The senior job that takes 10 hours a week

When a hospital buys a new surgical system, the manufacturer sends a specialist to stand in theatre for the first cases.

They're there for a few days. Sometimes a few weeks. They've seen hundreds of these systems go in. The theatre team has seen one. Theirs.

Nobody at the hospital thinks of that person as junior, or temporary, or between jobs. They're the reason the first month goes well.

A report I read this week describes the corporate version of that job. It's filling up with people at your level.

Let's dive in.

Fractional Jobs has published its Fractional Work Report for 2026, built on 1,733 survey responses plus the member profiles and job postings on its platform.

(Fractional Jobs, The Fractional Work Report 2026)

One caveat. This is a marketplace surveying its own market. It describes the people already doing this. It can't tell you how big it gets.

What caught my attention is the buying side.

HR for Humans interviewed Janel Abrahami, who tracks fractional and portfolio careers, on how companies should bring these people in. Her advice to employers is specific. Proper onboarding. Decision rights written down. Access to the data the work needs. A handover planned from the start.

She also wants it built into workforce planning as a standing question: build the capability internally, borrow it for a period, or hire it permanently.

And she expects it to go further. In her words: "working models are going to shift from full-time bodies on an org chart to planning in hours and outcomes."

So that's the trend. Employers are writing the operating manual for buying senior experience in 10-hour blocks.

If you're a Director in a corporate role, you already have a view of fractional work.

It's what people put in their headline between jobs. A few advisory days. A cushion. Something you could switch on if the worst happened.

I held roughly that view myself. I'd be careful with it now, for 3 reasons.

The first is that the work is hands-on. 91% execute. They build the thing they were brought in for.

Abrahami is clear about what the company is paying for: "pattern recognition from someone who's solved this problem elsewhere".

The second is that it's demanding. 6 months or more, working across teams, with real decisions to own. 10 hours where every hour has to count is harder than a full week with slack in it.

The third is the one that affects you even if you never go near it.

Once "borrow" is a standing option in the planning conversation, every permanent senior seat gets compared against it. Abrahami gives employers a simple test for that comparison. Does this work need to be architected, or does it need someone present?

Architected means a strategy, a system, the first version of a function. Present means the escalations, the recurring meetings, being reachable.

Most Director-level weeks are heavy on presence. I know mine were.

Presence is what makes you feel indispensable. It's also the part of your week with no buyer outside the building...

Back to the specialist in theatre.

Their value is their count. Hundreds of installs, in hospital after hospital. They know what goes wrong in week 2 because they've watched it go wrong before.

The theatre team is skilled, experienced and there every day. They have depth in one building. The specialist has repetitions across many.

Most of us have spent our careers as the theatre team. Present, trusted, deep in one organisation. That has real value. To that organisation.

The market in that report pays for the other thing. So the useful question is what you've done enough times that you'd recognise the pattern in someone else's business.

You probably have more repetitions than you think. A territory redesign. A product launch. An integration after an acquisition. A pricing reset. A team rebuilt after a restructure. Inside one company they all feel like "the job". Written down, they're a count.

So test one. This week:

1) Pick a problem you've solved more than once. Things you built or decided, rather than things you were responsible for. If you've done it 3 times in 3 different conditions, it qualifies.

2) Write it as a brief. 10 hours a week for 6 months. What gets built. Which decisions you'd need to own. What the team can run without you at the end.

3) Name who'd pass it on. In the same report, 72% of fractional workers found their first client through someone in their personal network, and 94% have won clients through network referrals. Who are the 3 people outside your employer who could describe that brief accurately? If you can't name them, that's where the work is.

None of this means resigning. A brief you can hand to someone is an option you hold while staying exactly where you are. In that report, 64% of fractional workers have 2 or more clients. More than one buyer for the same judgement. That's the bit worth borrowing, whatever you do with it.

This is the work Zelova is built for. The guide takes your actual career, finds the problems you've solved more than once, and helps you work out who else would pay for them and in what form. A board seat, a fractional role, a consultancy, or a stronger case for the full time position you're in if that’s where you want to stay. Built while you're employed, so the choice stays yours.

It's a career strategy service, still being built. If any of this feels close to home, the waitlist is open at zelova.ai.

If a company could have 10 hours of you a week for 6 months, what would you tell them to use it for?

Reply and tell me! The stories I receive from the audience are always interesting!

David