How to hire a product director · VP of product management · permanent, fractional or interim
Hire a product director · or a VP of product
To hire a product director, first decide what the seat runs: a product line, a group of product teams, or the whole product organisation below a chief product officer.
Then choose the route (permanent, fractional or interim), set the package, and test candidates on a real roadmap from your business.
We recruit fractional, interim, part-time, temporary and permanent executives, and non-executive directors.
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.
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)
Worth reading before you choose the part-week route. It describes senior people who work inside several leadership teams at once, which is how a fractional product leader usually works.
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire a product director
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Product 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
Product director jobs on the board
Current product leadership roles
Fractional Quest is a fractional recruitment agency: send a Product Director brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.
01/ the role
Hire a product director: what the seat runs
A product director leads product managers and decides what their teams build next, against a strategy the executive team has agreed.
The job is people, priorities and the roadmap, not writing the company strategy alone.
SFIA’s product management skill lists the work the seat oversees: product vision, strategy and roadmaps, pricing, and managing products through their lifecycle.
Where the seat sits
Most companies place a product director between the chief product officer and the product managers.
Where there is no CPO, the product director usually reports to the CEO or the CTO.
The government’s product leadership skills name four things a product leader adds to product management.
One of them is taking part in executive management teams, which is the step up a good product director has already made.
Before you write the brief
Decide whether the strategy is already clear.
If nobody owns product strategy at board level, you may need to hire a chief product officer first, and the director after.
If one leader for a few teams is enough, the seat may be a head of product rather than a director.
The difference is set out further down.
02/ scope
How to hire a product director: the steps
1. Write the brief around the product problem
Say what should be different in a year: a roadmap the teams trust, a second product launched, a team rebuilt.
Name what the director inherits (teams, tools, a backlog) and what stays with the CPO or CEO.
Turn that into a written role before anyone is approached; our head of product job description is a starting template for the seat.
2. Choose the route and set the package
Decide between permanent, fractional and interim before you set a budget, because the cost basis differs.
The section on routes, below, sets out which fits which situation.
Exec Capital’s director salary guide puts a Director of Product at £100,000–£280,000 base in mid-market companies (£20m–£200m revenue).
Exec Capital is a recruiter, and these are its published figures.
3. Test on your own roadmap
Give every candidate the same task: a real roadmap from your business, with the question of what they would cut and why.
The CIPD’s guidance on selection favours clear, structured processes and skill-based tasks over unstructured interviews.
Score the answers against criteria agreed in advance, with a panel that includes an engineering lead.
Take references from engineers and product managers who worked for the candidate, not only from their own manager.
4. Make the offer and plan the start
Check the right to work before employment starts: GOV.UK says you must check that an applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them.
The written statement of employment particulars is due on the first day.
Acas notes there is no legal requirement to have a probation period, and that one can be any length.
Set the first review against the outcomes in the brief.
What we do on a product brief
We send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
Every candidate goes through our five-stage vetting first.
03/ comparison
Permanent, fractional or interim product leadership?
Four ways to fill a director-level product seat. Choose by how much of the week the work needs, and for how long.
04/ vetting
How we vet product directors
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify Product 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
05/ hire a VP of product management
Hire a VP of product management: the same seat under another title?
Often, yes.
To hire a VP of product management in a US-style company is usually to recruit what a British company calls a product director: the leader of the product managers, one level below the chief product officer.
The search “hire vp product management” comes mostly from companies with American investors or a US parent, where “vice president” is the normal title for a senior functional leader.
British companies more often say director or head.
In the UK, “director” in a job title does not by itself make someone a company director.
A statutory director is appointed to the board and, as Companies House explains, becomes legally responsible for running the company.
A head of product usually leads a few teams and still does some hands-on product work.
A product director or VP of product leads the heads of product, or a larger group of product managers, and spends more time on hiring, planning and the executive team.
The government’s Digital and Data capability framework runs its product ladder from associate product manager to head of product, and defines the job as balancing user and business needs.
Its product leadership note places director of product with chief product officer, above that ladder.
Titles vary between companies, so compare scope rather than title.
Searches for “hire product director”, “hire product directors” and “hire head of product” usually describe one of these seats.
06/ permanent, fractional or interim product leadership
Permanent, fractional or interim product leadership: which route
The route turns on two questions: how much of the week the product work needs, and for how long.
A search for “product leadership hire” rarely says which, so decide before the brief goes out.
Permanent suits a company with several product teams and a roadmap that needs an owner every day.
On pay, Robert Half’s 2026 figures put a head of product, the seat just below, at £77,000–£113,250 nationally (median £97,750) and £104,750–£154,000 in London (median £133,000); see head of product salary.
A fractional head of product gives senior product judgement for agreed days a week, often to a company with one product team.
For a looser brief, fractional product leader jobs show how part-week product seats are framed.
Interim suits a vacancy, a re-platform or a launch with a fixed end, full-time for a set term.
At the level above, an interim CPO covers the chief product officer seat in the same way.
Below director level, companies that want to hire product managers or hire contract product managers for a single product can see fractional product manager jobs.
If a fractional or interim product director works through their own company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply.
Status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination; our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
07/ questions
Hire a product director FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in a product 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.
