Vendor contracts renewing unchallenged. A digital programme that has stalled. A cyber posture the board cannot get a straight answer on. IT managers making calls nobody qualified them to make. These are not just IT problems. They are leadership problems. Starkhorn solves them through fractional CIO, fractional CTO, and fractional CISO leadership: a named, senior practitioner embedded in your organisation, reporting in the language your board actually reads. That includes delivering the AI, security, and transformation work that moves the organisation forward, picked for impact and shipped, not left as recommendations in a slide deck.
In most mid-market and not-for-profit organisations, technology sits outside the leadership conversation entirely. Vendor contracts auto-renew unchallenged. Programmes slip because nobody mapped the dependencies before work began.
The board gets vague answers on cyber posture, or no answers at all. And every quarter, the gap between what technology could contribute and what it actually costs widens. We bring a commercial technology perspective built for organisations that need director-level leadership without a permanent hire.
Every assessment, every recommendation, and every board report is framed in cost control, risk reduction, and delivery, not infrastructure jargon.
Served as Interim Group Technology Director at VetPartners (accountable for technology and security), a GBP 1.2bn turnover business with 14,000 staff, operating across multiple countries.
Built standardised playbooks replacing ad-hoc approaches across hundreds of sites.
Delivered vendor consolidation, platform standardisation, and measurable cost improvement in the first 100 days.
Served as CIO and CISO through a period of major organisational change and rapid growth.
Modernised infrastructure, hardened security posture, and positioned technology as a competitive advantage across a high-transaction-volume, operationally complex business.
Led technology across healthcare, charity, and services organisations, including Alzheimer’s Society and Age UK.
Responsible for vendor rationalisation, duplicate cost elimination, system consolidation, and rapid capability deployment.
The first step in every engagement.
Within the opening weeks, we map your technology estate, benchmark vendor spend, assess cybersecurity posture, evaluate IT leadership capability, and deliver a board-ready report with a prioritised roadmap, all framed in commercial impact.
This assessment becomes the foundation for everything that follows: vendor renegotiation, programme planning, security hardening, and long-term technology strategy.
Not a technical audit.
A commercial assessment that identifies specific cost savings, vendor renegotiation opportunities, and efficiency improvements, all presented in plain commercial language.
Most organisations overspend on technology by 15 to 25%. We find it, quantify it, and show you how to recover it.
In the first 100 days, leadership needs answers fast.
Which systems standardise immediately. Which vendors consolidate.
Where the dependencies sit. Where the quick wins are.
We translate technical complexity into an operational prioritisation that de-risks delivery and starts capturing savings from week one.
Boards, auditors, regulators and insurers will interrogate your technology estate: infrastructure stability, cybersecurity posture, vendor dependencies, data quality, and operational complexity.
We identify everything that could be a risk to the organisation and build the remediation plan before it becomes a problem. The goal: technology that strengthens the organisation instead of exposing it.
Every finding framed in cost impact, operational efficiency, delivery progress, and board confidence. RAG-scored across key domains with a prioritised roadmap at 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months.
Presented to your board in person, not emailed as a PDF. No technical jargon. No infrastructure complexity. Just commercial clarity.
Over a typical few years, even modest technology overspend of £50K per year compounds to £200K to £250K of value leakage, money that could have funded the work that actually matters.
The organisations that get the most from technology are the ones that bring leadership in early, not once the problem is already serious.
Every quarter without independent technology oversight is a quarter where vendor costs drift, savings go uncaptured, and risk builds quietly.
Not a technical audit. A commercial assessment that identifies specific cost savings, vendor renegotiation opportunities, and efficiency improvements, all presented in plain commercial language. Most organisations overspend on technology by 15 to 25%. We find it, quantify it, and show you how to recover it.
Fragmented, under-led technology is where good plans go to die. We identify what standardises immediately, what consolidates, where the dependencies sit, and how to start delivering from week one, not month twelve.
RAG-scored reporting across key domains with a prioritised roadmap at 30, 90, and 365 days. Presented to your board in person, in the language of commercial impact, cost control, operational efficiency, delivery progress, and board confidence. Not emailed as a PDF. Not written in jargon.
Security posture evidenced. Vendor dependencies mapped. Data quality assured. Operational readiness demonstrated. Everything an auditor, regulator or insurer will interrogate, assessed, addressed, and documented before they arrive. Technology becomes an asset, not a liability.
The Free Diagnostic Toolkit
Deploy Starkhorn’s free diagnostic tools across your organisation. Each team self-assesses in under 5 minutes. Results flow into a clear technology maturity view, giving your board visibility within a week, at zero cost.
Share the diagnostic links with your leadership team
Each assessment completes in 3 to 5 minutes
Review your technology maturity scores
Where the scores point to a gap, we offer a scoping call. No cost. No obligation. Starkhorn only engages where we can genuinely move the needle.
“The assessment takes 3 minutes. The conversation takes 20. Across 20+ years in technology and security, 15+ of them in leadership roles, we have consistently given boards clarity they didn’t have before.” Daniel J. Jacobs, Founder, Starkhorn
The Technology Health Check is a free diagnostic designed for mid-market and not-for-profit organisations. It scores your technology across key dimensions: leadership and governance, systems, risk exposure, and delivery. It tells you where the technology risks sit before they become problems.
10 questions. 4 dimensions. Immediate results. No obligation.
We’ll review your publicly available technology indicators, website infrastructure, SaaS footprint, security posture signals, and give you a 15 minute briefing on what we see. No preparation needed from you. No obligation.
Free for boards and leadership teams who need a fast, honest read.
Whether you need to stabilise a stalled programme, harden your cyber posture, or get independent visibility into your technology, start with a conversation.
Comparison
Three models that look similar from the outside but serve very different situations.
| Fractional | Interim | Outsourced / MSP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time commitment | 1-3 days/week | Full-time, temporary | As contracted |
| Duration | Ongoing retainer | 6-18 months | Contract term |
| Accountability | Named individual | Named individual | Service desk or account manager |
| Best for | Steady-state leadership, ongoing programmes | Crisis, transition, M&A | IT support and operations |
| Typical cost | From £1,500/month | From £700/day | Contract-dependent |
| Notice period | 30-60 days | Agreed at engagement | Contract term |
Investment
Fractional retainers typically run at a fraction of full-time equivalent cost, with no recruitment fees, employment on-costs, or notice period.
| Role | Fractional monthly | Full-time annual equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional CIO | £1,500-£8,500/month | £136,000-£224,000/year |
| Fractional CISO | £1,500-£12,000/month | £130,000-£200,000/year |
| Combined CIO + CISO (Starkhorn) | Single retainer | Would require two separate hires |
Common questions
What is the difference between fractional and interim?
Fractional means part-time on a retained basis: typically one to three days per week, ongoing, with no fixed end date. Interim means full-time but temporary, usually six to eighteen months, used to bridge a vacancy or lead a specific transition. Most organisations at the 100-to-1,000-employee scale need fractional. Interim is right when there is a crisis, an M&A event, or a genuine full-time leadership gap.
Can one person hold both the CIO and CISO mandate?
At mid-market scale, yes. Daniel J. Jacobs has was Interim Group Technology Director at VetPartners (BC Partners-backed, GBP 1.2bn, 14,000 staff), accountable for both technology and security, and held the combined CIO and CISO mandate at Jardine Motors Group (GBP 2bn). For most organisations under 5,000 employees, the mandates are complementary: technology and security governance sitting in the same room produces better outcomes than two separate reports to the board.
What does the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill mean for mid-market businesses?
The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, published November 2025, expands incident reporting obligations and places greater accountability on senior leadership for security posture. It extends UK-specific requirements across regulated sectors, building on NIS 2 obligations. Boards that have not yet formalised their security governance face increasing exposure under the new framework.
How quickly can a fractional engagement start?
Typically two to four weeks from the initial conversation. The engagement begins with a technology health check across your infrastructure, security, team, vendor landscape, and digital programmes, followed by an agreed priority roadmap. No onboarding overhead, no bench of juniors.
Is fractional the right model for a PE-backed portfolio company?
Fractional is often ideal for portfolio companies at the value-creation stage, where the business needs active technology leadership but cannot justify a permanent hire. Interim is better suited to the first 100 days post-acquisition or through a major integration event. Many engagements run as interim at close and transition to fractional as the business stabilises.
What is a fractional CTO and how does it differ from a fractional CIO?
A fractional CTO typically focuses on product technology, software architecture, and engineering leadership. A fractional CIO focuses on business technology: IT infrastructure, security, vendor management, and the technology function that keeps the organisation running and growing. In most mid-market organisations, the CIO mandate is what is needed. For product-led or SaaS businesses with an engineering team, a fractional CTO may be more appropriate. Starkhorn operates as fractional CIO and CISO: business technology and security governance, not software product development.
Assessment
The Technology Leadership Gap assessment takes twelve minutes and scores your situation across eight dimensions. It tells you whether fractional, interim, or a different model is the right fit before you commit to anything.
Start the Technology Leadership Gap assessmentThe Technology Leadership Gap assessment scores your situation across eight dimensions in twelve minutes. It tells you whether fractional, interim, or a different model fits, and what the first steps would look like.
Weekly technology leadership insights.
Read past editions →
A fractional CIO and CISO is one experienced technology and security leader who runs both mandates part time rather than as two full time hires. You get board level strategy, governance, delivery and cyber risk ownership for a fraction of the cost, scaled to the days your UK mid market or non profit organisation needs each month.
In UK SMEs these titles describe the same thing: senior IT leadership bought part time. A fractional CIO, a fractional IT director and a part time IT director are interchangeable names for the IT leadership slice of a fractional executive. Note one distinction: a fractional CIO covers technology and security, whereas a fractional CFO covers finance. Starkhorn provides the CIO and CISO mandates only, not CFO, finance or all C suite fractional roles.
| Aspect | Fractional CIO | Virtual CIO |
|---|---|---|
| Typical engagement | Senior leader part time, often hands on | Remote, advisory first |
| Board involvement | Direct, embedded in decisions | Lighter, guidance led |
| Best when you need | Ongoing leadership and delivery | Strategic advice and oversight |
| Overlap | The terms overlap heavily; Starkhorn delivers genuine senior leadership under either label | |
| Mandate | Fractional CIO | Fractional CISO |
|---|---|---|
| Owns | Technology strategy, roadmap, operating model, team | Security strategy, cyber risk, compliance, resilience |
| Board focus | IT value and delivery | Risk posture and assurance |
| With Starkhorn | Both mandates available under one leader, so you need not hire two separate executives | |
A fractional CIO is an experienced Chief Information Officer who leads your technology on a part time, ongoing basis rather than as a full time hire. You get senior strategy, governance and delivery for a fraction of the cost and commitment, scaled to the days your organisation actually needs each month.
A fractional CIO sets technology strategy, aligns IT to business goals, owns the roadmap and budget, manages vendors and risk, and leads the in house team. They make senior decisions, run transformation and operating model change, and report to the board, all within an agreed number of days each month rather than full time.
Fractional CIO cost in the UK depends on days per month, scope and seniority, so it is best quoted per engagement rather than as a fixed figure. The model is deliberately lighter than a full time salary plus on costs, because you buy only the leadership capacity you need. See the pricing page for how Starkhorn structures engagements.
A fractional CISO is a part time Chief Information Security Officer who owns your security strategy, governance, risk and compliance posture. They set policy, lead incident readiness, manage audits and certifications, and brief the board on cyber risk, all on an ongoing fractional basis. For deeper virtual CISO detail, see the dedicated virtual CISO page.
The difference is mostly emphasis. A fractional CIO is a senior leader engaged part time, often with hands on board and team involvement. A virtual CIO usually works remotely and advisory first. In practice the terms overlap heavily, and Starkhorn delivers genuine senior leadership whether you call the role fractional or virtual.
A fractional CIO owns technology overall: strategy, delivery, operating model and team. A fractional CISO owns security specifically: cyber risk, governance, compliance and resilience. They are distinct mandates that often overlap. Starkhorn offers both under one leader, so you can hold both mandates without hiring two separate executives.
Hire a fractional CIO or CISO when you need senior technology and security leadership but cannot justify a full time executive. You gain board level judgement, faster decisions and lower risk at a fraction of the cost. Starkhorn brings 20+ years in technology and security, 15+ of them in leadership roles, with checkable PE backed and mid market proof.