Interim jobs · read daily
Interim jobs for the vacancy
Hiring rather than looking?
Tell us the seat, the situation and the start date in a 15-minute call.
We search and screen against that brief and return a shortlist of three to five interims, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
- Read daily from employer sources
- Liveness stated on every role
- Employer rates only, never estimates
- Shortlist of 3–5 for hirers
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 executive 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
Open interim 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 interim jobs usually involve
An interim job is a senior role taken on for a fixed term, usually full-time, to deliver a stated result.
The employer is buying experience it needs now and does not want to carry permanently.
Reading a listing for its shape tells you most of what the interview will be about.
VACANCY
Holding a seat until a hire arrives
The commonest interim job. A leader has left and the organisation needs the function run well until the permanent successor starts. Steadiness and quick credibility count for most.
Holding a seat until a hire arrives. The commonest interim job. A leader has left and the organisation needs the function run well until the permanent successor starts. Steadiness and quick credibility count for most.
Fixing what has gone wrong. Cash, performance or regulation has gone the wrong way. The role asks for someone who has led a recovery before and can show what they changed.
Leading through a sale, merger or raise. A fixed workload with a hard deadline. Interim director jobs in finance and operations often take this shape, ending at completion or after integration.
Delivering one major change. A systems replacement, a restructure, a new operating model. Interim management jobs of this kind ask for a delivery record and a clear method for handing over.
02/ scope
What employers expect an interim to own
Interim job specifications vary, but the expectations underneath are consistent.
This is what a hiring board will test you against.
- A clear result by the end of the term
- The function or programme, with authority to decide
- Reporting to the board or chief executive
- The team during the mandate
- Relationships with lenders, investors, regulators or key suppliers
- A written hand-over to whoever follows
- Routine operations below the remit
- Specialist legal, tax and technical advice
- Strategy beyond the term
- Hiring decisions outside the agreed brief
03/ which model
Interim work, or another model?
Interim jobs usually mean four or five days a week on a fixed term.
If you want one to three days with several clients, look at fractional jobs on our parent site instead.
Move the slider to see where each model sits.
The model that fits · executive
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.
See the interim roles →Our framing, not a measured rule: the lines between the four models blur, and many briefs could run two ways.
04/ alternatives
Interim work against other ways of working
Many senior people move between models over a career.
The trade-offs are steady, even if the right answer changes.
→ Interim if you want variety, intensity and control over your calendar; permanent if you want continuity.
05/ rates
Interim job day rates by seat
Published UK day-rate bands for eight interim seats, with the source under each.
Enter your own rate to see where it sits.
- Interim CFO£650–£1,500FD Capital 2026
- Interim CEO£1,000–£1,800Exec Capital 2026
- Interim COO£800–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Interim CMO£700–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Interim CTO£800–£1,800Exec Capital 2026
- Interim CIO£800–£2,000Exec Capital 2026
- Interim CISO£1,000–£1,500Barclay Simpson
- Interim CHRO£900–£1,500Robert Walters 2026 (London contract)
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 hire costs
Model a fixed-term interim executive against a permanent executive over the same period.
£1,100 a day is within the published CFO band (£650–£1,500, FD Capital 2026).
Interim cost for the term
£143,000
130 working days · 5 d/wk · 6 mo · before tax
Interim costs less over 6 months£11,438
Interim CFO, the term£143,000
Permanent CFO, same period£154,438
Interim CFO, the term$189,461
Permanent CFO, same period$204,614
Converted from £ at $1.3249 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate), 2 Oct 2026. A conversion, not a US market rate. Source ↗
Interim CFO, the term€167,968
Permanent CFO, same period€181,402
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 £176,500 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.
07/ decision
When interim work suits your career
Interim work is a choice, not a fallback, for many senior people.
These are the moments it tends to fit best.
Which sounds like you?
An interim mandate keeps you working at your level while you decide what comes next, and often widens the options you have.
- → Notice served or completed
- → Open to several sectors
- → Comfortable with a fixed end date
If your record is turnarounds, recoveries or rescues, interim work lets you do that repeatedly rather than once a decade.
- → Several recoveries led
- → References who will say so
- → Happy to start fast
Sales, mergers, refinancings and integrations create a steady stream of interim director jobs for finance and operations leaders.
- → Deals completed
- → Comfortable with advisers
- → Deadline-driven
Mandates with gaps between them let you plan time off, study or a board role around the work.
- → Financial buffer for gaps
- → Own company or umbrella in place
- → Clear day rate
08/ tax and IR35
How an interim executive 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
Finding interim jobs: a working guide
Interim jobs are filled quickly and often quietly.
The employer has a problem now, so the window between a role appearing and a shortlist forming is short.
The board above is read every day from employer sources and the Fractional Quest pipeline, and it lists interim roles across sectors and seats.
Where we can confirm a role is still open we say so; where we cannot, it reads “Not confirmed still open”.
Read each listing for its situation before its title.
A finance director role that is really a refinancing is a different job from one that is cover for parental leave.
If you have led the situation before, lead with that in your application.
Hiring boards shortlisting for an interim want proof that you have solved this problem, not a general record of seniority.
Keep your terms ready.
Day rate, the date you can start, days a week, location and travel, and whether you work through your own company or an umbrella are the first questions on any interim call.
If you work through a limited company, GOV.UK sets out the responsibilities of running one.
Know where IR35 sits.
For a medium or large client, the client decides your status for each engagement and must give you a status determination statement; for a small client, your own company decides.
The test is how the work actually runs.
HMRC’s off-payroll working guidance sets out who is responsible for what.
Seat by seat, the site goes deeper: interim finance jobs, interim HR jobs and NHS interim jobs each have their own page, and the parent site lists interim CFO jobs, interim COO jobs and interim CTO jobs with fractional and part-time roles beside them.
For hiring managers who landed here: the same board shows what the market is offering for comparable roles.
When you are ready to hire, book a call and we will scope the mandate with you.
10.1/ management
Interim management jobs beyond the C-suite
Interim management jobs are not only chief executive or chief officer seats.
Heads of function, programme directors, transformation leads and senior operations managers are hired on interim terms too, often for change programmes or to cover long absences.
The work is the same in kind: a result, a term and authority to deliver.
Employers looking for interim managers tend to value a narrow, deep record over breadth.
A list of three programmes you delivered, at what scale and with what outcome, carries more weight than a long list of employers.
Be specific about systems, budgets and team sizes, and name the people who can confirm them.
Where interim management jobs are advertised
Some are posted on employer careers pages and job boards; many are briefed to a search firm and never advertised.
The board above reads both employer sources and our own pipeline.
On the parent site, fractional jobs UK covers part-week roles at the same level.
10.2/ director level
Interim director jobs and how they are scoped
Interim director jobs sit one level below the chief officer seats in larger organisations and at the top of smaller ones: finance director, operations director, HR director, marketing director, IT director.
They are among the most common interim roles, because directors are the people organisations most often cannot leave unfilled.
A director mandate is usually scoped around one of three needs: a vacancy, a project or a situation such as a sale or restructure.
Ask which of the three it is at the first conversation.
For finance and HR seats in particular, the parent site keeps interim finance director jobs and interim HR director jobs pages alongside its interim hubs.
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 executive 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
More roles across Fractional Quest
Interim Quest is part of Fractional Quest.
When the work you want is part-week or permanent, these boards carry it.
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.