Free tool
Are you ready to hire a CFO or FD?
Sixty seconds on revenue, backing and what is coming up. Tells you whether it is time, and which seat.
Take the assessmentFor companies hiring finance leaders
Everything we have built for hiring a finance leader.
Free tools and guides for employers, organised by where you are in the hire. The tools use our own data on UK finance pay and the available market, and every figure says how many responses sit behind it.
Looking for your next role rather than hiring? Read our free career guides or send us your CV.
Planning your next finance hire
For when the next hire is months away and you are working out which role, when, and what it will cost.
Free tool
Which finance hire comes next?
For sitting CFOs and FDs: whether your next hire is a Financial Controller, a Head of Finance or a Head of FP&A, and when to make it.
Use the scorecard
How to Structure a Finance Team as You Scale
The finance roles, how teams are built stage by stage, and what each layer and each step up costs on the Finance Pay Index.
Read the guide →
What a CFO costs, October 2026
What a CFO costs right now, from Finance Pay Index salaries, by location, ownership and company size.
Read the guide →
What UK Finance Leaders Actually Earn
Verified UK finance salaries from the Finance Pay Index, and what ownership, company size and equity do to pay.
Read the guide →Starting the search
For when the role is agreed and you are about to write the spec, set the budget and go to market.
Free tool
Can't match the top salary?
Enter the role and what you can pay. See where it sits against comparable companies, then what closes the gap: bonus, equity, flexibility and who to target.
Check your budgetFree tool
Write the job description
The role, the business and what you need, marked essential or preferred. A full job description back, pitched to the level and ready to edit in Word.
Write itFree tool
What is your job spec costing you?
Paste your spec. See how much of the available market each essential line removes, then get the requirements rewritten.
Check your specFree tool
Build your interview kit
The role and what the hire is for, in. The areas to weight, the questions to ask, what good and bad answers sound like, and a scorecard, out.
Build the kit
Who You Can Actually Hire
How many senior finance people registered with Harper May in the last six months at each level, and how much of that pool each line of your spec removes.
Read the guide →
Hiring a Senior Finance Leader
Choosing the seat, reading a benchmark, running a two-stage process that keeps your first choice, and closing the offer.
Read the guide →
CFO Job Spec and Interview Scorecard
A fill-in CFO or FD job spec, a weighted interview scorecard with a decision rule, and example questions for each area. Print it or copy it into your own process.
Read the guide →
Choosing Your Next Finance Leader
Weight the interview to what the hire is for, score every candidate on one sheet, and confirm it with references. For CFO, FD, Head of Finance, FC and Head of FP&A hires.
Read the guide →
Hiring a Financial Controller
Controller, Head of Finance or Group FC? Which you need, what each costs on the Finance Pay Index, and how to brief, interview and onboard.
Read the guide →When someone leaves
For the week your finance leader resigns.
Your Finance Director Just Resigned
Your Finance Director Just Resigned
The first 72 hours, whether to refill the seat or change it, covering the gap, and how to run a search that finishes at the quick end.
Read the guide →Keeping your team
Retention is where the next hire comes from. These show where your team is exposed before anyone hands in a letter.
Free tool
Benchmark your finance team's pay
Send us each role and its basic. We compare every one against the market and flag anyone below the lower quartile. Free.
Request your benchmark
Why Finance People Leave
Finance Pay Index data on pay rises: 18% had no rise at their last review, and finance leaders were more than twice as likely as the middle of the team to miss out.
Read the guide →More guides
How Long a Finance Hire Actually Takes
63 completed searches, measured from first contact to an accepted offer
Read the guide →Work with Harper May
Three ways to put this to use.
Hiring a finance leader?
Send us the brief. We reply the same working day with a view on the market and how we would run the search.
Tell us about your vacancyWant the fortnightly brief?
Market reads, pay data and live roles, for the people who hire finance leaders. No fluff.
Subscribe free →Scoping a finance role?
Use our finance leader scorecard to pin down the remit, the must-haves and the pay range before you start.
Build your scorecard →