Experienced practitioners embedded in your team, delivering hands-on project management without the commitment or overhead of a permanent hire.
You have a critical initiative that needs professional project management — a system implementation, a regulatory compliance programme with hard deadlines, a process transformation spanning multiple departments. You know this project needs dedicated project management leadership.
But hiring a permanent project manager creates real challenges: the project runs 6–9 months, demands vary week by week, and after completion you won't have sufficient work to keep a senior PM productively occupied. Recruiting takes 8–12 weeks when you need to start now.
Traditional options fail you. Consulting firms charge £800+ per day for junior resources supervised remotely by expensive partners. Freelance platforms leave you managing individual contractors with no backup and no quality assurance.
Our fractional project manager service solves these problems. We provide experienced project managers who integrate with your team for exactly the time you need — from one day per week for smaller initiatives to five days for complex delivery.
Most organisations hire talented people for their functional expertise. These individuals are brilliant at what they do, but they're not project managers. When asked to lead projects alongside their day jobs, they reinvent project management from first principles, struggle with stakeholder resistance, and can't proactively identify risks before they become crises.
Without dedicated oversight, timelines slip as competing priorities pull team members in different directions.
Scope creep goes unchallenged and uncosted, quietly turning a £200k project into a £320k one.
Based on your project type, sector, scale, and specific requirements, we identify the most appropriate practitioner from our associate network. You'll meet them before engagement begins — this is a genuine working relationship, not an anonymous resource placement.
Based on project complexity, phase, and intensity, we agree the appropriate level of engagement. This can flex as the project evolves — more intensive during initiation and key delivery phases, lighter during transition periods. You pay for what you actually need.
Your fractional PM joins your organisation as an embedded practitioner — attending your meetings, working in your systems, communicating through your channels. Not a remote consultant sending reports; part of your team for the days they're engaged.
Unlike a sole trader freelancer, your fractional PM has the support of The PM Office behind them. If your PM becomes unavailable, we can provide cover. They can draw on peer expertise when facing novel challenges. You have a single commercial relationship to manage.
We don't disappear at go-live. Your fractional PM sees projects through to proper closure — benefits realisation, lessons learned, handover to BAU, and team capability development. Projects properly closed, not just abandoned.
We build flexibility into our engagements. If your project needs more intensive support during a critical delivery phase, we can temporarily increase days. If a phase is lighter, we can reduce. We agree a framework upfront and adapt within it as project realities evolve.
Unlike individual freelancers, you have The PM Office behind your practitioner. If your PM is unavailable due to illness or other circumstances, we can provide cover to maintain project momentum — a significant advantage over engaging individual contractors.
Our practitioners are methodology-agnostic and pragmatic. They work within PRINCE2, Agile, MSP, hybrid approaches, or whatever framework best fits your context. They won't impose a methodology for its own sake — the right approach serves your specific project.
We typically work on a monthly retainer based on agreed days per week, invoiced monthly in advance. This gives you budget predictability. For shorter, clearly scoped assignments, we can also work on a fixed-price basis. We'll recommend what makes most sense for your situation.
A fractional project manager is an experienced PM who works with your organisation for a defined number of days per week — typically 1–5 days — for the duration of your project. They provide the same expertise as a full-time PM, without the commitment or cost of a permanent hire. This model suits organisations with specific projects that need professional management but not ongoing full-time resource.
Unlike an individual freelance contractor, a fractional PM from The PM Office comes with organisational backup. If your PM is unavailable, we provide cover. They have access to peer support, consistent methodology, and quality assurance. You also have a single commercial relationship rather than managing an individual contractor directly.
Fractional project managers work best for defined initiatives — system implementations, ERP rollouts, regulatory compliance programmes, process transformations, office moves, and technology change projects. Any project with a clear start and end date that needs professional management but doesn't justify a permanent hire.
Typically within 1–2 weeks of agreeing commercial terms. We match you with an appropriate practitioner, arrange an introductory meeting, and confirm engagement terms before starting. Much faster than the 8–12 week recruitment process for a permanent PM.