Fractional CTO Services
Fractional CTO for UK Startups
Senior technical leadership without the full-time cost. I help UK startups build the right technology, hire the right people, and scale without the chaos. Part-time commitment, full-time expertise.
What You Get with a Fractional CTO
Technical Strategy
Architecture decisions, technology selection, and a roadmap that aligns with your business goals. No more building the wrong thing.
Team Leadership
Hiring, mentoring, and managing your engineering team. Building a culture that ships quality software and retains talent.
Investor Credibility
Technical due diligence preparation, board presentations, and the credibility that comes with experienced leadership.
Hands-On Support
Code reviews, architecture decisions, and debugging the hard problems. Not just strategy, but real technical contribution.
Why UK Startups Choose Fractional CTOs
Cost Efficiency
A full-time CTO in London costs £150,000-250,000 per year plus equity. A fractional CTO gives you the same expertise for a fraction of that, typically 1-3 days per week.
Immediate Impact
No 3-month recruitment process. No onboarding curve. Fractional CTOs bring experience from multiple companies and can start contributing from day one.
Flexibility
Scale up during critical periods like fundraising or product launches. Scale down when you need less support. No long-term commitment required.
Broader Experience
Fractional CTOs work with multiple companies. They have seen more problems, more solutions, and more patterns than someone who has only worked at one or two companies.
Who I Work With
Seed to Series B
Startups with 5-30 people who need technical leadership but cannot justify a full-time CTO yet. See our pricing to understand the options.
Non-Technical Founders
Founders who need a technical partner to translate business goals into engineering reality.
Teams in Transition
Companies between CTOs, scaling rapidly, or needing to restructure their technical organisation.
My Background
I am Mike Tempest, a fractional CTO based in London working with startups across the UK. My approach is what I call "business-first engineering" - technology decisions driven by commercial outcomes, not technical elegance.
Most recently, I was CTO at Risika, a Danish fintech. We went from burning VC cash to profitable in 18 months - not by writing better code, but by aligning engineering priorities with what actually moved the business forward.
Before that, I scaled RefME from zero to 2 million users as Head of Engineering before acquisition by Chegg. I have also worked with Google, Apple, and YouTube through Beyond, and led engineering at Critical Mass.
How It Works
1. Discovery Call
Free 30-minute call to understand your situation, challenges, and goals. No obligation, just an honest conversation about whether I can help.
2. Assessment
If there is a fit, I spend a day with your team to understand your technology, people, and processes. You get a written assessment with specific recommendations.
3. Ongoing Engagement
Typically 1-3 days per week, embedded with your team. I join your Slack, attend standups, run 1:1s, and own technical outcomes. Not a consultant who disappears - a team member who is not there every day.
Further Reading
Ready to Talk?
Book a free discovery call. No pitch, just an honest conversation about your technical challenges.
Book Discovery Call