CFO salary benchmarks for consumer brands, UK 2026

Most of the consumer brands I work with are in London, and most of the CFO candidates are too, so the ranges above are London ranges in practice. Outside London the cash figure comes down, but less than you'd expect from the corporate finance salary guides. A startup CFO is hired from a small national pool of people who have done the job at this stage before, and that pool prices itself against London whether the company is in Manchester, Bristol or Edinburgh. Remote and hybrid working have narrowed the gap further since 2022.

The range on this page is a trade, not a menu. A candidate who takes the bottom of the cash range should be at the top of the equity range, and the reverse. Two offers for the same Series A role that are both at market:

£130,000 base and 1.0% of fully diluted equity. Heavier on cash. Suits a candidate with a mortgage and a young family who has already been through one exit and doesn't need to swing for another.

£120,000 base and 0.8% plus a 0.2% performance top-up tied to closing the next round. Suits a candidate who is backing the business and wants the upside for doing the raise.

What I look for in a candidate is which one they pick and how quickly. Someone who wants top cash and top equity hasn't understood the stage. Someone who takes the equity-heavy offer without asking about the last valuation, the option pool or the vesting schedule hasn't understood the equity.

Vesting at this stage is nearly always four years with a one-year cliff, granted under an EMI scheme where the company qualifies.

Base salary is not the cost. On a £120,000 base, employer's National Insurance at 15% above the secondary threshold adds roughly £17,000, a 3% pension contribution adds £3,600, and the option grant has its own cost in dilution and, if the scheme isn't EMI, in tax. With the option grant on top, the true cost of a Series A CFO is closer to £145,000 to £195,000 a year, before any bonus or search fee. A fractional CFO at two days a week is a day rate and nothing else, which is part of why the fractional route looks cheaper than it sometimes is. More on that in the guide on fractional or full-time.

If the honest list of what you need is a model, a board pack, clean books, VAT, payroll and a data room, that is a Head of Finance job and it comes in below the CFO range on this page. Hiring a CFO for it means paying £40,000 or more a year over the odds for someone who will be bored inside six months. The CFO earns the difference when a round is six to twelve months out, when there are multiple revenue lines to allocate capital across, or when the founder has no finance background and is raising £3 million or more. The guide on when to hire a CFO goes through the cases, and your first finance hire covers the step before it.

If you have been reading Carta or Pave, the numbers on this page will look low. US startup CFO cash compensation runs well ahead of the UK at the same stage, partly because US rounds are larger and partly because US executive pay is higher across the board. Equity percentages are closer between the two markets than cash is. A UK founder benchmarking against US data will overpay in cash; a US-trained candidate benchmarking a UK offer against Pave will be disappointed, and it is worth having that conversation early rather than at offer stage.

At Series B the CFO range moves up to £160,000 to £220,000, and the role changes shape, with more board work, more debt and M&A, and usually a Head of Finance underneath. At scale-up and established brands the role is closer to a corporate CFO, and London packages reach well past that. Our scale-up ranges are below.

For scale-up and established consumer brands, Robert Walters, CFO salaries UK 2026 puts a CFO at £190,000 - £300,000 (London).