A fractional COO makes sense for businesses under about £5M revenue, where you need senior operational leadership but not forty hours a week of it. A full-time COO makes sense once you’re past £5–10M, operating across multiple functions or geographies, and need someone in the leadership team full-time. The decision is almost never about the person - it’s about the scope of the job.
The three questions that settle it
Answer these three honestly and the decision is usually obvious.
1. What’s your revenue?
As a rough rule:
- Under £3M: A fractional COO is almost always right. A full-time COO at £140K+ is a material drag on margins you probably can’t absorb.
- £3M–£10M: This is the grey zone. Most businesses in this range do well with a fractional COO for another 18–24 months, then convert.
- £10M+: You probably need someone full-time. The job is too big for 1–2 days a week.
2. How many functions are you asking the COO to own?
A fractional COO can realistically own two or three functions end-to-end - say, Operations and People, or Operations and Commercial Contracting. Once you need someone owning Operations, People, Finance, Legal, and Customer Success simultaneously, you’re in full-time COO territory. The scope has outgrown the part-time model.
3. How embedded does the COO need to be?
If the COO needs to represent the business externally - to investors, key customers, regulators, or the press - they likely need to be full-time. If the role is primarily internal (building infrastructure, running cadence, coaching the team), a fractional COO is usually the better fit.
The hidden cost of hiring full-time too early
Full-time COOs don’t just cost their salary. They cost:
- Recruitment time. Senior operators take 3–6 months to find and close.
- Ramp time. Another 3–6 months before they’re operating at full capacity inside your business.
- Brittleness. If you hire the wrong COO at £180K, unwinding it is a twelve-month, deeply uncomfortable process.
A fractional COO gets you operating at full capacity within two to four weeks, and exits cleanly if the fit isn’t right. The optionality is worth a lot.
The hidden cost of hiring fractional too long
The other direction also has risk. If you stay fractional past about £10M revenue, you’ll start to feel it:
- Decisions slow because the COO is only around two days a week.
- Leadership team dynamics get awkward - other execs are full-time, the COO is not.
- Cross-functional projects stall when the fractional is off-contract that week.
When these signals appear, start the full-time search. A good fractional COO will tell you when it’s time - and should help you hire the person who replaces them.
What The Edwards Practice recommends
We’re a fractional COO practice, and we will happily tell you when you’ve outgrown us. Most of our engagements run 6–18 months, after which either (a) we transition to a Strategic Adviser retainer while the business runs day-to-day, or (b) we help you recruit and onboard your first full-time COO. The goal is always the business running well, not extending the engagement.
If you’re unsure which side of the line you’re on, book a discovery call. Thirty minutes is usually enough to tell.