Hire an Interim CIO · Interim CIO Jobs UK
Interim CIO Jobs · hire interim CIO
for the gap, or hire CIO
Hire an interim CIO — a full-time interim Chief Information Officer on a fixed-term assignment, usually 3–12 months — to lead a technology transformation, an ERP or AI programme, or IT through a vacancy. Or browse live interim CIO jobs and fractional CIO opportunities UK-wide below.
- £800–£2,000 a day (Exec Capital)
- Full-time, fixed-term
- 3–12 months typical
- Shortlist of 3–5
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
15 minutes · video or phone
Book 15 minutes to hire an interim CIO
Tell us the situation and the start date. We come back with interim CIO candidates, their day rates and availability.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02We scope the assignment and the start date
- 03A shortlist of 3–5 after the call
- 04Fractional, interim and permanent briefs
Pick a day that suits · live availability
Interim CIO jobs · last 3 months
Live Interim CIO jobs
No live Interim CIO roles right now.
We only show real, verified vacancies from the last three months — we never pad the board with fabricated listings. New Interim CIO roles appear here as our pipeline finds them.
01/ definition
What is an interim CIO?
An interim CIO is the Chief Information Officer, full-time, for a fixed term. Not a systems integrator and not a part-time fractional CIO: the person accountable for IT and the transformation until the job is done or the permanent hire arrives.
01 · cadence
The CIO seat, five days a week.
An interim CIO runs IT in full — infrastructure, applications, data, security oversight, suppliers and the technology budget.
02/ scope
What an interim Chief Information Officer owns
The interim CIO carries technology accountability for the term; the IT team and suppliers keep the delivery.
- IT strategy and roadmap
- Transformation and programme governance
- Technology budget and supplier contracts
- Infrastructure and application estate
- Data and AI adoption
- Cyber risk oversight with the CISO
- Board technology reporting
- Handover to the permanent CIO
- Service desk operations
- Hands-on engineering
- Project-level delivery
- Licence administration
- Routine change management
- Individual vendor tickets
03/ alternatives
Interim CIO vs fractional, CTO and permanent
The same seat, four ways of filling it — and the CIO/CTO question that trips most briefs.
→ Interim covers the whole seat for a period; fractional covers part of it indefinitely.
04/ rates
Interim CIO day rates, UK 2026
Published figures only, each with its source. Exec Capital splits interim CIO rates by sector and complexity.
- Interim CIO, SME£700–£1,200Exec Capital
- Mid-market / PE-backed£1,000–£1,800Exec Capital
- Regulated / FS£1,200–£2,200Exec Capital
- Major transformation£1,500–£2,500+Exec Capital
Full-time month at 21 working days: £16,800–£42,000 on the guide band. Six months: roughly £104,000–£260,000 — our arithmetic.
05/ calculator
What an interim CIO costs
Model a fixed-term interim CIO against a permanent Chief Information Officer over the same period.
£1,400 a day is within the published Mid-market / PE band (£1,000–£1,800, Exec Capital).
Interim cost for the term
£182,000
130 working days · 5 d/wk · 6 mo · before tax
Interim costs more over 6 months£3,281
Book a 15-minute call →Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £204,250 median London CIO salary (Robert Half) pro rata for the same months, plus 15% employer NI, plus a 30% search fee on the annual base (UK retained search runs 25–35%, Headhunters.co.uk). Excludes pension, bonus and equity.
06/ tax
Is an interim CIO tax-deductible?
General position under UK rules, with the HMRC source for each point. Not tax advice — check your own case with your accountant.
01 · DEDUCTIBLE
The fees are a business expense
An interim CIO’s fees, like a salary, are deductible against profits when incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade (HMRC BIM37000). At the 25% main rate, each £1,000 of fees costs a profitable company £750 after relief.
02 · EMPLOYER NI
Employer NI follows IR35 status
A permanent CIO carries employer National Insurance at 15% (gov.uk). An interim engaged through their own company carries none when the engagement is outside IR35; inside IR35, the fee-payer deducts tax and NI and pays employer NI. Status depends on how the engagement runs in practice.
03 · WHO DECIDES
IR35 status, by company size
Medium and large clients determine the interim’s status themselves; for a small private-sector client, the interim’s own company decides (HMRC off-payroll guidance).
07/ decision
When to hire an interim CIO
Four situations where companies hire an interim CIO — and where most interim CIO jobs come from.
Which sounds like you?
An ERP, cloud or data programme that needs a senior owner on the client side of the table.
- → Programme governance
- → Supplier control
- → Go-live
The board wants AI in the operating model and nobody owns the plan, the data or the risk.
- → Use-case plan
- → Data readiness
- → Governance
A carve-out, a buy-and-build or a value-creation plan that depends on IT.
- → Separation / TSA exit
- → Integration
- → Cost
IT loses its leader mid-programme, with suppliers and the board waiting.
- → Hold the programme
- → Keep the team
- → Run the search
08/ guide
Hiring an interim CIO: what to get right
Start with the outcome. Most interim CIO assignments exist because of a programme — an ERP, a cloud move, an AI plan, a carve-out — so the brief should name the programme, the go-live and what “done” means for the business.
Decide between interim and fractional CIO. If the transformation needs a full-time owner, hire an interim CIO. If IT needs senior direction a day or two a week, a fractional CIO is cheaper; Exec Capital’s fractional tiers start at £800–£1,200 a day. That is also the “interim CIO or fractional CIO opportunity” question most people searching this page are weighing.
Budget from the published bands. Exec Capital puts interim CIO day rates at £800–£2,000 in its 2026 guide and splits them by sector: £700–£1,200 for SMEs, £1,000–£1,800 mid-market and PE-backed, £1,200–£2,200 regulated, £1,500–£2,500+ for major transformation. A permanent London CIO is a median £204,250 (Robert Half) before on-costs and a retained search fee of 25–35%.
Check the track record against the programme. An interim CIO who has landed two ERP migrations is a different hire from one who has run a PE carve-out. Take references from recent assignments; we do the same before anyone reaches a shortlist.
If you are looking for interim CIO jobs rather than hiring, the live board below lists current interim CIO roles; fractional CIO jobs cover the part-time market.
08.1/ temporary cio
Temporary CIO: what the role is, and when it fits
A temporary CIO is what most boards mean by an interim CIO: a senior technology leader who takes the Chief Information Officer seat full-time for a fixed term, holds the budget, the suppliers and the risk, and hands over at the end. The Institute of Interim Management defines interim management as leadership by an independent, board or near-board level executive “over a finite time span”, and separates it from a contractor’s contract or an agency worker’s temporary work (IIM guide to interim management). The difference from a consultancy is accountability: a temporary CIO answers to your board for the outcome.
The usual triggers are a CIO leaving mid-programme, an ERP or cloud programme that needs a senior owner on the client side of the table, a PE deal that needs the IT estate assessed, separated or integrated, and cyber risk that nobody owns at board level. On that last one, the government’s Cyber Governance Code of Practice sets out what boards and directors should do to govern cyber risk, and the NCSC’s Cyber Security Toolkit for Boards shows how to put it into practice. A temporary CIO is often the person who makes that board reporting work.
If the need is a day or two a week rather than the whole seat, a fractional CIO fits better. If the technology is the product rather than what runs the business, look at hiring an interim CTO instead. For a temporary CIO, we send a shortlist of three to five candidates with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
08.2/ temporary cio
Hiring a temporary CIO: the term, the handover, the contract
Whether the trigger is a departure, a gap before a permanent Chief Information Officer starts or a programme that needs a senior owner, a temporary CIO — an interim CIO by another name — works best when three things are agreed before the first day.
The term. Tie it to programme milestones rather than a round number of months, with a review point part-way through and an agreed way to extend if a go-live moves. The handover. Name who takes over — a permanent CIO, an IT director or the programme board — and make a written record of suppliers, contracts, risks and open decisions part of the scope. The Institute of Interim Management treats the exit, including knowledge transfer and sourcing successors, as a stage of the assignment in its own right (IIM guide to interim management).
The contract. A temporary CIO is engaged either as a fixed-term employee, whose contract ends on a set date or when a specific task is done, or as a contractor through their own limited company under a contract for services. For a contractor, IR35 status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and medium and large clients make the determination (HMRC off-payroll guidance).
08.3/ cio recruitment
CIO recruitment: interim, fractional or permanent
Good CIO recruitment starts by deciding which of three hires you are making: an interim CIO for a fixed term, a fractional CIO for part of each week, or a permanent Chief Information Officer — for the permanent hire, see our CIO headhunter page. Interim and permanent often run together — the interim holds the programme while the permanent search runs, and is well placed to help write the permanent brief because they have seen the estate from the inside.
Define the level before you look at candidates. The SFIA framework, built for the digital and IT profession, describes its highest level of responsibility as determining overall organisational vision and strategy and assuming accountability for overall success; plenty of CVs carrying the CIO title describe work a level or two below that. Then assess against it: the CIPD’s guidance on selection methods favours structured interviews scored by a panel, supported by work-sample tasks, with references used as one input rather than the deciding one. For a CIO, a useful work sample is a review of a live programme’s governance.
Check what you are told. Company records, including disqualified directors, can be searched on the Companies House register, and anyone handling candidates’ data — you or a recruiter — should follow the ICO’s recruitment and selection guidance. Our part is the five-stage process on our vetting page and a shortlist of three to five. For the wider picture across the C-suite, see interim executive recruitment.
08.4/ the search
Interim CIO search: technology transformation briefs
Most interim CIO search work starts from a technology transformation: an ERP replacement, a cloud move, a data platform or an AI programme with a go-live the board has already been told about. So the search is for someone who has landed that kind of programme before, not for a CIO title. Name the programme, the go-live and what the interim must hand over, and when you hire interim CIO expert cover for a single programme, take a reference from the sponsor of the last one.
Hiring an interim CIO to lead an AI transformation needs one more check: whether the candidate has owned the data and the governance, not only the pilots. Ask which use cases they took into live service, who owned the risk, and how they reported it to the board.
Private equity brings many of these briefs. When operating partners hire interim CIO for portfolio companies, it is usually for a carve-out, an integration or a transformation with a deadline; when they hire fractional CIO for PE-backed businesses, it is for senior direction a day or two a week between deals. Either way, we send a shortlist of three to five with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
08.5/ for cios
The interim CIO / fractional CIO opportunity: which suits you
For a CIO choosing their next move, interim and fractional trade different things. Interim is the whole seat, full-time, for a fixed term — usually one programme and one set of stakeholders. Fractional is part of the seat, one to three days a week, often alongside other clients and with no set end date. A fractional chief information officer is engaged for continuity; an interim, for delivery.
Fractional CIO UK engagements are often hybrid: a regular day on site and the rest remote. We shortlist fractional CIOs across the UK, including London, for hybrid or remote engagements, so a fractional CIO, London-based or not, can take on a client outside their own city.
Fractional CIO services are sold as a day rate or a monthly retainer, so there is no fractional CIO salary as such: Exec Capital’s fractional tiers start at £800–£1,200 a day at SME level, and income depends on the days sold. See fractional CIO cost for the tiers and fractional CIO jobs for the part-time board.
09/ contract
Interim CIO jobs: how the assignment is contracted
Interim CIO jobs are usually contracted through the interim’s own limited company, on a fixed-term agreement that sets out the scope, the term, the day rate, the days a week and notice on each side, often tied to programme milestones. The scope is the outcome from the brief: the go-live, the separation or the transformation the assignment exists to deliver.
IR35 status turns on how the assignment runs in practice, not on what the contract calls it. HMRC looks at substitution, control and whether either side must offer or accept further work. Medium and large clients make the status determination; for a small private-sector client, the interim’s own company does (HMRC off-payroll guidance). See the IR35 guide.
TEST 1
Substitution
Whether the interim’s company could send a suitably qualified substitute, and whether that right is genuine in practice.
What HMRC looks atTEST 2
Control
Who decides how the work is done, as distinct from what the assignment must deliver.
What HMRC looks atTEST 3
Mutuality
Whether either side is obliged to offer or accept work beyond the agreed assignment.
What HMRC looks at10/ process
How to hire an interim CIO with us
What we undertake on every brief.
- 01
Brief
A 30-minute call on the assignment, the start date and what the interim CIO must have delivered by the end of the term.
DAY 0 - 02
Search
We search and screen against that brief: track record at your stage and in your situation, and references we take ourselves.
SCREENING - 03
Shortlist
Three to five candidates with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
SHORTLIST OF 3–5 - 04
Start
You interview and choose. The interim you choose contracts with you.
YOU CHOOSE
11/ questions
Interim CIO FAQ
Hiring an interim Chief Information Officer, or looking for interim CIO jobs.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
Hiring an interim CIO? Start with the brief.
Book 15 minutes.
