State of Fractional Data Leadership 2027

The first annual benchmark of what fractional data leaders charge, how engagements are structured, and where the work comes from.

Data collection open through November 2026. First edition publishes January 2027.

I work fractionallyTake the survey (6 min)

What the report will answer

What a fractional data leader actually costs per month — and what that buys in days
How rates differ across the US, UK, EU, and the rest of the world
Whether rates are rising, and by how much
How engagements are structured: retainer, day rate, project, equity
Where fractional data leaders find clients — and which channels actually work
What buyers get wrong when they hire one

Who's behind this

I've run data teams for over a decade, the last few years fractionally, and every rate conversation I've had started from a guess. This is the first annual edition of the benchmark I wanted to exist: real numbers from the people doing the work.

Nick Valiotti · linkedin.com/in/valiotti

What you get for taking part

Early access. The full dataset before the public launch.
A free listing in the Fractional Data Leaders Directory — a public directory of practitioners, launching with the report and maintained through the year.
Your numbers in context. We'll tell you where your rate sits against the sample.

How we're doing this

Target sample: 100+ practitioners, floor of 60.
Three sources: the survey, 15–30 in-depth interviews, and public rate data.
We publish our rules before we publish the numbers: no figure is reported on fewer than 15 responses, and no metric is cut two ways at once.
Full methodology, including sample composition by channel, ships with the report.

Privacy

Rates data is published in aggregate only. Every figure in the report is a median or a range across the full sample or across groups of at least 15 people. Individual answers are never shown, quoted, or attributed. Nothing is attributed to you unless you separately opt in.