Senior operations leadership, part-time

A fractional operations director for growing UK businesses

Q: What is a fractional operations director?

A fractional operations director is a senior operations leader who works for your business part-time, typically a set number of days each month. You get director-level experience and accountability without the salary, NI, pension and recruitment costs of a full-time hire.

Q: How much does a fractional operations director cost?

ClearRoute retainers start at £1,400 a month for around three days of light advisory support, or £2,500 a month for around one day a week. A fully embedded fractional role is priced to the project. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute intro call.

You need someone senior running operations and supply chain, but a full-time director isn't on the cards yet. I step into that role for a few days a month and bring 20 years of manufacturing, procurement and operations experience with me.

Book a free intro call

Signs you need an operations director (just not a full-time one)

Most of the businesses I work with recognise at least three of these.

"I'm the founder, and I spend most of my week firefighting instead of growing the business."

"We keep running out of the stock we need and sitting on the stock we don't."

"Our systems don't talk to each other, so everything ends up back in spreadsheets."

"Suppliers let us down and nobody has the time to manage them properly."

"We can't justify a full-time ops director once you add salary, NI, pension and recruitment."

"We know things could run better, but no one internally has done this before."

What a fractional operations director does

A fractional operations director does the same job as a full-time one: owning how the business buys, makes, stores and delivers. The difference is that you pay for the time you actually need. For most SMEs that's somewhere between a few days a month and one day a week.

I don't hand over a report and disappear. I work alongside your team, learn how the business really runs, and stay involved until the changes stick. Because I've also carried sales targets and managed customer relationships, I look at operations decisions through a commercial lens: what a late shipment costs you with a customer, not just on the shop floor.

Supply chain and supplier management

Supplier scorecards, lead time tracking and renegotiated terms, so you're not caught out by the same problems every quarter.

Inventory and working capital

Reorder processes, stock visibility and dead-stock clear-outs that free up cash without hurting service levels.

Systems: ERP, CRM and automation

Choosing, mapping and rolling out the systems a growing business needs, and connecting them so data flows without re-keying.

Process and team structure

Mapping how work actually flows, fixing the handoffs that fail, and giving your team processes they'll follow.

KPIs and reporting

A small set of numbers that tell you how operations are performing, reviewed regularly with you.

A senior sounding board

Someone to call when a supplier fails, a big order lands or you're weighing up a major decision.

How it works and what it costs

Clear pricing, agreed up front. If a price is agreed, it won't change.

Free intro call

Online, 30 minutes

No commitment, no pitch
An honest view of whether I can help

Scoping session

Fixed fee, £750

Deep dive into your operations
Written action plan you keep

Monthly retainer

Scale up or down as you need

Light Advisory: ~3 days/month, £1,400
Standard Support: ~1 day/week, £2,500
Embedded / Fractional: priced to the role
No salary, NI or pension costs

What this looks like in practice

OEM scale-up, delivered in 3 months

From spreadsheets to a scalable operation

A growing OEM was running purchasing, stock and financials through Excel and Xero as it moved from prototype to production. I selected and implemented an ERP, connected it to HubSpot and Xero so sales orders flowed through to finance automatically, built proper warehouse management, and designed a new SKU and product release process.

Three systems integrated in three months, with a continuous improvement plan still running.

"Nick came in and built our systems from the ground up to scale from start-up to small business. This included a full ERP transition and automating our other systems to link them together and work autonomously."

Clean Energy

Fractional operations director FAQs

What is a fractional operations director?

A senior operations leader who works for your business part-time, typically a set number of days each month. You get director-level experience and accountability without the salary, NI, pension and recruitment costs of a full-time hire.

How much does a fractional operations director cost?

My retainers start at £1,400 a month for around three days of light advisory support, or £2,500 a month for around one day a week. A fully embedded fractional role is priced to the project. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute intro call.

When is the right time to bring one in?

Usually when the business has outgrown its processes but can't yet justify a full-time operations hire. Common signs are the founder spending most of their week firefighting, stock and supplier problems repeating, and systems that no longer talk to each other.

Can I stop or change the retainer?

Yes. The retainer is built around agreed monthly deliverables, and the level of support can be scaled up or down as the business changes.

Let's see if it's a fit

A free, no-obligation 30-minute call. Tell me where the business is and where you want it to be, and I'll give you an honest view of how I can help.