Director of Search Marketing

Director of SEO Executive Search

Recruiting a Head of SEO, Director of Search Marketing, or Head of Performance Marketing is one of the most commercially sensitive appointments a digital-first business can make. Search — organic and paid — is the primary acquisition channel for most UK businesses that sell online. The person leading it determines whether that channel is a competitive advantage or a constant source of missed opportunity. Getting the appointment right compounds in value from day one. Getting it wrong — appointing someone who cannot translate search expertise into commercial outcomes, or who is the wrong level for the complexity of the search programme — costs months and significant budget before the problem becomes undeniable.

Exec Capital places senior search marketing leaders for UK businesses on a permanent, interim, and fractional basis. Roles we recruit include Head of SEO, Head of Paid Search, Head of Performance Marketing, Director of Search Marketing, VP Search, and Search Marketing Director. Every search is led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA.

From Adrian Lawrence: “The search marketing brief is one where title inflation is a genuine problem. Every business wants a ‘Head of SEO’ but the actual requirement ranges from a hands-on technical SEO manager to a strategic search leader who sets the vision, manages an agency, and reports to the CMO. Getting clear on which of those you actually need — and at what seniority level — is the work we do before we start searching. A misspecified brief in this discipline produces a mismatched hire, and in a channel this commercially important, that matters.”

Understanding the Titles: Head of SEO, Search Director, and Performance Marketing Lead

Search marketing leadership titles are inconsistently used across the UK market. A business recruiting in this space needs to understand what the different titles typically represent — and more importantly, what level of seniority, channel breadth, and commercial accountability its own role actually requires — before agreeing a brief with a recruiter.

A Head of SEO is typically the most senior individual in an organic search function — responsible for the SEO strategy, the technical SEO programme, the content strategy insofar as it serves organic visibility, and the team or agency resources that deliver it. In businesses where SEO is the primary acquisition channel, the Head of SEO can be one of the most commercially impactful roles in the marketing function. The breadth of expertise required is significant: technical SEO, content strategy, link acquisition, analytics, and the commercial orientation to connect search performance to revenue.

A Head of Paid Search or Head of PPC leads the paid search function — managing the paid search budget across Google Ads, Bing, and associated channels, overseeing the bid management strategy, and ensuring paid search investment is generating commercial return at target cost per acquisition. In businesses with significant paid search budgets, this is a specialist role with a dedicated team rather than a shared responsibility within a broader marketing function.

A Head of Performance Marketing typically has responsibility for the full performance marketing mix — paid search, paid social, affiliates, and display — within a unified commercial framework. This broader remit is increasingly common as businesses move away from channel-specific leadership and towards integrated performance measurement across all paid acquisition channels.

A Director of Search Marketing or VP Search is a more senior designation — sitting above Head of SEO or Head of Paid Search, with strategic accountability for the overall search function including both organic and paid channels, the search marketing budget, and the agency and technology relationships that support it. At this level, board communication, commercial strategy, and team leadership are as important as channel expertise. For marketing leadership at the broadest level, see our CMO recruitment and Marketing Director recruitment pages.

When Should a Business Hire a Head of SEO or Search Director?

The most common triggers for a senior search marketing appointment include:

• Search is the primary acquisition channel and it is being managed below its potential: A business generating most of its leads or revenue through organic or paid search but managing the function through a junior in-house team or a generalist agency without dedicated senior oversight is leaving commercial opportunity on the table. A Head of SEO or Search Director who owns the function at the right level — setting the strategy, managing the channel relationships, and connecting search performance to commercial outcomes — typically generates a return on their salary within months in a search-driven business.
• An agency relationship needs in-house leadership: Many businesses manage their SEO or paid search entirely through agencies without any in-house search expertise. When the agency relationship needs managing more effectively — when the business needs to understand what it is buying, challenge the strategy, and own the performance data — an in-house Head of SEO or Performance Marketing lead is the appropriate appointment.
• Rapid growth through digital channels: A business scaling its digital revenue significantly needs search leadership that can scale the search function alongside the commercial ambition — managing increasing budgets, more complex technical environments, and a larger content and link acquisition operation.
• Algorithm exposure or search penalty: A business that has experienced a Google algorithm-driven traffic decline needs search leadership with the technical and strategic depth to diagnose the cause and execute the recovery. This is one of the most common drivers of interim Head of SEO appointments — the situation is urgent and the cost of inaction compounds daily.
• Private equity investment: PE investors in digital businesses typically identify search as a primary traffic and revenue lever early in their ownership. A Head of SEO or Performance Marketing leader who can accelerate search channel performance, build the analytics infrastructure, and operate in the data-driven PE reporting environment is often a priority appointment. See our private equity recruitment capability.

What Does a Head of SEO or Director of Search Marketing Do?

Organic Search Strategy and Technical SEO

The Head of SEO owns the organic search strategy — the keyword targeting framework, the content architecture, the technical SEO programme, and the link acquisition strategy that collectively determine the site’s organic visibility in search engines. Technical SEO encompasses site architecture, crawlability, Core Web Vitals performance, structured data, canonical management, and the ongoing resolution of technical issues that suppress organic rankings. A Head of SEO who can both set the strategic direction and interrogate the technical implementation — either directly or through a technical team — is significantly more effective than one who can only operate at one level.

Google’s quality assessment framework — summarised as Helpful Content and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) — is the primary framework within which senior SEO leaders operate when building sustainable organic performance. A Head of SEO who understands E-E-A-T and how to build genuine topical authority across a site is more valuable than one who focuses primarily on technical signals.

Paid Search and Performance Marketing

The Head of Paid Search or Performance Marketing manages the paid acquisition budget across search and social channels — structuring campaigns, managing bid strategies, overseeing creative testing, and ensuring the business is acquiring customers at target efficiency. In businesses with significant paid search budgets, the quality of the bid management strategy and the rigour of the performance analytics directly determine whether paid search is profitable or a drain on the P&L. Senior paid search leaders who have managed six and seven-figure monthly budgets at target CPA or ROAS are a specific and relatively scarce candidate profile.

Analytics, Attribution, and Commercial Reporting

Senior search marketing leaders are expected to build and interpret the analytics infrastructure that measures search performance — connecting organic and paid search activity to revenue, managing attribution models, and providing the marketing leadership and board with accurate, commercially meaningful reporting. This includes oversight of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) implementation, search console management, and the integration of search data into the broader marketing analytics stack. The Google Analytics Academy framework and the Google Ads certification programme represent the foundational technical standards at this level.

Content Strategy for Search

In most businesses, organic search performance is as much a content challenge as a technical one. The Head of SEO or Search Director typically owns or heavily influences the content strategy — defining the topics the business should establish authority in, the formats that best serve search intent, and the production and distribution process that generates content at the scale organic search requires. Working with the content and editorial team to align content production with search intent is one of the highest-leverage activities a Head of SEO performs.

Agency and Technology Management

Most senior search marketing leaders manage a combination of in-house resource and agency support — SEO agencies, paid search agencies, technical SEO consultants, link building specialists. Managing these relationships effectively — briefing clearly, evaluating output critically, and negotiating commercially — is a significant part of the role. Candidates who have managed agency relationships on both the client side and agency side bring a particularly useful perspective.

Head of SEO Recruitment by Sector

E-Commerce and Retail

E-commerce SEO is one of the most technically demanding search specialisms — managing large-scale product catalogues, faceted navigation, dynamic URLs, and the commercial optimisation of category and product pages at scale. Heads of SEO in retail businesses need specific experience of e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, or enterprise equivalents), category page optimisation, and the integration of organic and paid search in a unified acquisition strategy. The IMRG provides useful context on UK digital retail performance benchmarks.

Financial Services

Search marketing in FCA-regulated businesses is constrained by the FCA’s financial promotions rules — all paid search ad copy and organic content that constitutes a financial promotion must be approved by an authorised person or the firm itself if directly authorised. Heads of SEO and Performance Marketing in regulated businesses need to understand these constraints and work effectively within them. They also typically operate in highly competitive search environments — financial services keywords carry some of the highest CPCs in UK paid search — where the quality of strategy and execution determines whether the channel is commercially viable.

Technology and SaaS

SaaS businesses typically compete for search visibility in highly specific, intent-driven keyword spaces — product category terms, competitor terms, and long-tail problem-solution searches. A Head of SEO or Growth Marketing leader with SaaS-specific search experience understands the product-led content strategy, the conversion optimisation discipline, and the integration of search with product marketing and free trial acquisition that characterise the highest-performing SaaS search programmes.

Media and Publishing

Media and publishing businesses depend on organic search for a significant proportion of their audience reach — and are particularly exposed to Google’s evolving quality assessment signals, including E-E-A-T. A Head of SEO in a media context needs specific experience of editorial SEO, news SEO, and the governance of large-scale content estates where quality and topical authority are the primary organic performance levers.

Permanent, Interim, or Fractional Head of SEO?

Permanent Head of SEO or Search Director — appropriate where the business needs sustained search leadership over a multi-year horizon. Permanent searches in this discipline typically take six to ten weeks from brief to appointment — faster than most director-level searches because the candidate pool is more identifiable and the assessment process more technical.

Interim Head of SEO — appropriate for covering a departure, managing an algorithm recovery programme, leading the search workstream during a site migration, or bridging while the permanent search is conducted. Site migrations are one of the most common triggers for interim Head of SEO appointments — the risk of organic traffic loss during a migration is significant and requires experienced dedicated oversight that most businesses do not have in-house. For interim appointments more broadly, see our interim executive recruitment service.

Fractional Head of SEO or Search Director — appropriate for businesses in the £3m–£20m revenue range that need senior search leadership but do not yet have the scale to justify a full-time appointment. A fractional Head of SEO can set the search strategy, manage the agency relationship, oversee the technical programme, and provide the commercial search oversight the business needs, at a cost proportionate to its current stage.

Head of SEO Salaries: UK Market Rates 2026

• Head of SEO — SME / growing e-commerce: £55,000–£80,000 base salary
• Head of SEO — mid-market or agency-side director: £75,000–£110,000 base salary
• Head of Performance Marketing — mid-market: £80,000–£120,000 base salary
• Director of Search Marketing / VP Search: £100,000–£160,000 base salary depending on channel breadth and business size
• Interim Head of SEO — day rate: £350–£700 per day depending on seniority and assignment complexity
• Fractional Head of SEO — monthly retainer: Typically equivalent to 1–2 days per week at market rates

Exec Capital provides market rate benchmarking as part of every search brief. For broader marketing leadership compensation context, see our Marketing Director recruitment page.

What to Look for When Hiring a Head of SEO

Commercial orientation, not just channel metrics: The Head of SEO should be able to connect organic search performance to revenue — not just rankings and traffic. Candidates who lead with position 1 rankings and domain authority growth without connecting them to commercial outcomes are not operating at Head of SEO level regardless of their technical credentials. Ask specifically what revenue impact their organic search work generated, and how they measured it.

Technical depth that matches your environment: A Head of SEO managing a 500,000-page e-commerce site needs different technical skills to one managing a 200-page professional services site. Assess candidates against the specific technical complexity of your own environment — platform, site scale, international domains, CMS constraints — rather than against a generic technical SEO checklist.

Algorithm history and recovery experience: The most valuable Heads of SEO are those who have navigated Google algorithm updates — who have experienced significant organic traffic changes, diagnosed the causes, and executed the recovery or capitalisation strategy. Ask specifically about major algorithm updates the candidate has navigated and what they did in response.

Agency management capability: If the business uses an SEO or performance marketing agency, the Head of SEO will be the primary relationship manager. The ability to brief an agency clearly, evaluate their strategy critically, and manage the commercial relationship is as important as the technical knowledge — and it is much rarer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should we hire in-house or use an agency for senior search leadership?

For businesses where search is a primary acquisition channel — where organic or paid search drives a significant proportion of revenue — in-house senior leadership almost always delivers better commercial outcomes than agency-only management. The in-house Head of SEO has a depth of context about the business, its customers, and its commercial model that an agency cannot replicate. They also provide accountability for outcomes that an agency relationship typically does not. The right model for most businesses is an in-house Head of SEO overseeing one or more specialist agencies — combining internal strategic ownership with external specialist execution.

What is the difference between a Head of SEO and a Head of Growth?

A Head of Growth typically has a broader acquisition remit — covering multiple channels including SEO, paid, content, partnerships, and product-led growth — with an emphasis on experimental, data-driven optimisation across the full acquisition funnel. A Head of SEO is more specifically focused on organic search. In technology and SaaS businesses, Head of Growth is increasingly the preferred title for the senior acquisition leader; in retail and media businesses, Head of SEO remains more common. The right title for your appointment depends on the scope of the role and the seniority of the individual required.

How do we assess a Head of SEO candidate’s technical capability?

The most reliable assessment combines a structured technical discussion — covering site architecture, crawl management, Core Web Vitals, schema implementation, and log file analysis — with a practical exercise such as reviewing a site audit or an analytics report and describing what the candidate would prioritise and why. Reference conversations specifically targeting former colleagues who worked on technical SEO alongside the candidate are also valuable. Exec Capital can advise on structured technical assessment frameworks for Head of SEO appointments.

Related Digital Marketing Leadership Appointments

• Marketing Director Recruitment — senior marketing leadership including digital channels
• CMO Recruitment — Chief Marketing Officer appointments
• Fractional CMO — part-time CMO for scaling businesses
• Director of Digital Recruitment — broader digital leadership including product and data
• Interim CMO — interim Chief Marketing Officer appointments

Related Director and C-Suite Appointments

• CEO Recruitment
• Commercial Director Recruitment
• CTO Recruitment
• All Director Appointments

Sources and Further Reading

• Google — Helpful Content and E-E-A-T guidance for search quality
• Google Analytics Academy — GA4 certification and training framework
• Google Ads — Certification programme and best practice guidance
• FCA — Financial promotions rules for search marketing in regulated businesses
• IMRG — UK e-commerce performance data and digital retail benchmarking
• ICO — PECR compliance for digital marketing and paid search
• HMRC — IR35 guidance for interim search marketing engagements

Salary benchmarks on this page reflect UK market data as at Q1 2026 and are indicative only. Actual compensation is agreed on a per-engagement basis.