Fractional HR Director Services
Manchester & the North West
Modern Fractional and Outsourced HR for Ambitious North West Businesses, Without the Full-Time Cost.
Serving SMEs across Bolton, Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester.
CIPD Qualified Consultants
North West Based
No Long-Term Contracts
Typically Up and Running Within 2 Weeks
In short: A fractional HR director is a CIPD-qualified senior HR professional embedded in your business part-time, typically 1-3 days a week. You get director-level strategy, employment law compliance, and someone who knows your team by name and attends your leadership meetings. Cost: typically £1,500–£4,500 per month depending on scope. DaisyHR serves Bolton, Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire. No long-term contracts.
What Is a Fractional HR Director?
A fractional HR director is a senior HR professional who works with your business on a part-time, embedded basis, typically one to three days a week. You get director-level HR expertise, strategic input at leadership level, and someone who actually does the work. Not a hotline. Not a policy folder. A real person who knows your business and shows up.
It's become the go-to solution for North West SMEs that have grown past the point where managing HR by instinct is safe, but aren't yet at the scale where a full-time HR director at £80,000-plus makes sense. You get the expertise without the overhead, and the flexibility to scale that support up or down as your business changes.
The fractional model has been around in finance and marketing for years. HR is catching up fast, and the businesses adopting it earliest are the ones pulling ahead on talent, culture and compliance.
Fractional HR Director vs Your Other Options
Here's the Honest Comparison Most HR Consultancies Won't Show You.
Most growing businesses don't need an HR director five days a week. They need a brilliant one for two.
What Does a Fractional HR Director Actually Do?
This is the question we get asked most, and it's fair, because ‘HR’ means different things depending on who you speak to. At DaisyHR, your fractional HR director is responsible for outcomes, not just advice. That means:
Building Your People Strategy
Working with you at leadership level to align your HR approach with where the business is going, not where it was three years ago. Hiring plans, team structure, succession, culture. It all connects, and your fractional HR director holds the thread.
Handling the Difficult Stuff
Disciplinaries. Grievances. Performance management. Redundancies. TUPE. The situations that keep founders awake at night. We manage them properly, so they don’t become employment tribunal claims. And with the tribunal claim window doubling from three to six months in January 2027, getting these processes right has never mattered more.
Keeping You Legally Sound in 2026
Employment law in the UK changed significantly in December 2025 when the Employment Rights Act 2025 became law. Changes are rolling out through 2026 and into 2027.
SSP is payable from day one of absence, paternity leave is a day-one right, and the maximum protective award for failing to consult on redundancies has doubled to 180 days’ pay.
Unfair dismissal rights kick in after just six months of employment, meaning your hiring decisions, onboarding and probation processes all matter significantly more than they did before.
If your employment contracts and handbooks haven’t been reviewed since before December 2025, they are almost certainly out of date. Your fractional HR director fixes that.
Developing Your Managers
Most people problems in SMEs aren’t HR problems. They’re management problems that nobody’s addressed. We coach your line managers to have the conversations they’re avoiding, give feedback that lands, and lead teams that actually function. That investment compounds. Better managers mean fewer HR problems and lower staff turnover.
Building the Infrastructure You Don’t Have
Employment contracts that are actually fit for purpose in 2026. A handbook people read instead of ignore. An onboarding process that makes new starters feel they made the right choice on day one. Job descriptions. Appraisal frameworks. The bones of a professional HR function, built properly from the start.
How It Works: From First Call to Fully Embedded
We Keep This Simple. No Six-Week Discovery Phases. No 40-Page Proposals. Here's How It Actually Goes:
Free Consultation (30 Minutes)
You tell us what’s going on. We listen properly. No sales pitch, no jargon. We want to understand your business, your team, and what’s actually keeping you up at night before we suggest anything.
We Match You With the Right Person
Not whoever’s available, whoever’s right for your business. We consider your sector, your size, your culture, and the specific challenges you’re navigating. You meet them, ask hard questions, and decide if it’s the right fit. No pressure.
We Agree Scope and Start Quickly
Typically up and running within two weeks of your first call. We agree how many days per week or month makes sense, what the priorities are for the first 90 days, and what good looks like. You get a named consultant who shows up consistently.
We Get Embedded and Get on With It
Your fractional HR director attends your leadership meetings, gets to know your team, and starts delivering from day one. We don’t draft strategies and leave. We build, implement, and iterate alongside you.
You Scale as You Need
Growing fast and need more support? We flex up. Steadier period? We flex down. No contracts tying you to a fixed cost when your needs change. That’s the point.
How Much Does a Fractional HR Director Cost?
There's no single answer. The right level of support depends on the size of your business, where you are in your growth journey, and what you need to achieve. But we can give you a clear framework.
Light-Touch Strategic Support
From £1,500/month
Regular calls and check-ins, attendance at key leadership meetings, on-call HR advice, employment law compliance oversight. Suited to businesses between 10 and 30 employees that need a senior head above the parapet without a full weekly day commitment.
Embedded Fractional Director, 1 Day/Week
Typically £2,500–£4,000/month
On-site or hybrid presence, attends leadership meetings, manages live HR projects, handles employee relations issues, drives people strategy. This is the most common engagement for SMEs between 30 and 100 employees.
Higher-Intensity Engagements
Priced on scope
Restructures, rapid growth phases, TUPE, complex employee relations situations: where more days are needed temporarily. We price this transparently before you commit to anything.
What you don't pay: employer NI, pension contributions, benefits, holiday cover, sick pay, or time spent reading emails you didn't send. Everything is focused on outcomes.
Book a free consultation and we'll give you a clear, honest indication of what the right engagement looks like for your business, and what it costs, before you commit to a single penny.
Built for North West SMEs
DaisyHR works with businesses between 10 and 100 employees across Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Warrington, Wigan, Bury, Preston, Lancaster, Chester, and throughout Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire.
We're not for every business. We're for the ones that are serious about their people. Our clients typically look like one of these:
Founders and MDs Handling HR Themselves
Making decisions by gut feeling that should be backed by proper process. Had one near-miss with an employment situation and don’t want another.
Growing Businesses Going From 10 to 60 People
The way you managed people at 10 doesn’t work at 60. You need structure, career paths, a proper recruitment process, and someone who can hold the culture together through the growth.
Businesses Going Through Change
Restructures, acquisitions, rapid scaling, leadership transitions. These are the moments where poor HR is most expensive and good HR is most valuable.
Businesses With a Junior HR Person Who Needs Direction
Someone to provide the strategic steer, handle the complex cases, and be accountable for HR outcomes at board level.
Sectors We Serve
If you employ people in the North West and want HR that moves your business forward rather than just keeping you out of trouble, we're the right fit.
Employment Rights Act 2025: Is Your Business Ready?
The Employment Rights Act 2025 became law on 18 December 2025. The biggest shake-up to UK employment law in a generation is already rolling out.
What's changing RIGHT NOW for North West employers:
6 April 2026 – SSP payable from day one of absence (no more three-day wait). More employees now qualify.
6 April 2026 – Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave become day-one rights for all new starters.
6 April 2026 – Maximum protective award for failing to consult on redundancies doubles from 90 to 180 days’ pay.
6 April 2026 – New whistleblowing protections for employees reporting sexual harassment.
July 2026 – Unfair dismissal rights kick in after just 6 months. Every hire and every exit now carries significantly more risk.
January 2027 – Employment tribunal claim window doubles from 3 to 6 months.
Most SME employment contracts were written years ago and rolled forward with minimal updates. They almost certainly don't reflect these changes. A DaisyHR fractional HR director will audit your contracts and policies, identify the gaps, and fix them before they become claims.
What North West Businesses Say
Placeholder Testimonials. Replace With Real Client Quotes Before Launch.
“Placeholder testimonial – replace before launch. Focus on a concrete outcome, e.g. “navigated our first redundancy without a single tribunal claim”.”
[Client Name]
[Job Title]
[Bolton-based manufacturing firm, 45 employees]
“Placeholder testimonial – replace before launch. Focus on the embedded relationship, e.g. “feels like she’s part of the team, always available when something urgent comes up”.”
[Client Name]
[Job Title]
[Manchester professional services firm]
“Placeholder testimonial – replace before launch. Focus on cost vs value, compare to the full-time hire they considered and didn’t make.”
[Client Name]
[Job Title]
[North West technology company]
Who You'll Be Working With
Founder & HR Director
MCIPD · Fractional HR Director, Bolton & North West
Sam spent 10 years building HR functions in North West businesses, not just managing the day-to-day, but shaping how companies hire, develop and retain their people as they scale.
Before DaisyHR, she led HR across manufacturing, professional services and high-growth SMEs. The businesses where HR wasn't a support function. It was a commercial lever. She's seen what happens when companies get their people infrastructure right early, and what it costs when they don't.
She's also been in the room when it kicks off. Disciplinaries that escalate. Grievances that get personal. Redundancy programmes that need handling properly. That's the bit most HR consultants outsource or avoid. Sam runs toward it.
She started DaisyHR because she kept seeing the same gap: businesses that needed strategic HR thinking and someone who'd roll their sleeves up when required. Not one or the other. Both.
What Sam brings
- Helped growing businesses get their people structure right before it becomes a problem
- Workforce planning and organisational design that grows with you
- People strategy that connects to commercial goals
- The calm, experienced presence when difficult conversations need having
- CIPD Chartered (Level 7) with a specialism in employment relations
Bolton based. North West focused. Strategic when you need a plan. In your corner when you need backup.
Every DaisyHR consultant is CIPD qualified with a minimum of ten years' senior HR experience. We don't use generalists. We use people who've sat at the board table and navigated the exact situations our clients face.
Frequently Asked Questions
A fractional HR director is a senior HR professional who works with your business on a part-time or flexible basis, typically one to three days a week. You get director-level strategy, employment law expertise, and someone who’s genuinely embedded in your leadership team, without the full-time salary cost. It’s the model that growing SMEs across the North West are increasingly using to get proper HR in place before they can justify a permanent hire.
A consultant is typically brought in for a specific project or to solve a defined problem, then leaves. A fractional HR director is ongoing: they attend your leadership meetings, know your team by name, and are accountable for HR outcomes across the business. Think of it as the difference between hiring a solicitor to draft a single contract and having a legal director on your board.
Costs typically range from £1,500 to £4,500 per month for North West SMEs depending on scope and days. This compares to £75,000–£100,000 for a full-time HR director including salary, employer NI, pension and benefits. Most of our clients find that one day a week of fractional support covers the strategic and compliance needs of a business between 20 and 80 employees. We give you a clear cost before you commit to anything.
In most cases we can have a fractional HR director embedded with your business within two weeks of your first call. For urgent situations: an active disciplinary, a redundancy, or an immediate Employment Rights Act compliance concern, we can move faster. Contact us today and we’ll tell you honestly whether we can help and how quickly.
Yes. DaisyHR is based in Bolton and works across the whole of the North West: Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, and beyond. Our fractional HR directors are local to the region, which means they understand North West business culture and can be on-site when it matters. We also support businesses nationally where the engagement can be delivered remotely.
Fractional HR means a dedicated senior individual embedded in your leadership team on an ongoing basis: your fractional HR director attends your meetings, owns your HR strategy, and is accountable for outcomes. Outsourced HR is typically a team handling day-to-day HR administration and compliance. DaisyHR offers both, and many businesses use a combination: fractional HR director for strategy, outsourced support for the operational layer underneath.
No. We work on a rolling monthly basis with a short notice period. We don’t believe in tying clients to long-term contracts. You should stay because the service is excellent, not because you’re locked in. If it’s not working, we’ll say so before you do, and we’ll help you transition sensibly. No awkward exits.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 is rolling out significant changes throughout 2026 and 2027: including day-one rights for SSP and parental leave from April 2026, unfair dismissal rights after six months from July 2026, and tribunal claim windows doubling to six months from January 2027. Your DaisyHR fractional HR director will audit your contracts and policies, identify gaps, and implement the changes before they become legal exposure. We keep you ahead of it, not scrambling to catch up.
Talk to a Fractional HR Director in Manchester Today
You don't need to have everything figured out before you call. Most of our clients come to us because something's not right and they're not sure what to do about it: a people problem that's getting worse, an employment situation keeping them up at night, or just a sense that HR is a liability rather than an asset.
That's exactly what we're here for. Book a free 30-minute consultation. No obligation, no sales script.
Fractional HR director services across Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Warrington, Wigan, Bury, Rochdale, Preston, Lancaster, Chester, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire.
Last reviewed: March 2026