Interim COO services
Hire an interim COO for the vacancy
An interim COO is a full-time, fixed-term operations leader who takes the seat when the business cannot wait for a permanent hire: after a deal completes, when a COO leaves, or when delivery has stopped keeping pace with the plan.
We scope the mandate with you in fifteen minutes and come back with a shortlist of three to five, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
- Shortlist of 3–5
- Day rate, availability and IR35 on each
- Published rate bands
- Fixed-term, full-time mandates
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 mandate
Tell us the situation, the days 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
- 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
Interim COO and operations roles on the board
Looking? Build your repo once on Fractional Quest and every role on the board is read against it.
Sign up now →01/ definition
What an interim COO actually does
An interim COO runs the operating engine of the business for a defined term: the people, processes, suppliers and systems that turn a plan into delivered work.
The mandate has a reason and an end date.
A good interim is judged on what is still working after they have gone — a stable operation, an integrated business, or a permanent COO who inherits a function with clear owners and honest numbers.
COVER
Keeps the operation running while you search
The COO leaves, or the role never existed and the CEO has been carrying it. The interim takes the weekly operating rhythm, the escalations and the leadership team while the permanent search runs at a sensible pace.
Keeps the operation running while you search. The COO leaves, or the role never existed and the CEO has been carrying it. The interim takes the weekly operating rhythm, the escalations and the leadership team while the permanent search runs at a sensible pace.
Makes the first hundred days count. An acquisition has completed and the investment case assumed operational improvement. The interim turns the value-creation plan into an operating plan, sets the reporting the new owners need and finds the gaps diligence did not.
Brings two operations into one. Two sites, two systems, two ways of working. The interim sequences the integration, keeps customers served during it and makes the people decisions that a merged structure needs.
Restores delivery and cost control. Service levels have slipped, margins are thin and nobody trusts the forecast. The interim resets priorities, cuts what is not working and rebuilds a weekly cadence the board can rely on.
Builds the operation for the next stage. Growth has outrun the way the company works. The interim puts in the structure, the management layer and the systems that let the business grow without the founders holding every decision.
02/ scope
What the COO owns on a mandate
Draw the line before the first day.
Operations touches everything, so an interim COO who has not agreed what they own will be pulled into everything.
- The operating plan and the weekly management rhythm
- Delivery, service levels and operational KPIs
- Supply chain, procurement and key supplier relationships
- The operations leadership team during the term
- Integration planning and sequencing after a deal
- Operational reporting to the CEO, board and investors
- The hand-over to the permanent COO
- Statutory accounts and treasury (to the CFO)
- Day-to-day site and shift management
- Employment law advice and TUPE consultation drafting (to advisers)
- Technology architecture decisions (to the CTO)
- Long-term strategy beyond the mandate
03/ which model
Interim, fractional or permanent?
Move the slider to the days the operations seat needs and choose how long.
Four or five days on a fixed term is interim.
Two or three days, open-ended, is a fractional COO, which our parent company also searches for.
The model that fits · COO
Interim
A full-time or near full-time leader on a fixed-term mandate — a gap, a turnaround, a transaction — who hands over at the end.
Book a call about an interim COO →Our framing, not a measured rule: the lines between the four models blur, and many briefs could run two ways.
04/ alternatives
The COO seat against the alternatives
Each option solves a different problem.
Decide how soon you need someone, how long for, and whether they must run the operation or advise on it.
→ Interim when the operation needs a leader now; permanent when you know the shape of the role for the long run.
05/ rates
Interim COO day rates
Published bands only, each with its source named.
Enter a day rate you have been quoted to see where it sits.
- Interim COO£800–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Fractional COO£800–£1,400Connectd 2026
- Permanent COO (salary ÷ 220 days)£432–£682our median of three 2026 guides ÷ 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 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 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£74,813
Interim COO, the term£182,000
Permanent COO, same period£107,188
Interim COO, the term$241,132
Permanent COO, same period$142,013
Converted from £ at $1.3249 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a US market rate. Source ↗
Interim COO, the term€213,777
Permanent COO, same period€125,902
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 £122,500 composite (our median of three 2026 guides) 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.
07/ decision
When to bring in an interim operations leader
Most interim COO mandates start in one of four situations.
Two of them begin on the day a deal completes.
Which sounds like you?
The deal is done, the new owners have a value-creation plan, and the existing operations lead is not the person to deliver it. An interim COO can take the seat from completion, assess the team honestly, run the first hundred days and leave either a stronger internal successor or a clear brief for a permanent hire.
- → Completion in the last few weeks
- → Investment case depends on operational improvement
- → Current operations lead out of depth or leaving
A private equity house has just backed the business and the operating partner has flagged the COO seat in the first board meeting. A permanent search will take months; the plan will not wait. An interim covers the seat full-time, builds the reporting the investors need and helps shape the permanent role from the inside.
- → New investor on the board
- → Monthly reporting not yet investor-grade
- → Permanent COO brief still unclear
A resignation, illness or sudden exit leaves operations without a head. Escalations land on the CEO and decisions queue. An interim stabilises the weekly rhythm and protects customers while the permanent search runs without pressure.
- → Departure at short notice
- → Service levels or deadlines at risk
- → No internal successor ready
A merger or bolt-on means two operations, often two cultures, to combine. An interim COO who has run an integration before sequences the work, handles the structure and staff transfers with advisers, and keeps the customer experience intact.
- → Bolt-on or merger agreed
- → Duplicate sites, systems or teams
- → Integration owner not named
08/ tax and IR35
How an interim COO is contracted
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 interim’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.
09/ guide
Interim COO services: a practical guide
Interim COO services exist because operations problems rarely wait for a recruitment cycle.
When a deal completes, a leader leaves or the business outgrows its own processes, someone has to hold the operation together and change it at the same time.
That is a different job from steady-state management, and it is why boards often prefer an interim with a track record in the specific situation.
Start the brief with the outcome, not the job description.
"Run operations" will attract anyone.
"Integrate the acquired site onto our systems by the end of the second quarter and hand over to a permanent COO" tells you, and every candidate, what kind of interim you need: an integrator, a turnaround operator, a scale-up builder or a safe pair of hands for a vacancy.
Set the term and the intensity next.
Most interim COOs work four or five days a week on a fixed term.
If what you actually need is two days a week of senior oversight, open-ended, look at a fractional COO instead, or hire a part-time COO on a fixed part-time pattern.
Our parent company, Fractional Quest, runs those searches too, and also permanent COO search when the seat is ready to fill for good.
Compare cost on the same basis.
An interim is paid a day rate for the days worked.
A permanent COO carries salary, employer National Insurance, pension, bonus and usually a search fee.
The calculator above runs both on published figures, and for an engagement of a few months the gap is often smaller than the day rate suggests.
Where the deal also needs finance leadership, an interim CFO often works alongside the interim COO.
Be clear about authority.
An interim COO is effective only if the CEO and board give them real decision rights over the operation for the term: who they can hire and move, which suppliers they can renegotiate, which projects they can stop.
Write those rights down before the start date.
Plan the exit from the first week.
The strongest interim mandates end with a written hand-over, owners named for every process the interim touched, and a permanent successor — internal or hired — who has worked alongside the interim before they leave.
10.1/ how to hire
How to hire an interim COO step by step
Hiring an interim COO runs in five steps.
Write a one-page brief with the situation, the outcome and the term.
Decide the days a week and set a budget against published day-rate bands.
Brief one search partner rather than several, so the market hears one consistent story.
Interview a shortlist of three to five.
Contract on clear terms, including the status determination where you are a medium or large company.
On IR35: if your company is medium or large, you decide the interim’s status and must give them a status determination statement — see HMRC’s off-payroll working guidance.
If you are small, the interim’s own company decides.
Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, not on what the contract calls it.
What to put in the brief
The situation in two lines, the outcome by the end of the term, the start date, days a week, sites and travel, reporting line, size of the operation, the systems in use, the decisions the interim can take alone, and what the new owners or board expect to see at each board meeting.
How to interview for the situation
Ask each candidate to walk through a mandate that looked like yours: what they found in the first fortnight, what they changed, what went wrong and who they handed over to.
Then call the person they handed over to.
References we take ourselves are part of the shortlist.
10.2/ private equity
An interim COO for a portfolio company or a post-acquisition business
Private equity and trade buyers bring in an interim COO for one reason more than any other: the investment case depends on operational change, and the business does not yet have the leader to deliver it.
The interim’s first job is to translate the value-creation plan into an operating plan with owners, dates and a reporting cadence the investors can follow month by month.
In the first hundred days, expect a candid assessment of the operations team, a short list of quick wins that fund or justify the harder changes, and a view on whether the permanent COO should come from inside or outside.
Where the deal moves people between employers, the interim will work with advisers on the transfer rules — the government’s overview of business transfers, takeovers and TUPE is a useful starting point for the board.
The best interim for this situation has done it before in a business of similar size and complexity.
Ask how they worked with the operating partner, how they handled a management team that had sold the business and stayed on, and what the reporting looked like at month three.
If the top seat is also changing hands, our interim CEO guide covers that brief.
After the acquisition closes
If the deal has just completed and the business needs a stronger COO, say so in the first call.
We brief the search on the deal, the plan and the timetable, and set out each candidate’s availability on the shortlist so you can see who can start when.
10.3/ the operations director seat
Interim operations director or the full COO seat?
An interim operations director and an interim COO overlap, and many businesses use the titles loosely.
The usual difference is scope.
An operations director runs a defined operation — a site, a network, a production or service function — and reports to the COO, MD or CEO.
A COO sits on the executive team, owns the operating model across the business and is often the CEO’s deputy.
If the problem is a single operation that needs a firm hand — a plant behind schedule, a contact centre missing service levels, a warehouse network mid-move — an interim operations director is often the better fit and a narrower brief.
If the problem crosses functions or follows a deal, hire at COO level.
Tell us which you think you need and we will test it with you on the first call — our interim management agency page explains how we run the search.
Operations leadership also carries safety duties for the board.
The Health and Safety Executive’s guidance on leading health and safety at work sets out what directors are expected to do, and an interim taking an operations seat should pick that up from the first week.
10.4/ for executives
Interim COO jobs and how to find them
Interim COO jobs are often filled before they are widely advertised.
The board above reads the Fractional Quest pipeline daily and labels each role honestly.
Our parent site lists interim COO jobs and fractional COO jobs for part-week work, and the interim jobs board covers every interim seat.
Most interim COOs work through their own limited company.
Keep your day rate, notice period and the situations you have handled — integrations, turnarounds, carve-outs, scale-ups — current, because that is what a board reads first.
10/ 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 interim COO 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
11/ the family
Operations leadership across Fractional Quest
Interim Quest is part of Fractional Quest.
When the operations brief is part-week, open-ended or permanent, these pages cover it.
The parent site’s interim COO hub: hiring, jobs and the interim COO salary picture.
A COO on one to three days a week, open-ended — what it is and what it costs.
Fractional, interim, part-time and permanent executive search in one firm.
12/ 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.