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Permanent compliance officer · hiring brief

Hire a Compliance Officer

Hire a Compliance Officer: check whether the role is a regulated function in your firm, write the monitoring and reporting the compliance officer owns, and protect their access to the board.

Brief us on this role →See compliance officer roles

Reviewed by Fractional Quest · updated 1 November 2026 · 4 sources linked below

  • 3–5on every shortlist
  • 5stages of vetting
  • IR35set out on every brief
Hire a Compliance Officer: leadership meeting in a Covent Garden office (illustration)

On the board · last 90 days

Which roles are on the board now?

Permanent compliance officer roles first, then the seat in any engagement and the wider function when the board runs short.

Roles

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Every fractional role in the UK is on the fractional jobs board.

In the press

The brief

Hire a Compliance Officer: what must the role own?

The rules that apply: FCA, sector or general law.

  • 01RegimeThe rules that apply: FCA, sector or general law.
  • 02MonitoringThe plan and testing they run.
  • 03ReportingTo the board and, where relevant, the regulator.
  • 04IndependenceSeparation from the business they monitor.

Role reference: FCA: senior management functions. The FCA lists senior management functions, including compliance oversight, which may apply when you hire a compliance officer in a regulated firm.

Regulated or not

Hire a compliance officer: is it a regulated role?

Check this first; it changes the timetable.

In FCA-regulated firms, compliance oversight may be a senior management function that needs approval before the person performs it. Allow for that.

Outside regulated sectors, a compliance officer still needs independence and a line to the board.

The working pattern

What changes when the compliance officer is permanent?

A compliance officer monitors the business against the rules that apply to it and reports breaches. In FCA-regulated firms, compliance oversight can be a senior management function needing approval.

The illustrative brief: a newly authorised payments firm. Authorisation is granted; nobody runs the compliance monitoring plan.

The appointment owns: The firm hires a compliance officer and confirms whether approval is needed.

Another owner retains: The board owns compliance; the officer monitors and advises.

The case is illustrative; it does not describe a Fractional Quest placement.

From brief to start

How do you hire a Compliance Officer, step by step?

Hire a Compliance Officer, in practice: the first three steps are ours; the last four are what has to be true before the first day. We don’t promise a shortlist by a date.

  1. Day 0
    01
    The 15-minute call
    What the compliance officer must own, the working pattern, the start date and the budget.
    You and us
  2. Week 1
    02
    Scope agreed in writing
    The outcome the seat exists for, the days, and how the engagement will run for IR35.
    Us
  3. Weeks 1–3
    03
    Search, references, shortlist
    We approach people who aren’t looking, verify tenure, take references ourselves and return three to five.
    Us
  4. Week 4
    04
    Approval
    Check whether an FCA approval is required before start.
    You
  5. Before day one · 2
    05
    Plan
    Monitoring plan and risk register.
    You
  6. Before day one · 3
    06
    Board
    Reporting slot.
    You
  7. Before day one · 4
    07
    Training
    Staff training schedule.
    You

Assessment

How should you assess each candidate?

Hire a Compliance Officer on evidence: put the same work in front of each candidate before comparing answers.

  1. Comparable work
    Ask for a monitoring plan they ran.
  2. Authority
    Test a breach the business would rather not report.
  3. Team
    Ask how they trained staff.
  4. Handover
    Ask what records they kept.

Acas recommends a consistent, fair selection process: choosing who to interview.

Vetting

What happens before anyone reaches your shortlist?

Five stages before a candidate reaches a shortlist of three to five.

  1. Pedigree screen
    Tenure
    We verify prior tenure in the seat, at the scale and stage you need. No consultant presenting as an executive.
  2. Mandate fit
    Fit
    Fit to your stage, sector and the problem the seat exists to solve, not a CV keyword.
  3. Reference deep-dive
    Verify
    We take references ourselves, from recent clients and boards: what they delivered, not what they titled it.
  4. Shortlist
    Shortlist
    Three to five candidates, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
  5. Kick-off
    Start
    Scope, first-month outcomes and the contract agreed before day one.

The full process is on how we vet.

Questions

Hire a Compliance Officer: questions, answered

A brief to hire a Compliance Officer begins with regime: The rules that apply: FCA, sector or general law. Then a stated working pattern and the evidence you will ask every candidate to show.

Read next

Related hiring and role pages

Sources

Where does every reference on this page come from?

  • fca.org.uk
  • HMRC
  • legislation.gov.uk
  1. 1
    FCA: senior management functions fca.org.uk
  2. 2
    Understanding off-payroll working (IR35) HMRC
    Status depends on how the engagement runs; medium and large clients make the determination.
  3. 3
    Check employment status for tax (CEST) HMRC
    HMRC’s own status check for each engagement.
  4. 4
    Employment Agencies Act 1973 legislation.gov.uk
    The law a recruitment agency works under; no fee to a work-seeker.

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