A Fractional CTO is a senior technology leader who works with your UK SME on a part-time basis, providing the strategic thinking, architecture decisions, and engineering oversight of a full-time Chief Technology Officer without the £150,000+ salary. They set your technology roadmap, evaluate vendors, mentor your developers, manage technical risk, and report to your board. Most SMEs need this leadership two to three days a week, not five. From £2,000/month with no lock-in.
A fractional CTO is a senior technology leader who works with your business part-time, providing strategy, architecture decisions, team mentoring, and vendor evaluation without the cost of a full-time hire. For UK SMEs with 10 to 250 employees, ajairu.dev delivers fractional CTO services from £2,000 per month.
A Fractional CTO is a senior technology leader who works with your business on a part-time basis. You get the strategic thinking, technical judgement, and leadership experience of a Chief Technology Officer - typically 2-3 days a week - without the cost of a full-time hire.
This is not a consultant who delivers a report and walks away. A Fractional CTO is embedded in your leadership team. They attend management meetings, make real architecture decisions, work with your developers, evaluate vendors, manage technical risk, and report to the board. It is a leadership role that happens to be part-time.
For most UK SMEs with 10-250 employees, this is the sweet spot. You need senior technology leadership, but you do not need it five days a week. A fractional arrangement gives you exactly the expertise you need, at a cost that makes sense for your size.
Technology roadmap aligned to business goals. Build vs buy decisions. Cloud strategy. AI adoption plan.
System design, tech stack selection, integration patterns, security architecture, scalability planning.
Mentor developers, manage technical recruitment, vendor evaluation, board reporting, risk management.
Most SMEs have technology at the heart of their business but no one owning it at a senior level. Here is what happens without technology leadership.
Without a CTO, technology decisions are made ad hoc - by the loudest voice in the room, by whichever vendor sent the best email, or by whoever is left holding the problem. There is no roadmap, no architecture vision, and no one accountable for whether the technology stack actually supports the business strategy.
When the website is slow, the CRM does not integrate, or the database keeps crashing, it lands on whoever is nearby. There is no single person who owns the technology landscape end-to-end, understands how it all fits together, and can make decisions with confidence.
A full-time CTO in the UK costs £120,000-£180,000+ per year plus benefits, equity, and bonuses. For a 30-person business, that is not realistic. But the need for senior technology leadership does not disappear just because you cannot afford a full-time hire.
When a consultant writes your technology strategy and a different team builds it, the strategy gets lost in translation. A Fractional CTO who can both set strategy and oversee execution ensures what gets built matches what was decided.
A structured, embedded engagement - not ad-hoc hours. You know what you are getting every month.
A technology consultant typically delivers a report, a slide deck, or a set of recommendations. They are not there when the architecture decision needs to be made on a Tuesday morning. They are not in the Slack channel when production goes down. They do not mentor your developers or review their pull requests.
A Fractional CTO is embedded. They are part of your leadership team. They attend the meetings, make the calls, work with the team, and are accountable for outcomes. They own the technology function - they just do it part-time.
And unlike most fractional CTOs, we can also build. If your technology strategy calls for system integration, a bespoke CRM, or AI automation, the same person setting the strategy can scope and oversee the build. Strategy and execution in one place.
| Aspect | Consultant | Fractional CTO |
|---|---|---|
| Time commitment | Project-based | Ongoing, embedded |
| Output | Report / deck | Real decisions, working systems |
| Accountability | Delivers report, leaves | Owns outcomes over time |
| Team involvement | Interviews, observes | Mentors, manages, reviews |
| Board presence | One-off presentation | Regular reporting |
| Can also build | Rarely | Yes - strategy + execution |
Fixed monthly fees. No hidden costs. Cancel with 30 days' notice.
4-5 days per month
Best for: SMEs that need a sounding board for technology decisions but have an existing dev team.
8-10 days per month
Best for: SMEs building software or managing complex integrations who need ongoing technical leadership.
12-15 days per month
Best for: SMEs scaling rapidly or preparing for investment/acquisition who need a CTO in the room.
All engagements are month-to-month with 30 days' notice. No long-term contracts. No lock-in.
A Fractional CTO makes sense if you can answer yes to two or more of these:
If you ticked three or more, a Fractional CTO will pay for itself within months - through better vendor decisions alone, never mind the architecture and team improvements.
Straight answers to the most common questions about part-time CTO engagements.
A Fractional CTO provides senior technology leadership on a part-time basis. This includes setting technology strategy, making architecture decisions, evaluating vendors, mentoring your development team, managing technical risk, and reporting to the board. You get the expertise of a Chief Technology Officer without the £150,000+ full-time salary.
Our fractional CTO engagements start from £2,000 per month for advisory-level input (4-5 days per month). A hands-on engagement with active architecture decisions and team mentoring runs £3,500/month (8-10 days). A strategic engagement with board reporting and roadmap ownership is £5,000/month (12-15 days). All are fixed monthly fees with no hidden costs.
A consultant typically delivers a report and leaves. A Fractional CTO is embedded in your business on an ongoing basis - attending leadership meetings, making real decisions, working with your team, and accountable for outcomes. It is a leadership role, not an advisory engagement. You are getting a CTO who happens to work part-time, not a consultant who writes reports.
If you have 10-250 employees and technology is important to your business but you cannot justify a £150,000+ full-time CTO salary, a fractional CTO is the right fit. Most SMEs need senior technology leadership 2-3 days a week, not 5. A fractional arrangement gives you the expertise you need at a fraction of the cost. Many of our clients eventually transition to a full-time CTO as they grow - we help them hire and hand over.
Yes. Unlike most fractional CTOs who only advise, we also build. If your technology strategy calls for bespoke software, system integration, or AI automation, the same person leading your technology strategy can scope and oversee the build. This means strategy and execution are aligned - no gap between the person who decides what to build and the person who builds it. See our software development services for build pricing.
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll talk through your business, your technology challenges, and whether a Fractional CTO makes sense for you right now.