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Hire a Fractional Talent Acquisition Lead · Fractional Talent Acquisition Jobs UK

Hire a Fractional Talent Acquisition Lead · Fractional Talent Acquisition Jobs UK

Hire a fractional talent acquisition lead — a senior in-house recruiting leader, for a set number of days a week, who builds your hiring function: the process, the employer brand, the applicant tracking system (ATS) and the hiring managers who run it. This page is about bringing that person into your team, not about handing roles to an agency. Looking for work? Browse live fractional talent acquisition jobs and people-leadership roles below.

Submit a brief →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

3–5
Shortlist · candidates, day rate and IR35 position set out
5 stages
Vetting · before a candidate reaches you
Permanent
We recruit · fractional and interim too

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes to hire a fractional talent acquisition lead

Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Talent Acquisition Lead 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 Talent acquisition jobs

0 Talent acquisition · 9 fractional executive

No live Talent acquisition roles in the last three months. Showing live fractional executive roles instead.

Browse all live UK roles →

Current fractional talent acquisition and people-leadership roles

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

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01/ the role

What a fractional talent acquisition lead does, and what it isn't

A fractional talent acquisition lead is a senior recruiting leader who joins your company for part of the week and owns how you hire. They design the process from role brief to offer, set up or fix the applicant tracking system, shape the employer brand candidates see, and train hiring managers to interview consistently. They sit inside your team, use your systems and your email, and usually report to the CEO, the COO or the head of people.

It is not an agency arrangement. An agency, including a fractional recruiter, fills specific vacancies from outside your business; a fractional talent acquisition lead builds the function that lets you fill them yourself, and decides when an agency is worth using. The legal duties stay with you as the employer either way. GOV.UK is plain that you might be breaking the law if discrimination happens during your recruitment process, even if you use a recruitment agency.

How to hire a fractional talent acquisition lead

Start from the hiring plan, not the job title: how many hires over the next few quarters, in which functions and at what seniority, and what is failing today: candidate drop-out, inconsistent interviews, managers who never give feedback, or no ATS at all. Then decide the days a week and the length of the engagement. Brief us and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

02/ scope

Fractional talent acquisition jobs: what the role owns

Hiring process and selection design

Mapping the route from approved headcount to signed offer, writing role briefs and scorecards, and moving interviews to structured, consistent questions. The CIPD's selection methods factsheet notes that clear, objective, structured and transparent processes are fairer for candidates; a good lead builds that in rather than leaving each manager to improvise.

Employer brand and candidate experience

The careers page, the adverts, outreach messages and how candidates are kept informed. Adverts also have to be lawful: the Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination in the workplace, and that includes how a job is described and where it is advertised.

ATS, candidate data and tools

Choosing or cleaning up the applicant tracking system, reporting on the hiring funnel, and handling candidate data lawfully under the ICO's recruitment and selection guidance. If the business wants AI sourcing or screening tools, the ICO's questions to ask before using AI in recruitment, covering a DPIA, a lawful basis, bias checks and telling candidates how the tool is used, are the lead's to answer.

Hiring managers and the weekly rhythm

Training managers to interview, running pipeline reviews, and settling who signs off offers. Right to work checks before every start date sit here too: an employer that has not carried out a correct check could face a civil penalty if it employs someone who is not allowed to work in the UK.

03/ comparison

Talent acquisition lead vs CHRO vs recruitment agency

Three ways to get hiring done, and what each one owns.

Fractional talent acquisition leadFractional CHRORecruitment agency
FocusBuilding the hiring functionThe whole people agenda: culture, reward, relations, organisation designFilling specific vacancies
Where they workInside your team, in your systemsLeadership team, board-facingOutside your business
How it is paidDay rate for the days workedDay rate for the days workedThe fee terms agreed with the agency
What it leaves behindA process, an ATS and trained managersPeople strategy and policiesThe hires it made

04/ timing

When to hire a fractional talent acquisition lead

Four situations where a part-week talent leader is usually a better answer than another agency brief or a full-time hire.

Scenario 01

After a funding round

A hiring plan with no one to run it

Headcount is approved across several functions, and the founders are doing the interviewing between everything else.

Scenario 02

Agency spend is rising

A fee on every hire

Most roles go to agencies because there is no in-house process. A lead builds one and keeps agencies for the searches that need them.

Scenario 03

Interviews are inconsistent

Every manager hires differently

Different questions, no scorecards, slow feedback. A lead standardises selection and trains the managers.

Scenario 04

Before a full-time head of talent

Design the seat first

A fractional lead sets up the function and shows what the permanent role should be, or whether you need one.

05/ vetting

How we vet fractional talent acquisition leads

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

  1. 01

    Qualification screen

    Verify Talent Acquisition Lead 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/ internal recruiter

Fractional internal recruiter or talent acquisition lead?

A fractional internal recruiter and a fractional talent acquisition lead both work inside your business rather than from an agency, but they do different jobs. The internal recruiter runs vacancies: sourcing, screening, booking interviews and keeping candidates informed, usually against a process someone else designed. The talent acquisition lead designs that process, owns the ATS and the employer brand, and coaches the hiring managers. Early on, one senior person can do both; once there are more open roles than one person can run, the lead usually needs recruiters beneath them.

Either way, the recruiter is working as you, so your obligations travel with them. There is no set recruitment process in law, but Acas is clear that employers must follow a fair one, with discrimination and data protection law applying throughout. Brief your internal recruiter on both before they send the first message.

If what you need is someone paid to fill a set of roles from outside, that is a different model: see our page on the fractional recruiter and how fractional recruitment agencies work. If you need someone in your team, running the pipeline in your systems, brief a fractional internal recruiter or lead through us: a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.

07/ head of talent

Fractional head of talent when the seat is strategic

A fractional head of talent is the same family of role pitched higher: alongside recruiting, the brief takes in workforce planning, internal moves and how the business finds and keeps the skills it will need. The CIPD describes workforce planning as balancing labour supply against demand: analysing today's workforce, setting future needs and closing the gap. That analysis is where a head of talent starts.

Titles vary, so read the brief rather than the label. Where the job is hiring volume and process, it is a talent acquisition lead. Where it spans talent strategy and reports into the leadership team, it is a head of talent. Where it also covers reward, employee relations and organisation design, you need a fractional CHRO, or, for a defined period of full-time cover, an interim CHRO.

Professional standing is one signal among several. The CIPD's Profession Map sets the people profession's standard, and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation runs training and a good-practice network for in-house recruiters. Neither replaces references from founders and hiring managers who watched the person build a function.

08/ questions

Fractional talent acquisition FAQ

The questions people ask before bringing in a fractional talent acquisition lead.

Write down the hiring plan for the next few quarters, what is failing today and the days a week you can fund. Send us that brief and we come back with a shortlist of 3–5 candidates, each taken through our five-stage vetting, with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out. You interview and choose.

The cost is the day rate multiplied by the days worked. We have not found a published UK benchmark for a fractional talent acquisition lead's day rate, so we don't quote one; each candidate on your shortlist states their own. Compare it with what hiring costs you now, in agency fees and managers' time, and with a permanent hire run through PAYE. Our rates page covers the roles where published figures exist.

An in-house recruiter engaged for part of the week who runs your open roles: sourcing, screening, scheduling and candidate contact, inside your systems and under your brand. A talent acquisition lead designs the process they run; an agency fills roles from outside. Candidate data is still yours to protect under the ICO's recruitment and selection guidance.

Owns the talent strategy for part of the week: workforce planning, hiring, internal moves and employer brand, usually reporting to the CEO or the people lead. If the brief also covers reward and employee relations, look at a fractional CHRO instead.

No. An agency fills vacancies from outside; a talent acquisition lead works inside your team and builds the process, the ATS and the employer brand. If you want the agency model, see fractional recruiter. Whoever recruits for you, the employer stays responsible for fair treatment of candidates, even when an agency is used.

Usually a written process from role brief to offer, scorecards and structured interviews, an ATS that reports the funnel, lawful adverts, and right to work checks built into onboarding. The CIPD's recruitment factsheet walks through defining the role, attracting applicants, selection and appointment, and the Home Office's employer's guide to right to work checks sets out acceptable documents and when follow-up checks are due.

Either. Some are employed part-time; others work through their own company, in which case the off-payroll working (IR35) rules apply: status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination. HMRC's guidance for clients sets out who is in scope, and our IR35 guide explains the tests.

Live roles appear on the board on this page as postings arrive, widening to people-leadership roles when there are none. See also fractional HR director roles and fractional jobs UK for the full board.

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.

/fractional-chro-jobs-uk

Hire a Fractional CHRO

The whole people agenda, part-time

/fractional-jobs-chro

Fractional HR Director Jobs

Operational HR leadership roles

/interim-chro-jobs-uk

Hire an Interim CHRO

Full-time people leadership for a fixed term

/fractional-recruitment-agency

Fractional Recruitment Agency

The agency model, for comparison

/vetting

How we vet

The five stages before a candidate reaches you

Fractional CHRO Jobs UKIR35 guideCIPD recruitment factsheetRight to work checks (GOV.UK)
Fractional Quest logo — how to hire a fractional talent acquisition lead, fractional talent acquisition jobs UK