CTO Salary UK 2026: What a CTO Costs at Every Funding Stage
CTO pay in the UK moves with funding stage more than with company age or headcount. Here are the 2026 bands, what shifts the number, and how the adjacent titles compare.
CTO base salary by stage
Seed and pre-Series A: £55,000 to £90,000, usually with 1 to 5% equity as a co-founder or first technical hire
Series A: £95,000 to £140,000, with 10 to 20% bonus and EMI options
Series B: £130,000 to £180,000, with 15 to 30% bonus and refresh grants
Series C and beyond: £160,000 to £250,000 or more, with 25 to 50% bonus
Mid-market and PE-backed: £150,000 to £250,000
Enterprise and listed: £200,000 to £400,000 or more
London adds roughly £10,000 to £50,000 to each band depending on stage. Edinburgh and Cambridge sit around £100,000 to £145,000 for the average CTO, Manchester and Bristol £95,000 to £130,000, and the rest of the UK £75,000 to £110,000.
How the adjacent titles compare
CTO: £95,000 to £250,000 or more (London £120,000 to £300,000 or more)
VP Engineering: £110,000 to £165,000 (London £125,000 to £190,000)
Head of Engineering: £90,000 to £135,000 (London £100,000 to £155,000)
What moves the number
Board exposure. A CTO who presents to the board and investors is paid for that, not for the stack
Team size. Scaling a team past 30 engineers is a different job from running 8, and the market prices it that way
Sector. Fintech, regulated SaaS and anything with real security exposure pay above the band
Fractional. If you need the judgement but not the full-time cost, fractional CTOs run £700 to £1,500 a day or £5,000 to £15,000 a month
What this means for a first CTO hire
If you are Series A to C and want someone who has already scaled a team and sat in front of a board, budget £140,000 to £200,000 base in London plus a real options grant. Below that you are hiring a strong Head of Engineering with the CTO title, which can be the right call if you say so in the brief.
We recruit CTOs, CIOs, VPs and Heads of Engineering for UK scaleups and PE-backed businesses, assessed for how they lead before what they have built. See technology leadership recruitment for the roles we fill, or read how we hire.
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