Interim head of engineering salary · day rates, 2026
What an interim head of engineering earns, by the day and by the assignment
An interim head of engineering is paid a day rate, not a salary.
IT Jobs Watch puts the median contract day rate for a head of engineering at £700, across 29 rates advertised in the six months to 5 October 2026, with most between £575 and £1,160.
Robert Walters puts a London VP of Engineering, a nearby title, at £850–£1,300 a day on PAYE.
The rate covers full-time work for a fixed period, with no salary, pension or paid holiday behind it.
When you hire an interim head of engineering through us, we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
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 head of engineering
Tell us the scope and the days a week. We come back with Interim head of engineering 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
Interim technology leadership jobs on the board
No Interim technology leadership roles on the board in the last three months. Showing interim executive roles instead.
- InterimSyndicatedInterim Chief Executive Officer (Women's Health Charity)
Verity (PMOS UK) · United Kingdom
Rate not stated3 d/wk - InterimSyndicatedInterim Finance Director
Pragmatic Semiconductor · Cambridge
est £1,400/day5 d/wk - InterimSyndicatedInterim Finance Director
Juro · United Kingdom
£800–£1,000/dayUnited Kingdom - InterimExclusiveInterim Chief Operating Officer
Confidential client (Fractional Quest mandate) · London
Rate not stated5 d/wk
Interim technology roles on the board
Fractional recruitment works differently from a permanent search — shorter, scoped by days a week, and priced on the engagement. Send a Interim head of engineering brief and we come back with a shortlist of three to five vetted candidates.
01/ the role
How an interim head of engineering is paid, and why the unit is the day
An interim head of engineering runs the engineering team full-time for a defined period: after a departure, through a platform migration, a delivery recovery or the months before a permanent hire starts.
The interim invoices the business for the days worked.
That makes the day rate the real unit of pay.
There is no salary, no employer pension and no paid holiday, and the interim carries the gaps between assignments.
Across all functions, the Institute of Interim Management’s 2026 survey puts the average assignment at 10.0 months, the average gap between assignments at 3.2 months and the average days billed in a year at 148.
An interim who works through their own company pays themselves through salary and dividends from what the company earns, after its costs and Corporation Tax.
The day rate is the company’s income, not the interim’s take-home pay.
02/ scope
How to hire an interim head of engineering
1. Define the mandate and its end
Say what the interim must deliver and by when: a stable release cycle, a recovered delivery plan, a hired team, a handover to a permanent head of engineering.
A mandate with an end date is easier to price and easier to judge.
The government’s Digital and Data capability framework sets out the software developer levels up to lead developer, a useful scale for the team the interim inherits.
Its Service Standard asks for a multidisciplinary team and agile ways of working, a fair benchmark for a delivery recovery.
2. Decide IR35 status at the start
If your business is medium or large, you make the status determination for the engagement and give the interim your reasons.
Settle it before you go to market, because it changes the rate candidates quote.
3. Match the record to the mandate
Ask for outcomes from comparable assignments: release frequency before and after, an incident they ran, a team they grew.
If security in the delivery pipeline is part of the brief, the NCSC’s secure development and deployment guidance is a useful checklist to interview against.
Many employers map engineering roles to SFIA, the Skills Framework for the Information Age, and BCS Chartered IT Professional registration is an independent signal of standing.
What we do on an interim brief
We recruit interim, fractional, part-time, temporary and permanent technology leaders, and non-executive directors.
We send a shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, and every candidate goes through our five-stage vetting first.
If the seat needs a permanent owner after the interim, see head of engineering salary for what that costs.
03/ the board
What the board holds.
A read of the roles on the board on this page, counted as they stand: how each is engaged, whether the posting gives the days and the rate, and where the work happens.
On this board, last 90 days · 4 roles · interim executive
Engagement
- Interim4
Seat
- Finance director2
- CEO1
- COO1
Days a week
- Stated in the posting3
- Not stated1
Day rate
- Verified rate1
- Estimated (est)1
- Rate not stated2
Work arrangement (as the job feed classifies it)
- Remote1
- Hybrid1
- On-site1
- Not classified1
Newest posting on the board: 18 Sept 2026.
Postings per week on this board, last 90 days
4 postings on this board in the last 90 days, counted by the week each was published.
04/ the route
Fractional, interim or permanent?
Four taps. The answer names the route for the seat and the page that covers it.
The route · Fractional
A fractional head of engineering.The work fills part of the week, so buy the days it needs.
A fractional head of engineering holds the seat on agreed days for as long as the seat is needed, and works for other clients on the rest.
The route · Interim
An interim head of engineering.The work fills the week, and it has an end: a programme, a cover, a transaction.
An interim head of engineering takes the seat full time for that stretch and hands it over when it is done.
The route · Interim, then permanent
Interim now, a permanent head of engineering after.The seat is full time and long term, and the need is now.
An interim head of engineering holds it while the permanent search runs, so the seat is not left empty.
The route · Permanent
A permanent head of engineering.A full-time seat that sits at the table for years is a permanent hire.
There is time to run a search, so run one.
05/ rates by stage
Interim head of engineering salary day rates by source
Day rates as each publisher states them. IT Jobs Watch reports contract day rates advertised for jobs with head of engineering in the title, over a rolling six months; the samples are small. Henderson Scott’s title is head of software engineering, at an outside-IR35 contractor rate. Robert Walters publishes no head of engineering figure, so its nearest titles are shown under their own names, at PAYE day rates with its mean of advertised roles. The IIM figures cover every interim function. Robert Walters and Henderson Scott are recruiters.
06/ economics
Interim pay and IR35: who decides, and what it changes
Tax status turns on how the engagement runs, not on the title or the contract alone.
Under the off-payroll working rules (IR35), a medium or large client makes the status determination; for a small client outside the public sector, the interim’s own company decides.
The rules apply contract by contract, so one interim can have engagements on both sides.
It shows in the rates.
The IIM’s 2026 survey puts the average interim day rate at £949 outside IR35 and £830 inside, across all functions.
A PAYE rate, like Robert Walters’, is paid through payroll, so it is not directly comparable with an outside-IR35 rate.
HMRC’s CEST tool gives its view on a specific engagement; our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
07/ vetting
How we vet interim head of engineerings
What we undertake on every brief, before a candidate reaches you.
- 01
Qualification screen
Verify Interim head of engineering 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
08/ interim head of engineering day rate
Interim head of engineering day rate in London and beyond
The interim head of engineering day rate in IT Jobs Watch’s contract data has a median of £700, in London and across the UK alike.
Outside London the median is £663.
The middle half of advertised rates runs from £675 to £1,125, so the top of the market pays well over the median.
Robert Walters publishes PAYE contract rates for the titles either side.
In London it puts a VP of Engineering at £850–£1,300 a day, a head of development at £850–£1,250 and a software engineering manager at £800–£1,100.
Outside London its head of development rates run from £500–£800 in the Midlands and the North to £600–£990 in the South.
Henderson Scott’s 2026 guide puts a head of software engineering on contract outside IR35 at £450–£600 a day, below the advertised median.
The sources measure different things, so read the spread as the range of the market, not an error in one of them.
09/ the year
What the day rate comes to over a month and a year
No interim is paid a salary.
To compare, multiply the day rate by the days worked.
At the £700 median, 220 days would bill £154,000.
At the IIM’s all-function average of 148 days billed in a year, the same rate bills £103,600.
Both are our arithmetic, a comparison and not a salary.
A full month of interim cover, at about 22 working days and the £700 median, comes to £15,400 (our arithmetic).
That is the client’s cost.
The interim pays their own pension, holidays, insurance and the gaps between assignments out of it.
For scale, Robert Half’s 2026 median for a permanent head of engineering is £93,000 in base salary, before bonus, pension and employer’s National Insurance.
See head of engineering salary for the permanent benchmarks in full.
10/ the other routes
Interim, permanent or fractional: which pay basis fits
Interim cover buys a full-time engineering leader for a fixed period.
A permanent hire is paid a salary and package; see head of engineering salary.
If the team needs leadership for part of the week, see fractional head of engineering jobs.
For the permanent salary spread across part-week days (our arithmetic, not a market rate), see fractional head of engineering salary.
If the gap is technical direction rather than the team, the seat is an interim CTO; see interim CTO salary.
11/ questions
Interim head of engineering salary FAQ
The questions people ask before bringing in an interim head of engineering.
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.
