Hire a Fractional CISO

A fractional CISO leads your company's security program on a part-time basis. They decide which risks matter most, set the policies and controls that protect your systems and customer data, and run the work it takes to pass audits and customer security reviews. Expect them to own frameworks like SOC 2 or ISO 27001, plan how the company responds to an incident, review the security of the vendors you rely on, and report on risk to the leadership team and board.

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A security consultant is usually hired for one defined project, such as a penetration test or a SOC 2 gap assessment, and a managed security provider monitors your systems and responds to alerts under a monthly contract. A fractional CISO owns the security program itself. They set the security roadmap and budget, decide what gets tested and monitored, and answer for the results to your leadership team and board.

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Fractional Jobs charges a one-time referral fee of $3,000 to $8,000 with no ongoing fees or commissions. Unlike recruitment agencies that charge a percentage of salary upfront, or marketplaces that take a 10% to 20% ongoing cut of your hire's earnings, Fractional Jobs does not sit in the middle of the relationship. You contract with and pay your fractional CISO directly, and own the relationship from day one.

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Security usually becomes urgent when it starts affecting revenue. A large customer sends a long security questionnaire, a prospect asks for a SOC 2 report you don't have, or investors raise security during due diligence. Other common triggers include handling health or financial data under rules like HIPAA, moving to new cloud infrastructure, and recovering from a security incident. If no one owns security and those requests keep landing on your CTO or founder, a fractional CISO can take them over.

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Security leadership is among the highest-paid fractional work. Fractional workers in IT and security report a median rate of $200 to $245 an hour, and 57% charge $200 or more, according to the Fractional Work Report 2026. On the hiring side, companies posting C-suite technology roles, which include CISO, CTO, and CIO positions, listed a median of $208 an hour. Your CISO's rate is paid to them directly and is separate from the one-time Fractional Jobs fee.

Look for someone who has taken a company your size through the framework you need, whether that's SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA. Ask which audits they've led, how long each took, and what the auditors flagged. Hands-on incident response experience matters, because a serious incident is when you'll rely on them most. They should also be comfortable directing the outside firms that handle testing and monitoring, and able to explain risk in business terms, since your leadership team will make budget decisions based on their advice.

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