Hire an Interim COO · Interim COO Jobs UK
Interim COO Jobs · hire interim COO
for the gap, or hire COO
Hire an interim COO — a full-time interim Chief Operating Officer on a fixed-term assignment, usually 3–12 months — to cover a vacancy, fix operations that are holding growth back or integrate an acquisition. Or browse live interim COO jobs 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 COO
Tell us the situation and the start date. We come back with interim COO 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 COO jobs · last 3 months
Live Interim COO jobs
01/ definition
What is an interim COO?
An interim COO is the Chief Operating Officer, full-time, for a fixed term. Not a consultant and not a part-time fractional COO: the person who runs operations until the job is done or the permanent hire arrives. Looking for interim CPO recruitment instead? That is the Chief Product Officer, a different seat with its own page: see interim CPO.
01 · cadence
The COO seat, five days a week.
An interim COO runs operations in full — delivery, people, process, suppliers and the operating rhythm of the business.
02/ scope
What an interim Chief Operating Officer owns
The interim COO carries operational accountability for the term; the functional leads keep the day-to-day.
- Operating model and structure
- Delivery, service and quality KPIs
- Cost base and margin
- Supply chain and suppliers
- Process and systems change
- People plans and organisation design
- The operating rhythm with the CEO
- Handover to the permanent COO
- Shift and rota management
- Individual project delivery
- Routine procurement
- Facilities admin
- Operational reporting production
- First-line people management
03/ alternatives
Interim COO vs fractional, consultancy 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 COO day rates, UK 2026
Published figures only, each with its source. Exec Capital: straightforward cover sits at the lower end; transformation, turnaround and integration work significantly higher.
- Interim COO£800–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Fractional COO£800–£1,400Connectd 2026
- Fractional COO, mid-market£900–£1,050Connectd 2026
Full-time month at 21 working days: £16,800–£42,000. Six months: roughly £104,000–£260,000 — our arithmetic on the Exec Capital band.
05/ calculator
What an interim COO costs
Model a fixed-term interim COO against a permanent Chief Operating Officer over the same period.
£1,400 a day is within the published Interim COO band (£800–£2,000, Exec Capital 2026).
Interim cost for the term
£182,000
130 working days · 5 d/wk · 6 mo · before tax
Interim costs more over 6 months£61,395
Book a 15-minute call →Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £137,834 median COO pay (Exec Capital) 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 COO 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 COO’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 COO 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 COO
Four situations where companies hire an interim COO — and where most interim COO jobs come from.
Which sounds like you?
Operations lose their owner mid-year, with customers and the team watching.
- → Hold service levels
- → Keep the team
- → Run the search
Margin, delivery or cash has slipped and the operating model needs fixing now.
- → Cost base
- → Delivery KPIs
- → Cash
Two businesses, two ways of working and a deal case that assumes they become one.
- → Integration plan
- → Systems
- → Synergies
A scale-up whose processes, systems and team were built for a smaller company.
- → Operating model
- → Systems
- → Hiring plan
08/ guide
Hiring an interim COO: what to get right
Start with the outcome. An interim COO is hired to leave a working operation behind: a turnaround delivered, an integration finished, a scale-up with processes that hold. Put that and a date in the brief.
Choose between interim and fractional. If operations need a full-time owner for a few months, hire an interim COO. If they need senior direction a day or two a week, a fractional COO costs less — Connectd puts the band at £800–£1,400 a day.
Budget from the published bands. Exec Capital’s 2026 guide puts interim COO day rates at £800–£2,000. Six months at five days a week is roughly £104,000–£260,000 — our arithmetic. A permanent Chief Operating Officer is a median £137,834, or £153,346 in London (Exec Capital), before on-costs and a retained search fee of 25–35%.
Match the track record to your situation — turnaround, integration and scale-up are different jobs — and take references from recent assignments; we do the same before anyone reaches a shortlist.
If you are looking for interim COO jobs rather than hiring, the live board below lists current interim COO roles; fractional COO jobs cover the part-time market.
08.1/ interim chief operating officer
Interim Chief Operating Officer: the people and legal side of the seat
An interim Chief Operating Officer is usually hired to change how the business runs, not only to keep it running. The Institute of Interim Management lists “change, transformation and turnaround management, business improvement, crisis management” among the work interim executives take on (IIM guide to interim management). That kind of change has a people and legal dimension that is worth scoping before the assignment starts.
Where operations include sites, people and physical risk, the HSE’s Leading health and safety at work sets out the leadership actions expected of directors and board members; an interim COO on the leadership team should work to it. Integrations and outsourcing decisions often bring in TUPE: when a business or a service changes hands, employees may transfer with their terms and continuity of employment protected (GOV.UK). Restructuring is its own discipline, and the CIPD’s organisation design factsheet is a sound starting point for aligning structure with strategy.
When you assess candidates, test the situation rather than the CV: the CIPD’s guidance on selection methods favours structured, panel-scored interviews and work-sample tasks, and for an interim Chief Operating Officer a review of your own operating data makes a good one. Company records can be checked on the Companies House register. If the need is part-time and ongoing, a fractional COO fits better; for a permanent search, see COO headhunters.
08.2/ interim operations manager
Interim operations manager or interim COO? Pick the level first
Searches for an interim operations manager and for an interim COO are often the same problem described at different levels. An operations manager runs a site, a team or a process; a COO owns the operating model across the business and sits on the leadership team. Hire a level too low and the structural problem stays where it is; hire a level too high and you pay for strategy you do not need.
The way the role is engaged differs too. Many manager-level temporary roles are filled through agencies, and someone supplied that way by a temp agency is an agency worker with the rights GOV.UK sets out in its agency worker guidance — though not if the agency only found them permanent or fixed-term employment. Senior interims usually work through their own company, where IR35 applies: status depends on how the engagement runs in practice, and HMRC’s CEST tool gives HMRC’s view of a specific engagement. The Institute of Interim Management draws the same line between an interim management assignment and “a contractor’s contract, or an agency worker’s temporary work”.
If the role sits between the two — running operations across a function, site network or region rather than the whole business — see interim operations director roles. If it is the whole operating model, the interim COO route on this page applies: we send a shortlist of three to five with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
08.3/ recruitment routes
Interim COO recruitment: how to hire interim COO cover
Whether a firm calls it interim COO recruitment or an interim COO placement, the buyer’s steps are the same: define the outcome and the term, decide who you will accept the shortlist from, and assess every candidate against your own situation rather than a CV. Interim specialists, retained search firms with interim practices and your own network all put forward an interim COO for hire; what differs is how many candidates you see, how they were checked and who runs the references.
To hire interim COO cover well, brief the situation in writing: the operating problem, what must be true by the end of the term, the reporting line, the start date you need and the budget you can defend. Then test on your own data — a walk through your operating metrics or a supply-chain problem you are living with — and take references from the CEO or chair on the candidate’s last two assignments.
Our route is narrow and stated up front: you send the brief, and we come back with a shortlist of three to five interim COOs, each through our five-stage vetting with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out. You interview and choose. If the brief turns out to be part-time rather than full-time, a fractional COO is one of several interim COO solutions worth weighing.
09/ contract
Interim COO jobs: how the assignment is contracted
Interim COO 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 turnaround, the integration, the operating model or the cover 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 COO with us
What we undertake on every brief.
- 01
Brief
A 30-minute call on the assignment, the start date and what the interim COO 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 COO FAQ
Hiring an interim Chief Operating Officer, or looking for interim COO jobs.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
Hiring an interim COO? Start with the brief.
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