Managing Director Job Description Guide

A Managing Director job description does a different job from almost every other one a business writes. Nobody at this level reads it to find out whether they could do the work. They read it to judge whether the business knows what it wants, whether the role carries the authority to deliver it, and whether the people who wrote it are being straight with them. A long list of responsibilities answers none of those questions, which is why so many MD job descriptions draw a thin response from exactly the candidates the board wanted to reach.

This guide is about how to write the document, not just what goes in it. For a standard summary of what a Managing Director does, see our Managing Director job description page. Here we cover the purpose of the role as it should be stated on paper, the sections that matter and the order to put them in, how to describe responsibilities, skills, qualifications, reporting lines and KPIs so they mean something, how the brief changes between an owner-managed business, a private equity-backed company and a subsidiary of a group, and a sample template you can adapt.

Start with the purpose of the role, not the duties

Every Managing Director is accountable for the performance of the business. Saying so in a job description tells a candidate nothing. What they need is the reason this particular appointment is being made now, and what the board expects to be different because of it. Before anyone drafts a word, the owner or board should be able to answer three questions in a sentence each.

• Why is the role open? A founder stepping back, a retirement, growth that has outrun the current leadership, a departure, an acquisition, a business that is underperforming. Each implies a very different job, and candidates will work out the real reason at interview anyway.
• What must be different in 12 to 24 months? Three outcomes at most, stated concretely enough that someone outside the business could tell whether they had been achieved.
• What can the appointee decide without coming back to the owner or the board? Pricing, hiring and firing senior people, capital spend, entering new markets. This is the most consequential part of the document and the part most often left out.

If those answers are not agreed, the job description is not ready to write. That is not a drafting problem. It is a sign that the brief is unsettled, and no amount of polish on the wording will hide it from an experienced candidate. Our guide on when to hire a Managing Director covers the decision that should come before the document.

It also helps to settle the title at this stage. Managing Director remains the usual title in owner-managed businesses, SMEs and UK subsidiaries; Chief Executive is more common in listed companies, investor-backed businesses and groups. Neither is more senior in itself, but the title affects who responds. Someone running a mid-sized UK manufacturer will read Managing Director as a comparable move, while someone from a PE-backed group may read it as a step down. Our comparison of Managing Director vs CEO sets out the differences in more detail.

The structure that works

Seven sections, in this order, and the whole document should fit on two pages. The order matters because it mirrors the order in which a strong candidate decides whether to keep reading.

• 1. The business, briefly and factually. Sector, turnover band, headcount, sites, ownership, how it makes money. Four or five sentences. Candidates want to know what they would be running, not how exciting it is.
• 2. Why the role exists now. The real reason, stated plainly. “Our founder is stepping back from day-to-day management after twenty years” tells a candidate more than a paragraph about strategic ambition, and it attracts people who want that specific challenge.
• 3. What must be different in 12 to 24 months. The outcomes section, covered in detail below.
• 4. Scope, reporting lines and authority. Who the MD reports to, who reports to them, P&L and balance sheet responsibility, approval limits, and whether the appointee will be a registered director.
• 5. Key responsibilities. Six to eight, grouped and specific to this business. Not twenty.
• 6. Experience, skills and qualifications. Three or four genuine requirements, each with a reason, then a short list of things that would help.
• 7. Package and process. Salary range, bonus and equity structure, location and working pattern, and how many stages the process has.

Withholding the package at this level filters out strong candidates rather than weak ones, because the strong ones have options and will not spend time on an unquantified opportunity. If you need a reference point for the range, our director salary guide is updated regularly. When we run Managing Director recruitment, settling these seven sections with the client is the first piece of work, before any candidate is approached.

Writing the outcomes section

This is where most MD job descriptions fail, so it is worth being precise about what good looks like. Weak outcomes describe activity; strong ones describe a change someone could check. The figures below are illustrations of the form, not benchmarks.

Weak	Strong
Drive sustainable growth across the business	Grow revenue from £18m to £30m without opening a second site
Build a high-performing leadership team	Appoint a Commercial Director and assess the existing senior team within six months
Improve operational efficiency	Establish cost to serve by customer, which the business cannot currently produce
Prepare the business for its next phase	Make the business saleable within three years, with the founder out of daily operations by month twelve

The right-hand column is harder to write because it forces the board to agree what it wants. That is the point. Once the outcomes are agreed, they also become the basis of the KPIs, the interview questions and the first-year objectives, so the effort is not wasted. If you can only state one outcome with confidence, state one. A single clear priority is more attractive to a capable MD than five vague ones.

Responsibilities: fewer, grouped and specific

Anyone qualified to be a Managing Director knows the role covers strategy, people, commercial performance and operations. Twenty bullet points restating that signals a document written by committee. Group the responsibilities under four or five headings and make each line specific to this business.

• Strategy and planning. Not “set the strategic direction” but “build and present a three-year plan to the board within the first six months, including the case for or against a move into the public sector market”.
• Commercial performance. Which revenue lines, which customers, which margins. If two customers account for most of the revenue, say so, because concentration risk shapes the job.
• Leadership and people. Name the direct reports and any known gaps. “The business has no Operations Director; the appointee will decide whether one is needed” is useful. “Lead and inspire the team” is not.
• Operations and systems. The specific operational issues the MD will inherit: a system migration, a site consolidation, a service backlog.
• Governance and stakeholders. Board reporting, lender or investor relationships, regulators where relevant, and the family or founder relationship where that applies.

Leave out “other duties as required”. It is standard in junior job descriptions and faintly absurd at MD level, where the whole business is the remit.

Skills, experience and qualifications

The most common mistake here is a list of twelve attributes that describes nobody. Dynamic, visionary, results-driven and hands-on apply to every candidate and filter none. Instead, state three or four requirements that genuinely matter and give the reason for each. For example: “Experience of running a business through a change of ownership, because the shareholders intend to sell within four years.” The reason tells candidates whether they fit, and it tells the interview panel what to probe. Our article on what makes a great Managing Director covers the qualities that tend to separate strong appointments from adequate ones.

If a personal quality truly matters, describe the situation rather than the adjective. “The founder remains chair and a majority shareholder, and will be in the building two days a week” tells candidates far more than “strong stakeholder management skills”, and the ones who would struggle with that arrangement will rule themselves out.

Be careful with formal qualifications. There is no qualification required by law to be a Managing Director. Requiring an MBA or a particular degree narrows the field without necessarily improving it, and a requirement that cannot be justified as relevant to the role risks being indirectly discriminatory. Where a qualification does matter, such as a professional accountancy qualification for an MD who will also cover the finance function in a small business, or sector-specific credentials in a regulated industry, say why. Otherwise put qualifications under “helpful” rather than “essential”.

Reporting lines, authority and the statutory position

State who the MD reports to, by role rather than name: the board, the chair, the owner, a group CEO, an investor director. Then list the direct reports. If the reporting line is unusual, for example an MD reporting to a founder who remains executive chair, describe how the split of responsibilities is intended to work. Candidates will ask, and an honest answer on paper saves time on both sides.

Then set out the authority. Approval limits for capital and operating spend, whether the MD can appoint and remove senior managers, who signs off pricing, and which decisions are reserved to the board or shareholders. If the owner is not yet ready to let go of pricing, capital or senior hiring, write that down rather than implying an autonomy that will not be given. Some very good candidates will accept a constrained brief if it is stated openly. Very few stay once they discover it after joining.

Finally, say whether the appointee will be a registered company director. It is a material term and many MD job descriptions leave it out. A registered director takes on the statutory general duties in sections 171 to 177 of the Companies Act 2006, including the duty to act within powers, to promote the success of the company, to exercise independent judgement and reasonable care, skill and diligence, and to avoid and declare conflicts of interest. GOV.UK explains what being a company director involves in practice. Since 18 November 2025, new directors have also had to verify their identity with Companies House before they can be appointed, which is worth mentioning in the process section so it does not delay a start date. Someone who acts as a director without formal appointment may be treated as a de facto director in any case, so being explicit, and settling directors’ and officers’ insurance before the offer, avoids a difficult conversation later.

KPIs: how the MD will be measured

A short KPI section shows candidates that the board has thought about how it will judge success, and it gives the eventual appointee a clear first-year contract. Take the KPIs from the outcomes section rather than inventing a separate list, and keep them to five or six. Typical areas include:

• Financial: revenue, gross margin, EBITDA, operating cash flow, working capital.
• Commercial: customer retention, new business won, concentration of revenue among the largest customers.
• People: senior team appointments made, staff turnover, engagement measures the business already tracks.
• Operational: delivery performance, quality, health and safety, or whatever the business genuinely runs on.
• Strategic milestones: a plan approved by the board, a system implemented, an acquisition integrated, the business made ready for sale.

You do not need to publish the targets in the job description itself. Naming the measures is enough, and the numbers can be shared with shortlisted candidates. What matters is that the measures in the document match the ones in the bonus scheme. A mismatch between the two is one of the first things an experienced MD will spot.

How the brief changes by type of business

The same title covers quite different jobs depending on who owns the business. The job description should make the ownership context obvious, because it shapes the authority, the pace and the kind of person who will succeed.

Owner-managed and family businesses

The first external MD in an owner-managed business is usually taking over decisions the founder has made personally for years. The job description needs to be candid about where the founder will sit afterwards, which decisions are moving across and on what timetable, and whether family members work in the business. Candidates who have done this before will look for evidence that the owner genuinely intends to let go; those who have not often underestimate how hard it is. Succession is frequently the real driver, and our guide to Managing Director succession planning covers that side of it.

Private equity-backed companies

In a PE-backed business the MD works to an investment plan with a defined holding period and an exit in view. The job description should state the value creation priorities, the reporting rhythm to the investor board, the expected management equity or incentive arrangement in outline, and the likely exit route if it is known. The pace is faster and the scrutiny closer, and candidates without prior investor-backed experience should be told plainly what that means. In this setting the title is often Chief Executive rather than Managing Director, which is worth considering before the brief goes out.

Subsidiaries of a group

A subsidiary MD runs a business within limits set elsewhere. The job description should be specific about the group reporting line, which functions are provided centrally (finance, HR, IT, procurement), what the local MD controls, and how capital is allocated across the group. It should also say whether the MD will sit on the subsidiary’s statutory board, since a subsidiary director owes duties to that company, not just to the group. Candidates from standalone businesses sometimes find the constraints frustrating, while those from large groups may need more support with commercial autonomy; the document should attract whichever profile suits the structure.

Where the business needs leadership quickly or for a defined period, for example while a permanent search runs or through a sale, an interim Managing Director may be the better first step, and the job description should be written to that brief instead.

Sample Managing Director job description template

Use this as a framework rather than a form to fill in. Replace every bracketed item with something specific to your business, and delete any section you cannot complete honestly.

A completed version of this should run to about two pages. If it is longer, the extra length is almost always in the responsibilities list, and that is the first place to cut.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Copying the outgoing MD’s job description. It describes the job as it was, not the job the business now needs.
• Marketing language about the company. Exciting, dynamic, market-leading. Candidates at this level are assessing the business, and unsupported superlatives make them more sceptical, not less.
• Describing an untroubled business. Experienced candidates know that most MD appointments happen because something needs to change. A description that admits nothing is wrong is usually discounted.
• Leaving out the authority section. It is the part candidates care about most and the part most often missing.
• Writing it after the search has started. The document’s most valuable job is forcing the owner or board to agree the brief. Done afterwards, it simply records disagreements that have already confused candidates.

The Institute of Directors publishes useful material on the responsibilities of a director, which can help owners and first-time MDs understand what the appointment involves beyond running the business day to day. If the business needs senior leadership for only part of the week, a fractional Managing Director brief follows the same principles with a narrower scope. And when you are ready to move from document to search, our MD recruitment team can take the brief from there.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a Managing Director job description be?

About two pages. Longer documents bury the sections that matter, which are why the role exists, what must change and what authority it carries, behind responsibility lists that add little for a candidate at this level.

Should the salary range be included?

Yes. At MD level, withholding the range tends to deter the strongest candidates, who have other options. A range with the bonus and any equity or incentive structure indicated in outline is enough.

What are the most important sections?

Why the role exists now, what must be different in 12 to 24 months, and what the appointee can decide without returning to the board. Most MD job descriptions leave out at least two of the three.

Should it say whether the MD will be a company director?

Yes. Appointment as a statutory director brings duties under the Companies Act 2006 and personal exposure, and it is a material term. Confirm the position, and directors’ and officers’ insurance, before making an offer.

Is a job description still needed if a search firm is running the process?

Yes, though its purpose shifts. It becomes the document that makes the board agree what it wants before candidates are approached, and that is the most useful thing it does, whoever sends it out.