Interim IT Director for UK SMEs
Full-time IT leadership for a fixed stretch. Typically three to six months. You get a senior pair of hands on the wheel immediately, a plan inside the first month, and a clean hand-back when the work is done.
Talk through your situation →An interim is useful in exactly the moments you can’t afford to lose six months running a recruitment process. Your IT lead has handed in their notice. You’ve bought a business and need to integrate it. Cyber insurance renewal has flagged problems you didn’t know you had. Something’s gone wrong with a project and the board needs someone senior in the room while it gets fixed.
When an interim IT Director makes sense
A few of the most common situations I get called into:
- Your IT lead has resigned or been let go. You don’t want a vacuum at the top of the function while you recruit a permanent replacement. Six months of drift costs you more than an interim does.
- You’ve completed an acquisition. Two IT estates, two sets of suppliers, two cultures. Someone has to make the technical and commercial calls quickly, and the buyer rarely has time to do it themselves.
- A project is in trouble. ERP rollout, M365 migration, data centre move. It’s slipped, it’s over budget, and nobody’s telling you straight what’s going on.
- A cyber incident or insurance challenge. You’ve had a scare, or your renewal questionnaire has exposed a gap. You need a senior person owning the remediation, not another consultant with a report.
- Rapid growth or restructure. The business has outgrown the IT setup that got you here. You need someone to redesign it without disrupting the day job.
What you actually get
I’m not here to write a strategy document and disappear. An interim engagement means I’m accountable for the outcomes, same as a permanent IT Director would be:
- Full ownership of IT operations, budget, and supplier relationships for the period of the engagement.
- Board reporting at whatever cadence you run — weekly, monthly, or ad-hoc.
- Management of your existing internal team or MSP. I don’t bring my own staff in unless you want me to.
- A written plan inside the first 30 days covering what I’ve found, what needs attention, and in what order.
- A hand-back document at the end so your permanent hire (or your MSP) can pick up cleanly.
The first 30, 60, 90 days
Rough shape of what an engagement looks like. I adjust it to whatever you actually need, but most interims land somewhere close to this.
First 30 days
Understand the business, the people, the estate, and the suppliers. Sit in on board meetings. Speak to every department head. Read the contracts. Identify anything that’s on fire and put it out.
30 to 60 days
Stabilise and address the quick wins. Sort obvious governance gaps — admin accounts, backup verification, MFA, licence waste. Give the board a written view of where IT is, what it’s costing, and what needs to happen next.
60 to 90 days
Execute against the plan. Depending on scope, that could be a security uplift, a supplier consolidation, a team restructure, or project recovery. By day 90 you should know whether you need me for longer, or whether you’re ready to transition to a permanent hire or a fractional arrangement.
How this is different from hiring a permanent IT Director. Permanent hires take four to six months to recruit, need notice periods, and come with national insurance, pension, holiday, benefits, and recruitment fees. An interim starts in days, costs you a day rate only for the days worked, and leaves cleanly when the work’s done.
Commercials
Day rate, billed monthly in arrears. No kit commissions, no vendor kickbacks, no minimum term beyond a mutually agreed notice period. I’ll tell you the rate on the first call so nobody’s wasting each other’s time.
What I won’t do
I won’t run your service desk. I won’t sell you kit. I won’t be cheaper than your MSP for the things your MSP should be doing. And I won’t sign an engagement where the scope is “do some IT” — we’ll agree what good looks like before I start.
Start a conversation
If you’re dealing with any of the situations above, or something that rhymes with them, drop me a line. I’ll reply within a working day, tell you whether I can help, and if I can’t I’ll usually be able to point you at someone who can.