Interim vs permanent CFO: how to decide
Ray Nicholls · Updated August 2026
When a CFO leaves — or when a business recognises it needs one for the first time — the immediate question is rarely about the brief. It's about the structure.
Do we hire permanently? Or do we bring in an interim?
Most businesses answer that question too quickly, and in doing so, create a second problem before they've solved the first.
Here is a clear framework for thinking it through.
What an interim CFO actually is
An interim CFO is an experienced finance leader who steps into a role for a defined period — typically three to twelve months — to stabilise, lead, or transform a specific situation.
The best interims are not people between permanent roles. They are specialists who have chosen the interim model deliberately. They have seen the inside of more businesses than most permanent CFOs will encounter in a career. They are deployed, not placed, and that model depends on staying visible. The best interim CFOs treat their professional network as a discipline, not an afterthought.
The key operational difference is speed. A credible interim CFO can be engaged and in the building within two weeks. No notice period. No induction runway. Day one competent in the situations that require them most — transactions, restructuring, leadership gaps, and finance transformation.
What a permanent CFO provides
A permanent CFO brings continuity, institutional memory, and long-term ownership of the finance function and its relationships.
For a business with stability — a clear strategic direction, a settled board, and time to run a thorough process — a permanent hire is the right answer. The right person, properly recruited, will outperform any interim over a three to five year horizon.
The challenge is the timeline, and it's worth setting out precisely.
What each one actually costs
Most search firms avoid publishing this. It's the first thing every CEO wants to know, so here it is.
Interim CFO. For UK mid-market businesses, expect roughly £800 to £1,200 per day. PE-backed situations, restructuring, and anything with a live transaction attached sit at the upper end and can go beyond it — £1,200 to £1,500 is not unusual where the stakes justify it. Four days a week is a common pattern, though full-time and two-day arrangements both exist.
At £1,000 per day, four days a week, that's roughly £16,000 to £17,000 a month. Over six months, in the region of £100,000.
There are no employer National Insurance costs, no pension, no bonus, no notice period and no severance risk. You are buying capability by the day, and you can stop.
Permanent CFO. A mid-market UK CFO salary typically lands between £120,000 and £180,000, with PE-backed and larger businesses reaching well above that. Add bonus, pension, employer NI and benefits, and the true annual cost is usually 25 to 30 per cent above base. Then add the search fee — retained executive search typically runs at 25 to 33 per cent of first-year package.
So a £150,000 CFO is realistically a £190,000 to £200,000 annual commitment, plus £40,000 to £50,000 to find them.
The comparison people get wrong. A day rate looks expensive next to a monthly salary. It usually isn't, once you account for the fact that you are buying six months rather than five years, and that the interim is productive immediately.
The timing arithmetic
This is where the decision is genuinely made, and it's the piece boards consistently underestimate.
A well-run permanent CFO search typically takes three to six months from brief to offer. Add a notice period — often three months at this level, sometimes six — and then allow ninety days before the person is genuinely operating rather than learning.
Realistically, from the day you decide to hire a permanent CFO, you are eight to eleven months from having a fully effective one.
An interim is in the building within two weeks and productive almost immediately, because being productive immediately is the job.
In a stable environment, an eleven-month runway is manageable. In an urgent or complex situation, it isn't. And that question — can this wait eleven months? — settles more of these decisions than any other.
When interim is the right answer
There are situations where interim is not a compromise. It is the correct structural response.
The business is mid-transaction. An acquisition, a refinancing, a fundraise, or a sale process requires CFO-level capability immediately. The permanent hire can follow once the transaction is complete and the business knows what it needs next.
The finance function needs stabilising. A sudden CFO departure, a breakdown in reporting, or an investor who has lost confidence in the numbers needs a fast, credible response. An interim provides it.
The brief isn't clear yet. Sometimes a business knows it needs a different kind of CFO but cannot yet articulate what that looks like. A well-chosen interim will often define that brief from the inside — a genuinely useful piece of work that the permanent search can build on.
The situation is time-limited. A specific transformation programme, a system implementation, or an integration project may require CFO-level leadership for a defined period without justifying a permanent hire.
When permanent is the right answer
Permanent hiring makes sense when the business has the time to do it properly, a clear brief, and a stable enough environment to absorb a transition period.
It also requires something boards routinely skip: the role has to be worth taking. If the business is unstable, the reporting line is unclear, or the previous two CFOs left inside a year, strong candidates will decline, and you will end up choosing from people who couldn't.
The most common mistake is hiring permanently under pressure. A board that has just lost a CFO, is facing investor scrutiny, or is mid-crisis will often reach for a permanent hire because it feels more decisive. It isn't. Speed and decisiveness are not the same thing.
A rushed permanent hire with the wrong brief produces the outcome described in our previous article on the cost of a bad CFO hire. The cost — financial, operational, and reputational — is rarely less than £500,000 in a mid-market business
Where this goes wrong
Two patterns come up repeatedly, and they are mirror images of each other.
Hiring permanent too early. A business in difficulty hires a permanent CFO to fix the difficulty. The CFO arrives, spends nine months on remediation work an interim would have completed in four, and by the time the business is ready for the strategic CFO it hired, that person is tired and has been defined internally as the one who cleans things up. A high proportion of these hires leave within two years. The search then runs again, at full cost.
Running an interim indefinitely. The interim stabilises the business, everyone is relieved, and eighteen months later they are still there. The day rate that looked sensible for six months has quietly overtaken the permanent hire — and, more importantly, nobody has built anything. Interims are not designed to build institutional capability. Extending one past its purpose is a comfortable way of avoiding a decision.
The sequencing approach
One model that works well, and is underused, is deliberate sequencing.
Bring in an interim to stabilise and lead the function in the short term. Use that period to define exactly what the permanent hire needs to look like — what situations they will inherit, what the investor expects, what the finance team needs from a leader. Then run the permanent search from a position of stability rather than urgency.
That specification is almost always different from the one you would have written before the interim arrived.
The interim has done their job when the permanent hire starts. That is not a failure of planning. It is good sequencing.
Some interims convert to permanent. It works when it is genuinely right for both sides, and it fails when it is chosen because it is convenient. Worth being honest with yourself about which one is happening.
The question that frames it
Before any conversation about structure, we ask clients the same thing: what does this business need from its CFO in the next six months?
If the answer involves urgency, complexity, or uncertainty — interim.
If the answer involves continuity, relationship-building, and long-term ownership — permanent.
If the answer is unclear, that itself is the answer. Start with an interim and use the time well.
Pitch Hill Partners is a boutique executive search and interim management firm specialising in CFO, Finance Director and senior finance leadership roles across the UK. To discuss a search, contact Ray Nicholls at raynicholls@pitchhillpartners.com
Interim CFO or Permanent CFO — Which Do You Need?
