Part-time CMO services · UK
Hire a part-time CMO for your brand
A part-time CMO is a senior marketing leader on a fixed share of your week — employed on a pro-rata contract, or engaged on a day rate through their own company.
We scope the seat with you in fifteen minutes and come back with a shortlist of three to five part-time CMOs, each with day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position set out.
- Shortlist of 3–5
- Pay or day rate, availability and IR35 on each
- Published UK rate bands
- A fixed share of the week
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 scope the role
Tell us the situation, the days and the start date. We come back with part-time CMO candidates, their day rates and availability.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02We scope the days and the pattern
- 03A shortlist of 3–5 after the call
- 04Fractional, interim, part-time and permanent briefs
Pick a day that suits · live availability
On the board · last 3 months
Part-time CMO roles on the board
No Part-time CMO roles on the board right now.
We only show real vacancies from the last three months, read from the Fractional Quest pipeline — we never pad the board. New roles appear here as the pipeline finds them.
Looking? Build your repo once on Fractional Quest and every role on the board is read against it.
Sign up now →01/ definition
What a part-time CMO actually does
A part-time CMO owns marketing on agreed days each week, for one company: the strategy, the budget, the team and the agencies, and the number marketing is accountable for.
The days are part-time; the accountability is not.
A good part-time CMO leaves a plan the team can run between visits and a set of measures the board can read without a translator.
STRATEGY
Decides who you sell to and why they buy
Segments, positioning, pricing signals and the message. Most part-time CMO work starts by narrowing the audience and sharpening what the business says to it.
Decides who you sell to and why they buy. Segments, positioning, pricing signals and the message. Most part-time CMO work starts by narrowing the audience and sharpening what the business says to it.
Builds a pipeline that does not depend on the founder. Chooses the channels, sets targets with sales, and puts in the tracking that shows what is working. Activity is judged on what it produces, not on volume.
Makes the company recognisable and credible. Name, identity, voice and proof. A part-time CMO decides what needs fixing now and what can wait, and briefs designers and writers accordingly.
Hires, leads and coaches the marketing team. Sets roles and standards, hires the next marketer, and develops a head of marketing who runs the days the CMO is not in.
Chooses and manages agencies and freelancers. Writes the briefs, sets the budget, reviews the work and ends arrangements that are not paying back. The CMO sits on your side of the table.
02/ scope
What the part-time CMO owns
Marketing expands to fill the time it is given.
On part of the week, agree what the CMO owns and what they hand off before the first day.
- Marketing strategy, positioning and the annual plan
- The marketing budget and its allocation by channel
- Pipeline targets agreed with sales
- Brand, messaging and the customer proposition
- The marketing team and its structure
- Agency and freelancer selection and management
- Marketing reporting to the board
- Day-to-day campaign execution (to the team)
- Content production and design (to writers and designers)
- Paid media management (to a specialist or agency)
- Website development (to developers)
- Sales calls and account management (to sales)
03/ which model
Part-time, fractional or interim?
Set the slider to the days the marketing seat needs and choose a term.
A fixed pattern of days for one company is part-time; a CMO who splits the week across several clients is a fractional CMO; four or five days on a fixed term is an interim CMO.
The model that fits · CMO
Part-time
A fixed slice of the week on a set pattern — the same days each week, often on a part-time contract or a day-rate arrangement.
Book a call about a part-time CMO →Our framing, not a measured rule: the lines between the four models blur, and many briefs could run two ways.
04/ alternatives
Part-time CMO against the alternatives
Each option is right for a different stage.
The question is whether you need senior marketing judgement, more marketing hands, or both.
→ Part-time while the plan fits in part of the week; full-time once marketing needs a leader every day.
05/ rates
Part-time CMO day rates
No source we can verify publishes a separate part-time CMO band, so we show the nearest published UK figure — the fractional CMO day rate — with its source named.
Type your own day rate to see where it sits.
- Part-time / fractional CMO£750–£1,400Connectd 2026
- Interim CMO£700–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Permanent CMO (salary ÷ 220 days)£501–£835Robert Half 2026 salary ÷ 220 days
Bands are as each source publishes them; permanent day equivalents are the salary band ÷ 220 working days, our arithmetic. Recruiter guides are named, not linked. Rates vary with sector, scope and location.
06/ calculator
What a part-time CMO costs
Model a part-time CMO at the days you need against a permanent Chief Marketing Officer.
The slider runs across the published band for a part-time CMO: £750–£1,400 a day (Connectd 2026).
Cost over 12 months
£114,400
104 working days · 2 d/wk · 12 mo · before tax
Fractional costs less over 12 months£98,750
Part-time CMO, 12 months£114,400
Part-time CMO, a month at 2 d/wk£9,526
Permanent CMO, same period£213,150
Part-time CMO, 12 months$151,569
Part-time CMO, a month at 2 d/wk$12,621
Permanent CMO, same period$282,402
Converted from £ at $1.3249 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a US market rate. Source ↗
Part-time CMO, 12 months€134,374
Part-time CMO, a month at 2 d/wk€11,189
Permanent CMO, same period€250,366
Converted from £ at €1.1746 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a EU market rate. Source ↗
Our arithmetic, indicative. Permanent = the £147,000 Robert Half 2026 median salary 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.
At 3.8 days a week a permanent hire costs less.
Our arithmetic. Permanent a month = the salary ÷ 12 plus 15% employer NI, plus the 30% search fee spread over 12 months — the calculator’s inputs. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for each step.
07/ over two years
Part-time, interim or permanent over 24 months
The same seat three ways, at the days a week and day rate set in the calculator. Each crossover is computed, not typed.
- The part-time CMO at 2 days a week never passes permanent inside 24 months.
- Interim passes permanent at month 3.
Our arithmetic, cumulative. Permanent = the salary’s 30% search fee in month 0, then salary ÷ 12 plus 15% employer NI each month. Interim = the midpoint of the published interim band (£1,350 a day, Exec Capital 2026) × 5 days × 4.33 weeks. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for each month.
Illustration only: one way a part-time CMO’s week can divide at 2 days a week for you. Each block is half a day.
08/ decision
When to hire a part-time CMO
Most part-time marketing briefs come from one of four situations.
If one describes your business, a senior marketer on part of the week is worth a conversation.
Which sounds like you?
Referrals got the business this far, but they do not scale. A part-time CMO builds the first repeatable source of demand and the measures that show it working.
- → Revenue tied to the founder
- → No marketing plan
- → Sales asking for leads
Two or three capable marketers are busy, but nobody sets the strategy, the budget or the priorities. A part-time CMO gives the team direction and develops its next leader.
- → Busy team, unclear results
- → Budget spread thinly
- → No board-level marketing voice
A new product, a new name or a move into a new market needs senior judgement for a defined stretch, often with the days stepping up around the launch.
- → Launch date set
- → Positioning not agreed
- → Agencies waiting for a brief
Retainers have grown without clear results. A part-time CMO reviews what each agency is for, rewrites the briefs and decides what stays.
- → Several agencies, no owner
- → Reports full of activity
- → Spend not tied to pipeline
09/ tax and IR35
How a part-time CMO is engaged
General position under UK rules, with the HMRC source for each point. Not tax advice — check your own case with your accountant.
01 · DEDUCTIBLE
Fees are a business expense
Fees, like a salary, are deductible against profits when incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade (HMRC BIM37000), with corporation tax at the 25% main rate.
02 · WHO DECIDES
Status turns on how the work runs
Medium and large clients make the off-payroll status determination themselves; for a small private-sector client, the executive’s own company does (HMRC off-payroll guidance).
03 · WHAT HMRC LOOKS AT
Substitution, control, mutuality
Whether a substitute could genuinely be sent, who decides how the work is done, and whether either side must offer or accept further work. HMRC’s CEST tool walks through the same questions.
04 · ON THE PAYROLL
A part-time employee is an employee
Hired on a part-time contract, the executive has the same rights as a comparable full-time worker, pro rata (gov.uk part-time worker rights), and you pay employer NI on their salary.
10/ guide
Hiring a part-time CMO: a practical guide
Start with what marketing is for in your business.
For some companies it is pipeline for a sales team; for others it is brand in a crowded category, or retention in a subscription model.
The answer decides which part-time CMO you need — a demand builder, a brand leader, a product marketer or a team builder — and it should be the first line of the brief.
Decide how the CMO will be engaged.
An employed part-time CMO works on a pro-rata contract with the protections set out in part-time workers’ rights.
A day-rate CMO works through their own company; if your business is medium or large, you make the IR35 status determination, as HMRC’s off-payroll working guidance explains.
Status turns on how the engagement runs, not on the contract’s label.
Fix the days and protect them.
Marketing generates a steady stream of small requests; a part-time CMO who spends their days approving social posts is not doing the job.
Agree a weekly rhythm — a planning session, a review with sales, time with the team — and route day-to-day sign-off to the team.
Check the compliance basics early.
Email and phone marketing are governed by privacy rules that the ICO’s direct marketing guidance sets out, and advertising claims by the CAP and broadcast advertising codes.
A senior marketer should know both and make sure the team does.
On cost, compare like with like.
The band above is the published fractional CMO day rate, the nearest UK figure to part-time work; an employed part-time CMO costs a pro-rata share of a full-time salary plus employer NI and pension.
The calculator runs both, and our part-time day rates page sets every seat side by side.
If the seat is closer to running the team day to day, our part-time head of marketing page may fit better; our parent company covers the same seat as a part-time CMO.
Agree what success looks like at six and twelve months: a positioning the team uses, a pipeline target met, a team hired, agency spend cut or redirected.
If the business then needs a full-time CMO, the part-time CMO is well placed to help hire one.
We recruit part-time, fractional, interim and permanent marketing leaders through our parent company’s fractional recruitment agency.
10.1/ services
Part-time CMO services and what you are buying
Part-time CMO services come in two shapes.
One is a named marketing leader on a fixed pattern, inside your team, owning the plan and the budget.
The other is a scoped piece of senior work — a positioning project, a go-to-market plan, a marketing audit — delivered over a set period.
The first is a hire; the second is a project, and it should have a scope and an end date.
Whichever you buy, ask who will do the work and what they will own.
A service sold by a senior name and delivered by a junior team is worth ruling out before you sign.
We put named people forward, each with day rate or pay, availability and IR35 position on the shortlist, and we take references ourselves.
What a part-time CMO service usually covers
A marketing audit, positioning and messaging, a channel plan with targets, a budget and measurement framework, team and agency structure, and a board-level marketing report.
10.2/ finding one
How to find a part-time CMO
To find a part-time CMO who fits, start from the problem, not the job title.
A marketer who built demand for a software company may be wrong for a consumer brand, and a brand builder may be wrong for a pipeline brief.
Write the brief around the situation, the audience and the outcome, and judge every candidate on whether they have solved that problem before.
Ask for evidence: what they inherited, what they changed, what the numbers did, and who they handed over to.
Then speak to that person.
A good part-time CMO will also tell you what they would stop doing in the first month — usually the most revealing answer in the interview.
You can search alone, through networks, or through a search firm.
We search and screen against your brief and come back with a shortlist of three to five; our parent company also publishes fractional CMO jobs and portfolio marketing roles if you are weighing a fractional arrangement.
10.3/ for marketing leaders
Part-time CMO jobs and how to find them
Part-time CMO jobs are a small market and many are filled by referral.
The board above reads the Fractional Quest pipeline daily; our parent site lists part-time CMO jobs alongside portfolio roles, and the wider part-time executive jobs board here covers every seat.
Hiring companies read three things first: your days and availability, your rate or salary expectation, and the situations you have led — launches, rebrands, pipeline builds, team builds.
Say whether you would take an employed part-time contract, a day-rate engagement or either.
11/ process
How we run the search
What we undertake on every brief, run by Fractional Quest, our parent company.
- 01
Brief
A scoping call on the role, the days a week, the start date and what the part-time CMO must have delivered.
DAY 0 - 02
Search
We search and screen against that brief: track record at your stage, in your situation, and references we take ourselves.
SCREENING - 03
Shortlist
Three to five candidates, each with day rate or salary, availability and IR35 position set out.
SHORTLIST OF 3–5 - 04
Start
You interview and choose. The executive you choose contracts with you.
YOU CHOOSE
12/ the family
Marketing leadership across Fractional Quest
Part-Time Quest is part of Fractional Quest.
When the marketing seat is portfolio, fixed-term or permanent, these pages cover it.
A CMO shared across a portfolio of clients: what it is and what it costs.
Fractional, interim, part-time and permanent executive search in one firm.
13/ questions
Questions, answered
For hiring managers, and for executives looking for the role.
Book 15 minutes · shortlist of 3–5
Start with the brief.
Fifteen minutes to scope the seat, the days and the start date.