Service
Strategic technical leadership at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. Architecture, hiring, team mentoring — plus hands-on coding when it matters.
The problem
Full-time CTO total compensation in the UK runs £150,000–£280,000 — and that assumes a three-month hiring process where everything doesn't go wrong. Most seed-to-Series A companies can't justify that, and shouldn't.
What you actually need is senior technical judgment available when it matters. Architecture decisions, hiring filters, agency oversight, fundraising prep — maybe ten hours a week, not forty. That's what fractional CTO is for.
Full-time CTO
£150k–£280k/year
Total comp + 3-month hiring cycle + equity expectation
Senior contractor
£500–£700/day
Executes tasks. Doesn't set strategy or manage teams.
Fractional CTO (Vanguard)
£3,000–£12,000/month
Strategy + execution. Available from next week.
Pricing
Most clients start on Advisory and move to Standard within two months. The Executive tier is for Series A+ companies with active scaling or fundraising pressure.
2–4 hrs/week · 3-month minimum
A technical bullshit detector for non-technical founders. Weekly strategy sessions, async architecture guidance, and a monthly status report. Ideal when you have an agency or small dev team and need someone to ensure you're not getting fleeced.
Includes
Not included
5–10 hrs/week · 3-month minimum
The sweet spot. You get hands-on architecture and code review, sprint planning, developer hiring, and agency management. Most clients with 2–8 developers start here. This is where a fractional CTO makes the biggest difference.
Includes
Not included
15–20 hrs/week · 6-month minimum
Effectively a part-time CTO seat. Hands-on coding for critical path features, full team management, incident response, and board-level technical reporting. Best for Series A companies preparing for rapid scaling or fundraising.
Includes
Not included
Common scenarios
Your offshore agency is building your product. You suspect they're over-engineering, shipping slowly, or quietly accruing technical debt. We review PRs, attend standups, audit code quality, and prevent six months of bad code from compounding into a £100k problem.
You're ready to bring development in-house but have no idea how to hire engineers. We design the team structure, write job specs, run technical interviews, and onboard the first hires — then hand over to your permanent tech lead.
You're approaching product-market fit and your current architecture won't survive 10x growth. We design for that scale, implement monitoring and CI/CD, and ensure your 'success disaster' doesn't crash the product.
Investors are running technical DD on your business. We prepare the codebase, documentation, and architecture for scrutiny — and coach you on the technical Q&A. The difference between a funded round and a failed one.
Your previous CTO left a mess. We assess the damage, create a recovery plan, execute critical fixes, and stabilise the product — then build a team that can maintain it without drama.
Differentiation
Most fractional CTOs are strategy-only. Most senior developers can't lead. We do both — which is what commands premium pricing and actually moves the needle.
| Strategy-only CTO | Senior contractor | Vanguard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture decisions | ✓ | Limited | ✓ |
| Hands-on coding | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Team management | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Developer hiring | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Stack agnosticism | Limited | Limited | ✓ |
| Investor/board comms | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
FAQ
A 30-minute discovery call to understand your situation. No pitch, no hard sell — just an honest conversation about whether fractional CTO is the right fit.