Hire an Interim CMO · Interim CMO Jobs UK
Interim CMO Jobs · hire interim CMO
for the gap, or hire CMO · interim CMO for hire
Hire an interim CMO — a full-time interim Chief Marketing Officer on a fixed-term assignment, usually 3–12 months — to cover a vacancy, reset a stalled growth engine or land a launch. Or browse live interim CMO jobs UK-wide below.
- £700–£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 CMO
Tell us the situation and the start date. We come back with interim CMO 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 CMO jobs · last 3 months
Live Interim CMO jobs
No live Interim CMO roles right now.
We only show real, verified vacancies from the last three months — we never pad the board with fabricated listings. New Interim CMO roles appear here as our pipeline finds them.
01/ definition
What is an interim CMO?
An interim CMO is the Chief Marketing Officer, full-time, for a fixed term. Not an agency and not a part-time fractional CMO: the person who owns marketing and its number until the job is done or the permanent hire arrives.
01 · cadence
The CMO seat, five days a week.
An interim CMO runs marketing in full — the team, the budget, the agencies, the pipeline target and the board conversation.
02/ scope
What an interim Chief Marketing Officer owns
The interim CMO carries marketing accountability for the term; the team and agencies keep the execution.
- Positioning and messaging
- Marketing plan and budget
- Pipeline and revenue contribution
- Brand and category strategy
- Team structure and hiring
- Agency selection and management
- Board and investor marketing reporting
- Handover to the permanent CMO
- Campaign build and execution
- Content production
- Paid media management
- Social scheduling
- Events logistics
- Marketing operations admin
03/ alternatives
Interim CMO vs fractional, agency and permanent
The same seat, four ways of filling it.
→ Interim covers the whole seat for a period; fractional covers part of it indefinitely.
04/ rates
Interim CMO day rates, UK 2026
Published figures only, each with its source. Exec Capital: straightforward cover sits at the lower end; transformation and post-acquisition work significantly higher.
- Interim CMO£700–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Interim CMO£1,000–£1,500Intelligent People
- Fractional CMO£750–£1,400Connectd 2026
Full-time month at 21 working days: £14,700–£42,000. Six months: roughly £91,000–£260,000 — our arithmetic on the Exec Capital band.
05/ calculator
What an interim CMO costs
Model a fixed-term interim CMO against a permanent Chief Marketing Officer over the same period.
£1,350 a day is within the published Interim CMO band (£700–£2,000, Exec Capital 2026).
Interim cost for the term
£175,500
130 working days · 5 d/wk · 6 mo · before tax
Interim costs more over 6 months£46,875
Book a 15-minute call →Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £147,000 median CMO 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 CMO 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 CMO’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 CMO 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 CMO
Four situations where companies hire an interim CMO — and where most interim CMO jobs come from.
Which sounds like you?
A departure mid-plan leaves the team, the agencies and the pipeline target without an owner.
- → Hold the plan
- → Keep the team
- → Run the search
Pipeline is down, CAC is up and nobody can say which channel is working.
- → Diagnose the funnel
- → Reset the plan
- → Report to the board
A new product, market or brand that needs a senior owner for a defined period.
- → Positioning
- → Go-to-market plan
- → Launch readiness
Post-acquisition brand integration, or getting the growth story ready for investors.
- → Brand merge
- → Team integration
- → Equity story
08/ guide
Hiring an interim CMO: what to get right
Start with the outcome. An interim CMO is hired to leave something finished: a repositioning agreed, a demand engine producing pipeline again, a launch delivered, a team hired. Put that and a date in the brief.
Choose between interim and fractional. If marketing needs a full-time owner for a few months, hire an interim CMO. If it needs senior direction a day or two a week, a fractional CMO is cheaper — Connectd puts the band at £750–£1,400 a day.
Budget from the published bands. Exec Capital’s 2026 guide puts interim CMO day rates at £700–£2,000; Intelligent People quotes £1,000–£1,500. Six months at five days a week on the Exec Capital band is roughly £91,000–£260,000 — our arithmetic. A permanent Chief Marketing Officer is a median £147,000 (Robert Half) before on-costs and a retained search fee of 25–35%.
Match the track record to your situation: B2B pipeline, consumer brand, PE value creation and launch work are different skills. Take references from recent assignments; we do the same before anyone reaches a shortlist. For a dedicated search, see interim CMO recruitment.
If you are looking for interim CMO jobs rather than hiring, the live board below lists current interim CMO roles; fractional CMO jobs and fractional marketing jobs cover the part-time market.
08.1/ cmo recruitment
CMO recruitment: which hire, which brief, which checks
CMO recruitment covers three different hires, and the brief should say which one you are making: a permanent Chief Marketing Officer, an interim CMO for a fixed term, or a fractional CMO for part of each week. For a retained search for a permanent appointment, see our CMO headhunter page. This page covers the interim route, where the search is for someone available to take a defined mandate rather than a long-term post.
Whichever route, the brief decides the outcome. Agree whether the role is weighted to brand or to pipeline, what the CMO owns — demand generation, product marketing, agencies, the team — and what must be true at the end of the term. For board appointments, the IoD summarises the UK Corporate Governance Code’s call for a formal, transparent and rigorous appointment process, and the CIPD’s guidance on selection methods favours structured, panel-scored interviews and work-sample tasks over an open conversation. A good work sample for a CMO is a diagnosis of your funnel from data you share.
Credentials help at the margin. Chartered Marketer status from the Chartered Institute of Marketing requires graded membership, continuing professional development and an assessment, so it signals commitment to professional standards — but a track record in a situation like yours matters more. The candidate data you collect during CMO recruitment falls under the ICO’s recruitment and selection guidance. Our part: a shortlist of three to five and the five-stage process on our vetting page.
08.2/ interim chief marketing officer
Interim Chief Marketing Officer: what you inherit with the seat
An interim Chief Marketing Officer takes the whole seat — team, budget, agencies, pipeline target — for a fixed term, and is judged on what is left behind. The Institute of Interim Management describes interim managers as people who “consult, plan, advise, implement, and embed the lessons, then exit” (IIM guide to interim management). The last two steps are the ones to write into the brief: what gets embedded, and who owns it after the exit.
The seat also carries the compliance side of marketing, which a stop-gap appointment often misses. Non-broadcast advertising, sales promotions and direct marketing communications are covered by the UK Advertising Codes; marketing by email, text and phone, and the use of cookies, fall under PECR, set out in the ICO’s direct marketing guidance. An interim Chief Marketing Officer should be able to tell you early in the assignment whether your campaigns, consent records and tracking stand up.
Interim Chief Marketing Officer recruitment runs differently from a permanent search: the brief is a mandate with an end state, and the interim usually works through their own company. IR35 status depends on how the assignment runs in practice — medium and large clients make the determination, and HMRC’s CEST tool gives HMRC’s view of a specific engagement. If you need marketing leadership a level below the board, see interim marketing director roles; for ongoing part-time cover, a part-time CMO.
08.3/ temporary cmo
Temporary CMO: when a stopgap needs a senior hand
A temporary CMO is usually an interim Chief Marketing Officer: someone who takes the marketing seat full-time for a fixed term, then hands it on. The Institute of Interim Management separates that from a contractor’s contract or an agency worker’s temporary work by its authority and scope (IIM guide to interim management). If you need one campaign run, hire a contractor; if you need the seat held, hire a temporary CMO.
The usual reasons to bring in a temporary Chief Marketing Officer are a CMO who has left or is on long leave, a launch or rebrand with no owner, or a new owner who wants the plan reset before a permanent appointment. Set the term by the outcome — the launch shipped, the plan agreed, a successor in post — and agree a review point. Write the handover into the scope: agencies, budgets, data and the team, and who takes each over.
The contract is fixed-term employment or a contract with the CMO’s own company. With a fixed-term employee, GOV.UK notes that working past the end date without formal renewal implies a new end date, so extend in writing (renewing or ending a fixed-term contract). With a limited company, IR35 status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and medium and large clients make the determination (HMRC off-payroll guidance).
08.4/ for hire
Interim CMO for hire: a growth reset, a gap or a launch
An interim CMO for hire is available to start a defined assignment and hold the marketing seat full-time until it is done. The brief matters more than the search: the situation, what must be true at the end of the term, and who the interim reports to. When you hire interim CMO cover through us, we send a shortlist of three to five, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
Short-term CMO, UK-wide: we shortlist across the UK for on-site, hybrid or remote assignments. An interim CMO for growth reset work is judged on the diagnosis first — which channels produce pipeline, what to stop — so write the reset into the brief as outcomes: a plan the board has agreed, a changed channel mix, a team to run it.
If you go to an interim CMO company — a provider with its own bench of associates — ask who exactly will do the work, and whether that person can be swapped without your agreement.
Interim CMO for SMEs
For an SME, an interim CMO makes sense when the need is full-time and time-bound: a relaunch, a reset, or cover through a departure. The test is a track record in a business of your size, where the interim ran the plan and the agencies with a small team rather than a large department. If the need is senior direction a day or two a week, a fractional CMO usually fits an SME budget better.
08.5/ three routes
Fractional, interim, part-time CMO: which one fits the gap
Three ways to fill the same seat, and the choice follows the gap rather than the title. An interim CMO is full-time for a fixed term: a vacancy, a reset, a launch or a deal. A fractional CMO works one to three days a week on an ongoing contract, often alongside other clients. A part-time CMO usually means reduced days on an employment contract with one company.
Ask three questions. Does marketing need an owner every day for the next few months? Then interim. Does it need senior direction, but not five days of it? Then fractional. Do you want the same person on the same days, employed, for the long term? Then part-time. The published day rates overlap — Exec Capital puts interim CMOs at £700–£2,000 a day and Connectd puts fractional CMOs at £750–£1,400 — so the annual cost is driven by the days, not the rate.
Whichever route, the brief and the checks are the same. We recruit fractional, interim, part-time and permanent executives, and every shortlist of three to five sets out day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position, after the five stages on our vetting page.
09/ contract
Interim CMO jobs: how the assignment is contracted
Interim CMO 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. The scope is the outcome from the brief: the reset, the launch, the integration or the cover the assignment exists to deliver, and what the interim may decide alone on hiring, agencies and budget.
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 CMO with us
What we undertake on every brief.
- 01
Brief
A 30-minute call on the assignment, the start date and what the interim CMO 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 CMO FAQ
Hiring an interim Chief Marketing Officer, or looking for interim CMO jobs.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
Hiring an interim CMO? Start with the brief.
Book 15 minutes.
