New - the 2026 edition
The State of
Fractional
Consulting.
Everyone agrees this market is growing. Almost nobody can tell you how they know, because the figures in circulation trace back to sources that do not survive being checked. So this report does not use them. It measures seven English-speaking markets from their own statistics offices and tax authorities, and says plainly what it cannot measure.
This is not an update of the 2025 report. It is a different report. Rebuilt from the ground up in September 2026 on a new evidence base, and the one figure it will not give you is a market size, because nobody measures one.
What is in it
Five parts, twelve chapters,
and a methodology page
that shows its working.
The supply side has already moved
UK managers, directors and professionals already self-employed, up 14.7 per cent since 2021. And 50.7 per cent of everyone self-employed in the UK is now a manager, director or professional - the picture of self-employment as trades and gig work is a decade out of date. ONS Annual Population Survey, with the equivalent series for the United States, Canada and Australia alongside it.
What an employer pays on top
Employment on-costs before anybody has been paid, highest to lowest: United States 20.0 per cent, United Kingdom 15.7, Australia 13.8, Ireland 11.4, Canada 3.6, New Zealand 3.5, South Africa 1.8. The gap is the commercial case for buying senior expertise a different way, and it is widening in four of the seven.
Pain-aware, and unable to name it
Eighty per cent of buyers know something hurts and have no idea what the real problem is. Fifteen per cent can name it. Five per cent know a solution exists and are shopping. Which is why the pitch has to be a diagnosis, and why most fractional positioning is written for the five per cent.
What a permanent hire actually costs
Median salary, employer national insurance and minimum pension, by function, for the UK - then the same arithmetic in dollars, Australian dollars and euro. The floor a client is comparing you against, in their currency, from their own statistics office.
What it deliberately leaves out
Every "demand for fractional CFOs is up 40 per cent" statistic in circulation. Each one was traced back, and all of them lead to a marketplace, a search firm or a marketing blog quoting itself. No independent body in any of the seven countries measures fractional demand by function, so the report does not pretend one does.
The seven mistakes
Underpricing, day-rate pricing, broad and generic positioning, no ideal customer, no product stack, going invisible, and content instead of conversations. Each one gets what it looks like from the inside, why it happens, the fix, and three questions to ask yourself.
Also inside
- Three ways this market pays: role, execution, retained advisory
- The safe transition, and the order it has to happen in
- Two practices in outline, over three and four years
- A page of figures you are free to quote, with sources
- Every legislated change already dated, across seven countries, to 2031
How it was built
The numbers and
the narrative come
from different places.
The figures come from government statistics offices and tax authorities: the ONS, HMRC and HM Treasury in the United Kingdom, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States, and the equivalent bodies in Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Every one is named in the sources, with the date it was published and the date it was read.
The narrative comes from twelve years of doing this work and from several hundred hour-long conversations with senior people at exactly this point. The quotes are Dan Gwalter's own words, taken from recorded calls and teaching sessions between 2024 and 2026. Nobody is named. Nobody is identifiable.
Those two things are kept separate on purpose, and the report says which is which on every page. It also carries a page on what it does not claim, a note on what is already dated, and a list of verification still open at publication. If a figure could not be checked, it is not in here.
More free resources
The Ultimate Guide to Fractional Consulting
The companion volume. The report measures the market; the guide is about making the move.
Get free access →The Consulting Playbook
Five practical frameworks in five days. Each one actionable on its own.
Start free →The Webinar Vault
Replays of every live masterclass. Pipeline, niche, positioning, and turning one lucky client into a system.
Watch free →Is fractional consulting saturated? takes the market question head on, from the same sources as the report. Fractionally Thinking goes out each Friday to 1,000+ operators.