CTO and VP Engineering recruitment

The Clario team handles CTO recruitment for UK scale-ups and mid-market companies, along with searches for VPs and Heads of Engineering. This page explains the difference between the roles, the signs that you need each one, and how we run the search.

The distinction matters. Companies often advertise for a CTO when what they need is someone to lead the engineering team day to day. The search then attracts the wrong people and the shortlist disappoints. Settling which role you need is the first thing we agree with you.

What a CTO does day to day

A CTO is the executive responsible for the company's technology. They report to the chief executive and usually attend the board, or report to it regularly.

In a typical week a CTO decides what the company builds and what it buys, gives the board an honest account of security, older systems and late projects, hires and develops the managers who run engineering, and sets the technical plan for the next few years, including what will have to wait.

In a company that does not sell software, the CTO is often the most senior technology person in the business, and the person the board turns to when something goes wrong.

What a VP of Engineering does day to day

A VP of Engineering runs the engineering team and makes sure work is delivered. They manage the engineering managers, set standards for how software is built and released, and keep a close eye on delivery, quality and the health of the team.

They are most effective when someone else, usually the CTO, owns the overall technical direction. Calling this role CTO because the title sounds more senior tends to backfire. Candidates who want to set strategy accept and then leave, while strong delivery leaders assume the role is not for them.

Head of Engineering and Director of Engineering can mean either job, depending on the company. We look at what the person will do each week, and who they report to, before settling on a title.

Signs you need a CTO

• Technical decisions keep landing on the chief executive's desk.
• Disagreements about how things should be built have nobody senior to settle them.
• The technology plan has become a list of requests from other departments.
• A serious incident showed that nobody was accountable once an outside supplier or consultant had left.
• Technology now affects revenue, regulatory risk or your ability to integrate a business you have bought.

Scale-ups often reach this point after a funding round, or when a large customer starts asking detailed questions about security and resilience. Mid-market firms tend to reach it when technology becomes central to how the business competes.

If the main gap is AI leadership alongside the technology team, read our Chief AI Officer page before writing a CTO job description.

When a VP of Engineering is the better hire

A VP of Engineering is the right hire when someone already owns the technical direction and the engineering team needs leading. The signs are practical: there are too few managers, delivery is uneven, good engineers are tired or leaving, and standards exist only in one person's head.

A first-time VP can be a good choice when the team is still small and a strong CTO is in place above them. Give them the VP title. If you call them CTO from day one, you risk losing them when a genuine CTO offer comes along.

Replacing a founder CTO

Replacing a founder who still leads the technology is a sensitive search. We take it on when the chief executive has decided what the founder's role will be afterwards and the process can be kept confidential. Without both, word tends to get out, and the search becomes much harder for everyone involved.

What to look for in a candidate

A strong CTO has already taken a company through a change of scale. They have grown a team from one group into several, or taken over complicated systems and made them manageable. They hire good managers, and they leave board meetings with decisions made.

Outside software companies, relevant experience counts for a lot. Retail at peak season, payments, manufacturing, logistics and clinical systems each bring their own pressures, and a CTO who has only worked on consumer apps may find the change harder than expected. A well-known previous employer tells you less than you might think. Many people in large companies have run one part of the technology, and your CTO will be responsible for all of it.

A VP of Engineering should have managed other managers. Ask what they changed about how the team worked, as well as what it delivered.

Pay, bonus and the plan for the next two years all affect who will consider the role. CTO salaries usually start at £100,000 and rise with the size of the team. Location matters too. Many strong candidates in Manchester or Birmingham will not commute to London, and a London company asking for three office days a week is competing with employers that ask for fewer. We plan each search around where the right person can realistically live and work.

How we run a CTO search

1. Confidential start. We meet the chief executive. If you are replacing someone, we agree at the outset who will know about the search, and keep that group small.
2. The brief. We agree whether the role is mainly about direction or delivery, along with the reporting line, team size, salary and location. You review it before anyone is approached.
3. Direct approach. We approach people who are already in senior roles.
4. Shortlist and interviews. You receive a short list with our view on each candidate, and we help you design the interviews. A coding test can suit a hands-on lead in a small team. It is a poor way to choose the person who will make decisions about security and cloud spending.
5. Offer and notice. We stay involved through the offer and notice period, when notice terms, lost bonuses and counter-offers can cause late problems.