Free tool · 2026 UK benchmarks
What would a senior hire really cost you?
Compare the full first-year cost of a permanent C-suite or director hire with a fractional leader on a few days a month. Salaries come from published 2026 UK salary guides, and every assumption can be changed.
Your situation
Full-time cost assumptions
Retained executive search usually charges 25% to 35% of first-year salary. Set to 0% if you would hire directly.
First-year comparison
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What the calculator leaves out
- Time to impact. The Marketing Centre puts average time-to-value for a fractional CMO at 30 to 45 days, against 3 to 9 months for a full-time hire once recruitment and onboarding are included.
- Flexibility. A fractional engagement can scale up, scale down or end on short notice. A permanent hire brings notice periods and employment obligations.
- Hire risk. If a senior hire doesn’t work out, you pay the recruitment fee again and lose months. The calculator does not put a number on that.
- When full-time is right. If the role needs someone in the business four or five days a week, or the team is large enough to need daily leadership, a permanent hire is usually the better choice. The break-even figure shows where that point sits for your inputs.
- Equity. Share options are often part of a senior package and are not included here.
Method
How the figures are worked out
Full-time cost is base salary plus bonus, employer National Insurance (15% above £5,000 a year, 2026/27), employer pension and benefits. First-year cost adds the recruitment fee. Fractional cost is the day rate × days per month × 12, excluding VAT. Cost per working day assumes 225 working days a year. The Employment Allowance is excluded because it applies per employer, not per hire. The break-even point is the full-time annual cost divided by the fractional cost of one day a month for a year, and leaves out the recruitment fee.
Salaries: Robert Half 2026 UK Salary Guide (CMO, CFO, CTO, Chief People Officer, Marketing Director, Finance Director, IT Director, HR Director, Head of Product; national and Greater London). Chief Product Officer: broden.ai estimate from Morgan McKinley London bands and IT Jobs Watch advertised salaries. COO: broden.ai estimate from Robert Walters ranges and Glassdoor. Day rates: Leadership Services 2026 rate report and Connectd. Recruitment fees: published UK executive search fee ranges. National Insurance: HMRC rates for 2026/27. Last updated October 2026.
The UK median salary for a Chief Marketing Officer is £147,000 (Robert Half 2026). Add a 10% bonus, employer National Insurance, a 5% pension and benefits, and the annual cost is about £197,600. With a 25% recruitment fee, the first year comes to about £234,300. A fractional CMO working 4 days a month at £1,000 a day costs £48,000 a year.
No. A full-time CMO on the UK median salary costs about £880 per working day once on-costs are included, while fractional CMO day rates typically run from £750 to £1,400. The saving comes from paying only for the days the business needs, not from a lower daily cost.
When you need more days than the break-even point. For a CMO on the UK median salary, fractional stays cheaper up to about 16.5 days a month, which is almost four days a week. Against a UK Marketing Director the break-even falls to about 9 days a month. A full-time hire also makes sense when the role needs daily leadership of a large team.
Employer National Insurance at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year (2026/27), employer pension contributions, any bonus, benefits, equipment and software. Recruiting a senior hire through executive search usually adds 25% to 35% of first-year salary. Notice periods and the cost of a hire that doesn’t work out come on top.
Fractional executives typically work one to three days a week. broden.ai engagements are usually 4 to 5 days a month for five to six months, starting with a free 30-minute diagnostic call.
Most figures come from the Robert Half 2026 UK Salary Guide, which gives national and Greater London salaries for each role. The COO and Chief Product Officer figures are broden.ai estimates based on Robert Walters, Morgan McKinley, IT Jobs Watch and Glassdoor data. Day rates come from 2026 UK fractional rate reports. The figures were last updated in October 2026.
No. Fractional fees are shown excluding VAT. Most fractional leaders invoice through a limited company, and VAT-registered businesses can usually reclaim the VAT they are charged.
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