People strategy and HR leadership for UK businesses — without the £160k+ salary.
A fractional HR director — also known as a part-time Chief People Officer or fractional CHRO — provides senior people leadership to your business on a flexible, part-time basis. They move beyond HR administration and compliance to own your people strategy: talent acquisition, leadership development, culture, organisational design, and the employment framework that enables your business to attract, retain, and develop the people it needs to grow. A fractional HR director operates at board level, advising the CEO on people-related strategic decisions, managing complex employee relations at senior level, and ensuring your people practices reflect both legal obligations and commercial ambition. They are embedded in your leadership team — not a helpline or a compliance function.
A commercially grounded people strategy aligned to your business plan — covering workforce planning, talent acquisition priorities, development investment, retention programmes, and the organisational design required to deliver commercial objectives. Presented to the board as a strategic investment, not an overhead cost line.
Strategic oversight of talent acquisition — defining the roles your business needs, building rigorous hiring processes, and developing an employer brand that attracts the best people in competitive talent markets. Creates sustainable, scalable hiring capability rather than reactive responses to immediate vacancies.
Structured programmes to develop your leadership team’s capability — identifying gaps, building individual development plans, establishing coaching frameworks, and planning succession for critical roles. Ensures your management layer has the skills and judgement to support the scale and complexity your business is heading towards.
Active diagnosis and purposeful development of your organisational culture — identifying what drives or undermines employee engagement, designing the leadership practices and management behaviours that strengthen it, and measuring progress against meaningful, leading indicators of cultural health and employee commitment.
Senior ownership of your employment framework — ensuring contracts, policies, and procedures are legally compliant, commercially appropriate, and consistently applied across the organisation. Manages complex or senior-level employee relations issues with the expertise, authority, and commercial judgement those situations require.
Expert leadership of organisational redesign — building the right structures, roles, and accountabilities to support business strategy at your next stage of growth. Manages change sensitively and effectively, significantly reducing the people risk that accompanies major restructuring or strategic transitions.
Leadership Services
per month — no recruitment fees, no long-term contracts
Full-Time Hire
per year plus benefits, recruitment fees, and on-costs
A fractional HR director provides board-level people leadership on a part-time basis. They own your people strategy, talent management, organisational design, culture development, and senior HR governance. Unlike an HR manager focused on administration and compliance, a fractional HR director operates strategically — advising the CEO on people-related decisions, managing complex employee relations at senior level, and ensuring your people practices directly support your commercial objectives.
A fractional HR director or part-time CHRO from Leadership Services ranges from £1,500 to £4,500 per month, depending on the number of days required and the scope of your people agenda. This compares to a full-time HR Director or CHRO salary of £100,000 to £160,000 per year in the UK, plus employer on-costs, benefits, and recruitment fees. For most SMEs, the fractional model provides expert people leadership at a significantly lower investment.
An HR consultant typically delivers a specific project — a policy review, a restructuring, a training programme — and then leaves. A fractional HR director is an embedded member of your leadership team. They attend board meetings, advise the CEO, manage ongoing people challenges, and take strategic ownership of your people agenda. The key difference is accountability and continuity: a fractional HR director has a stake in the long-term health of your people function, not just the completion of a project.
Yes. Restructuring and redundancy processes are among the most sensitive and legally complex challenges any business faces. A fractional HR director brings the experience to manage these processes correctly — ensuring legal compliance, protecting the business from tribunal risk, communicating clearly with affected employees, and maintaining morale and trust among the wider team. Having senior HR leadership through a restructuring is not optional; the risks of getting it wrong are significant.
Most engagements begin within one to two weeks. Following an initial consultation to understand your people priorities, business stage, and immediate challenges, Leadership Services matches you with the right fractional HR director from our network. There is no recruitment process, no lengthy onboarding, and no notice period to wait out. Your part-time HR director joins the leadership team and can begin contributing to people decisions immediately.
For most UK SMEs and scale-ups with up to several hundred employees, a fractional HR director provides the senior people leadership they need. A full-time CHRO is typically justified when the business has a large, complex workforce, a substantial dedicated people team requiring daily senior oversight, or is navigating an exceptionally high-velocity period of hiring. Until that point, a part-time HR director delivers the same strategic expertise and board-level credibility at a fraction of the permanent cost.
Book a free, no-obligation discovery call. We’ll match you with the right director within 5 business days.
