Fractional IT leadership
Your board is making six-figure technology decisions without anyone in the room who has made them before.
A fractional IT director gives you the judgement of someone who has run technology for FTSE-listed, private-equity backed and owner-managed businesses — for two days a month, on thirty days notice, with the day rate published before you call.
What you get
What a fractional IT director actually does
Strategy and roadmap
A twelve-month technology plan tied to your business plan, not to a vendor’s product cycle. Written so a non-technical board can approve it and hold you to it.
Supplier and contract control
Most organisations overspend on technology by a meaningful margin, largely through contracts nobody has revisited. We map every pound of spend and challenge it — consolidating suppliers, renegotiating, and cancelling what is no longer earning its place.
Cyber and risk governance
Cyber risk on the board risk register in language directors can act on. Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001 readiness, incident response you have actually rehearsed, and supplier assurance.
Leading your existing team or MSP
You may not need more people. Often you need someone senior enough to direct the people and the provider you already have, and to tell you honestly whether they are good enough.
Programme assurance
ERP replacements, M&A integrations, major migrations. Independent eyes on the plan, the vendor and the reality — before the steering group finds out the hard way.
Board reporting
A monthly pack delivered in person, not emailed as a PDF nobody opens. Spend, risk, delivery and the two decisions we need from you this month.
Who you actually get
The person you speak to is the person who does the work. There is no bench, no junior consultant arriving with someone else’s slides.
Qualified, not just experienced: TOGAF 9.1 (certificate 119351), PRINCE2 Practitioner, ITIL 4, CISM, MBCS, MIEEE. Security cleared to SC and DV. As far as we can find, no other UK fractional IT provider publishes its credentials on its service page — which tells you something about the market.
How the engagement works
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How much time? | Typically two days a month to start. One day a week if you are mid-transformation. We will tell you if you need less than you asked for. |
| Contract length? | Three-month initial term so there is time to be useful, then rolling month to month. |
| Notice? | Thirty days, either way. |
| Do unused days roll over? | No — but we are reasonable about it within a quarter. |
| How quickly can you start? | Usually within ten working days. Compare that with three to six months for a permanent hire. |
| Recruitment fee? | None. There is no placement, so there is nothing to pay for one. |
| Supplier commission? | None, ever, on advisory work. If we recommend something we could also sell you, we say so in writing. |
| Invoicing? | Monthly, fourteen days. |
Common questions
What is the difference between a fractional IT director, a CIO and a technology NED?
An IT director runs the function — team, suppliers, budget, delivery. A CIO operates a level up, owning technology’s contribution to business strategy, usually during significant change. A technology non-executive director does not run anything: they sit on your board, challenge the plan, and hold the executive to account. Many businesses need the first. Some need the second for a defined period. The third is board work and we deliver it through Fractional CxO.
How is this different from our IT support provider?
Your support provider keeps things working, and a good one is worth having. But they cannot independently advise you on whether to replace them, whether their contract is competitive, or whether the system they are proposing is the right one — because their revenue depends on the answer. That independence is the entire point of the role. It is also why we take no supplier commission on advisory work, even though we sell hosting ourselves.
Can you manage our existing team?
Yes, and that is often the best outcome. Line management, one-to-ones, objectives and development for an in-house team, or direction and performance management of an outsourced provider.
What size of business is this for?
Broadly £2m to £50m turnover, or twenty to three hundred staff — the range where technology decisions are consequential but a full-time IT director is not yet justified. Above that you probably need a permanent hire, and we will say so.
What happens at the end?
You keep everything: the roadmap, the documentation, the supplier register, the risk register. If the right next step is recruiting a permanent IT director, we will help you write the role and sit on the interview panel. Working ourselves out of a job is a legitimate outcome.
Twenty minutes, no charge, no pitch
Tell us what is bothering you about your technology. If we are not the right answer, we will say so in the first ten minutes and point you somewhere better.
Book a 20-minute reviewSee our prices
Board-level and non-executive work is handled through Fractional CxO. Same team, same phone number.