choose to sit inside several companies at once at leadership level. It is the working pattern behind most fractional HR director and head of people roles.
Fast Company 16 leaders on when fractional C-suite hires make sense · 24 Jun 2026
Leaders disagree on when a fractional hire makes sense. Useful before you decide whether the people seat needs a part-week leader or a full-time one.
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional HR director
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with HR 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
HR leadership jobs on the board
HR leadership roles on the board
Fractional recruiting starts with the brief, not the CV pile. Send a HR Director brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five candidates, each through five-stage vetting.
01/ the role
Fractional HR jobs: what fractional HR leadership covers
A fractional HR leader does the job, not a report about it.
The usual scope: the people plan that sits under the business plan; organisation design and who reports to whom; pay and reward frameworks; employee relations and the difficult cases; the policies, contracts and handbook; the HR system and people data; and coaching the managers who carry all of it.
The difference from an HR consultancy is ownership.
A fractional HR director is named on the leadership team and accountable for the function between visits.
The family of fractional HR roles
The same part-week seat is advertised under several titles.
Board-level people strategy is the CHRO or Chief People Officer seat: hire a fractional CHRO.
Full-time cover for a fixed term, often through a restructure or a deal, is interim: hire an interim CHRO.
A permanent board appointment runs through CHRO recruitment.
If the gap is recruiting capacity rather than HR leadership, see fractional talent acquisition.
For HR director roles at every level, the fractional HR director jobs board lists them.
What fractional HR jobs pay
Exec Capital, a search firm, puts fractional HR director day rates at £600–£1,800 on its fractional HR director page, with £600–£900 at an SME or growth-stage business; its HR director recruitment page gives a narrower £500–£900.
Every candidate on a shortlist states their own day rate.
The full-time benchmarks: Robert Half’s 2026 HR salary guide puts an HR director at £92,000 to £128,750, median £110,250, and a CHRO or Chief People Officer at £110,250 to £183,750, median £147,000.
A fractional fee is the day rate times the days worked.
See fractional HR director salary for the monthly and annual figures, interim HR director salary for full-time interim day rates, and fractional CHRO salary for the seat above.
02/ scope
How to hire a fractional HR director
1. Write down the people problem
Start with what has to change, not the title.
Contracts and policies that are out of date, managers who avoid hard conversations, a restructure on the horizon, pay set one offer at a time, or a board that wants a people plan.
Then decide the days a week you can fund and who the role reports to.
2. Pick the level of the seat
The CIPD Profession Map levels are a good yardstick.
They run from Foundation (tactical, day-to-day work) through Associate (operational work with some complexity) and Chartered Member (thinking strategically and driving people change) to Chartered Fellow (long-term value through strategic business insight).
A fractional HR director or head of people brief usually sits at Chartered Member level or above.
3. Check the credentials
CIPD membership levels match those standards: Associate (Assoc CIPD) for experienced operational HR, Chartered Member (Chartered MCIPD) for strategic and operational expertise, and Chartered Fellow (Chartered FCIPD) for people influencing at senior levels.
Membership is one signal among several.
Ask for evidence from a business of your size: a handbook they wrote, a consultation they ran, a pay framework they built.
Take references from the founders and boards they worked for.
4. Settle the engagement
Agree the days, the outcomes for the first three months, what the HR director can decide alone, and who covers urgent cases between their days.
If they will work through their own company, check IR35 before the start date (below).
What we do on an HR 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 HR 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 · 2 roles · HR leadership
Engagement
- Fractional2
Seat
- CHRO1
- HRD1
Days a week
- Stated in the posting1
- Not stated1
Day rate
- Verified rate0
- Estimated (est)0
- Rate not stated2
Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)
- Remote0
- Hybrid1
- On-site1
Newest posting on the board: 6 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 HR director.The work fills part of the week, so buy the days it needs.
A fractional HR 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 HR director.The work fills the week, and it has an end: a programme, a cover, a transaction.
An interim HR 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 HR director after.The seat is full time and long term, and the need is now.
An interim HR director holds it while the permanent search runs, so the seat is not left empty.
The route · Permanent
A permanent HR 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
HR director vs CHRO vs head of people
Three titles for overlapping seats. At a small company they often merge; choose by the work.
07/ vetting
How we vet fractional HR directors
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify HR 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 head of people
Fractional head of people: the first senior people hire
A fractional head of people is often the first senior people leader a growing company brings in.
The brief is foundations: employment contracts and a handbook, a hiring process that managers actually follow, onboarding, a performance cycle, and someone for managers to call when a case gets difficult.
It is a leadership seat, not an administrative one.
HR manager roles, which run the day-to-day processes, are a different and more junior hire and are not what this page covers.
The title is common in start-ups and tech scale-ups, where the role leans to culture and employer brand.
As the company grows, the seat either becomes an HR director post or moves up to a CHRO or Chief People Officer who leads people strategy at board level.
A fractional head of people can build the system first and help you hire whoever runs it next.
Test candidates on what they have built, not what they have advised on.
Ask for the handbook, the process map, the first-year plan they wrote somewhere similar.
Our shortlist sets out each candidate’s day rate, availability and IR35 position, so you can compare them on the same page.
09/ employment law
Employment law a fractional HR leader should own
Most of the risk in HR is legal, and a part-week leader has to keep up with it.
Acas notes that the Employment Rights Act 2025 became law on 18 December 2025 and that its changes arrive through 2026 and 2027, so handbooks and contracts need a plan for each change, not a single rewrite.
Casework has a floor.
The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures is the minimum an employer should follow, and a tribunal takes into account the procedure the employer followed.
When a business changes owner, employees may be protected by TUPE: jobs and terms usually transfer and continuity of employment is kept.
And every new starter needs a right to work check before they begin.
A fractional HR director owns these processes and takes legal advice where the facts are unclear.
10/ ir35
IR35 and fractional HR roles employed part-time or through a company
A fractional HR leader is either employed on a part-time contract or works through their own limited company.
The label does not settle the status: GOV.UK notes that a person may be an employee in employment law but have a different status for tax purposes.
Where the HR director works through their own company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply.
In most cases the client decides the worker’s status.
For a small client outside the public sector, the worker’s own company decides; HMRC sets out the size tests in its guidance for clients.
Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, so set out control, substitution and the days in the contract and then run it that way.
Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
11/ questions
Fractional HR jobs FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional HR 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.
