Operations Director vs COO: Salary, Scope and When a Founder Needs One
'I need a COO' usually means one of two things: the founder is drowning in the day to day, or an investor has said the word. Those are different briefs, and only one of them is a COO.
The difference
Operations Director: runs a defined operational function within an allocated budget. Rarely on the main board
COO: cross-functional authority over every operational pillar, calls decisions between functions, sits on the exec team and usually the board, and fronts investors, lenders and major customers
What each costs in the UK in 2026
Operations Director, SME: £68,000 to £95,000 base, £90,000 to £130,000 total employer cost
Operations Director, mid-market: £95,000 to £128,000 base
COO, SME: £100,000 to £160,000 base
COO, mid-market: £160,000 to £250,000 base
Fractional COO: £3,500 to £6,000 a month, which is where most businesses under £15m revenue should start
When a full-time COO makes sense
Around £15m revenue and 50 plus people, with multiple operational pillars that need one owner
The CEO needs to be externally focused for the next 12 to 24 months: fundraising, M&A, key accounts
An acquisition needs integrating and nobody owns it
100 plus people and the operating rhythm (planning, reporting, cadence) has stopped working
When it is really an Operations Director, or a Chief of Staff
The pain is one function: delivery, customer operations, supply chain. That is an Operations Director or Head of Operations
The pain is the CEO's own bandwidth and the exec team's cadence, not a function. That is a Chief of Staff, and it is a fraction of the cost
The mistake we see most
Hiring a COO as a 'number two' with no defined pillars, then wondering why the two most senior people in the business keep colliding. A COO needs a remit written down before the search starts.
We recruit COOs, Operations Directors, Heads of Operations and Chiefs of Staff for UK scaleups and PE-backed businesses, hired for how they run things when the plan changes. See operations leadership recruitment for the roles we fill, or read how we hire.
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