CostDay rates2026 data
Fractional CPO Day Rate: What Is Actually Published
The median published fractional CPO day rate is £1,125, from 8 GBP day-rate offerings across 7 providers in the Fractional Rates Index (2026). The middle half runs £974 to £1,625, the full band £600 to £2,500. Day rates are a UK-market convention: the index contains no published USD day rates for this work at all.
30 minutes. No pitch, no deck.
The numbers
The Day-Rate Numbers
Median day rate
£1,125
Midpoint of 8 published GBP day rates across 7 providers [index, 2026]
Middle half of the market
£974 to £1,625
P25 to P75 of published GBP day rates [index, 2026]
Full published band
£600 to £2,500
The complete GBP day-rate range in the dataset [index, 2026]
USD day rates
none published
Zero USD day-rate rows in a 938-row dataset; the US market prices this work monthly [index, 2026]
Monthly equivalent, for comparison
£4,000 median GBP retainer
Four days at median day rate roughly buys the median month [index, 2026]
All figures from the Fractional Rates Index, 1,127 providers surveyed 2026. Day-rate sample is small (8 rows) and reported as such; nothing here is extrapolated beyond it.
01
Why do day rates barely exist in the US market?
Because US fractional work grew out of retained advisory, while UK fractional work inherited the contractor day-rate culture, IR35-era invoicing included. The index reflects it plainly: 8 published GBP day rates, zero USD ones. Same job, different billing grammar. Neither is cheaper by nature; they meter differently.
This matters when you compare quotes across markets. A UK provider quoting £1,125 a day for one day a week lands near £4,875 a month, about a fifth above the GBP retainer median of £4,000 for similar weekly attention. Run every day-rate quote through that monthly conversion before deciding anything.
02
What does a fair day rate buy?
A full day of senior product attention on a bounded problem: a strategy workshop, a board-prep sprint, a roadmap reset. The £974 to £1,625 middle band is where experienced operators price it. Below £600, you are buying facilitation. Above £2,500, nobody publishes, and you should ask why.
Day rates reward defined outcomes. The failure mode is buying leadership by the day: continuity is the whole product in ongoing product direction, and a day here and there cannot hold a roadmap against weekly priority pressure. That is what monthly engagement is for, mine included.
03
How should you convert between day rate and retainer?
Multiply the day rate by realistic monthly days, then compare to the retainer market. £1,125 at 4 days a month is £4,500, close to the £4,000 GBP retainer median. My own model prices the month directly: $4,950 for 25 hours.
04
How much weight can an eight-row sample carry?
Enough to frame, not enough to settle. Eight published GBP day rates from seven providers give a real median and a real band, and this page reports both with their sizes. What they cannot give is fine-grained cuts: no seniority tiers, no industry splits, no trend. Treat the numbers as a frame.
The eurozone adds exactly one published day rate, €1,800 from a single provider, reported here as a raw row rather than a statistic. That discipline is the page's real method: where the market publishes little, the honest move is to show the little, label it, and resist the urge to smooth it into false confidence.
Price the problem, not the day.
Thirty minutes to translate your quote into the market band and say honestly whether a day rate serves you.
30 minutes. No pitch, no deck.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask
All figures come from the Fractional Rates Index, 1,127 providers surveyed in 2026. The day-rate cut is deliberately small because the published day-rate market is small: 8 GBP rows and 1 EUR row, shown with their sizes. My terms are first-party, published, and monthly.
£1,125, from the 8 published GBP day rates across 7 providers in the Fractional Rates Index, 2026, with the middle half running £974 to £1,625 and the full band £600 to £2,500.
No. The 938-row dataset contains zero USD day-rate offerings. The US market prices this work monthly; day rates are a UK contracting convention, inherited from its contractor invoicing culture.
Multiply by realistic monthly days. £1,125 at 4 days a month is £4,500, near the £4,000 GBP retainer median; at one day a week it lands near £4,875, about a fifth above it.
The published middle band, £974 to £1,625, is where experienced operators price it. Below £600 nothing is published; above £2,500 nobody publishes, and a quote out there should come with evidence.
One: a single provider publishes €1,800 a day. It is reported on this page as a raw data point, not a market statistic, because one row is not a market.
Thirty minutes converts any day-rate quote into the monthly comparison that actually decides it.
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