CTO - what salary/package would you expect?

[SalaryHelp]

I'm currently a senior manager in a big tech firm. Typical pay is around £120k+, depending on experience, team size, etc etc.

I'm interested in being CTO. As a tangible example, it could be a smallish company of around 50 employees (with 30% of those reporting to me).

I have an idea of the package to expect and negotiate for in my current role. But if I make this shift to CTO(for which I have the skills), I have no idea what to expect in the negotiation. This puts me in a very weak position.

Responsibility would be more. But often expect smaller companies to pay less. Perhaps more as stock.

Does anyone have experience they can share? Thanks

About the same tbh.

The example I gave was for a relatively small organisation, often it helps to have a tangible example for people to work with. If you have experiences with different sized organisations, then that's useful too (just please share the context to help paint a picture). Thank you

I would expect pay to be somewhat proportional to revenue, and also affected by the dependency of revenue on tech. In other words, you will be paid more if what you do affects the bottom line.

CTO in a 50 person fintec startup … £200k plus stock options

CTO in a 50 person bicycle manufacturer… £40k

Thank you, sounds similar to working in the tech department of a similar sized team in that industry.

How do you figure out how much stock options to negotiate for?

In my industry, bonus and LTI (stock linked long term incentive) is relatively similar at the job grade across companies. I'd expect about 30% bonus and 25% LTI in my corporate job. Is it probably a similar expectation? Or would you take some additional factors in to account?

Thank you! Helpful comments so far 🙂

I’m recruiting for a CTO right now, £80k-£100k. We’re brand new <20 employees.

I agree it's tied to how important tech is to company revenue. Where I work is totally dependant on tech developments for us to grow revenue (and also to improve profit margins), the CTO is on £160k. Not sure of their bonus but I'd imagine it's at least 50% and LTI 100%.

This is from a 2023 salary guide from a recruitment agency, I don't know where you are so it's set to national average

Who owns the company? That will matter.

Thank you all. I might have guessed that people at CTO level were paid a fair bit more than myself sure to the extra responsibilities and challenges. My job in a big corporate is quite straightforward and low risk. So would expect my compensation to be much lower.

I have previously worked at an investment bank and so again assumed CTOs could easily be paid a similar amount to high paid roles in investment banks.

Seems my expectations are way off.

It’s not about the responsibility of the job it’s about the context of the business. Small <50 people businesses are never going to be able to afford the salaries that much larger companies have.