Fractional CTO
You don't need a CTO. You need a technology brain.
Full-time CTOs cost £180k–£250k a year, plus equity, plus the bench they want to build. Most of the job is babysitting a team and keeping the lights on. Done right, the CTO's real work in the AI era is to set up a company-owned AI, coach your team to use it, and make the role redundant — because everything hums.
For companies advertising a CTO role. Before you sign the contract.
What a good CTO actually does
In the AI era, the CTO's job stops being a permanent desk. It becomes three things — all of which can be done as-needed.
Set up a company-owned AI
An AI owned and controlled by your company — your data never leaves. Not a rented chatbot. The infrastructure your team builds on.
Coach the team to use it
The role becomes mentoring, not management. Your people work faster and think bigger because the AI handles the routine.
Make the role redundant — not the relationship
The full-time role becomes redundant — that's the point, not the failure. But you're never left adrift. You keep me on demand: a day here, a sprint there, a board session when you need a second brain. When it's humming, you don't pay for a permanent desk; when you want me, I'm there.
The comparison
A full-time hire, or the alternative?
Hire a CTO, you get one person. Work with a fractional CTO, you get the AI, the team, and the playbook.
The honest promise
The Exit CTO.
Hire me to build the thing that replaces the role. A good CTO who can't make himself redundant isn't doing his job. The measure of my work is that you eventually need less of me, not more.
The economics
Priced so year one is a straight swap. Then it costs less every year — while it's worth more.
We package it so the first year lands at the same cost as a full-time hire. Not cheaper — the same. Because the moment it's the same, the only question left is what you'd rather own at the end of it: a salary you've rented, or an asset that's yours.
Year one is the same cost as the hire. Year two costs less, because the equipment is bought. Year three less again, because the system is humming. And so it goes, until the full-time role is redundant and you just have me on call — at a fraction of what the hire would still be costing.
Rethinking the hire is the first step
If you're advertising a CTO role, we should talk before you sign. A conversation, nothing more.
Book a conversationQuestions you might be asking
- Isn't an AI going to replace the CTO anyway?
- That's the wrong frame. The company-owned AI removes the grunt work — the legacy management, the babysitting, the keeping-the-lights-on. What's left is vision, architecture and coaching. That's a fractional role, not a permanent desk.
- We need someone full-time, don't we?
- Most of what a full-time CTO does is work the AI era makes obsolete. Start as-needed, build the system, and let the reality tell you what's left. Often it's far less than a full-time hire.
- Is our data safe with a company-owned AI?
- That's the entire point. The AI is owned and controlled by your company — your data never leaves your building. It's the opposite of renting a chatbot that trains on your information.
- How is this different from a consultant?
- A consultant hands you a report and leaves. This installs the system, coaches the team, and stays as long as you need — then steps back as it starts to hum.