When the executive job market goes quiet, senior people start looking around. UK vacancies have fallen to 707,000 in the three months to May, the lowest since early 2021 on the Office for National Statistics June figures, and the next full-time director role is taking longer to arrive. So a thought that usually sits at the back of a senior mind moves to the front: perhaps it is time to take a board seat. Perhaps it is time to start building towards a plural career, a handful of non-executive roles held alongside one another in place of a single full-time job.
It is a sound instinct. A non-executive portfolio gives you income and a degree of independence from any single employer. What it will not give you is an easy start, because the first seat is the one almost nobody warns you about. That is the one I want to walk you through.
Why senior leaders are eyeing the boardroom now
The move towards non-executive work is driven partly by appetite and partly by a tighter market. Boards are hiring slowly, payrolled employee numbers have fallen by 138,000 over the year, and a full-time role is harder to land and harder to replace than it has been in some time. Against that backdrop, a spread of board seats starts to look like sensible insurance.
There is real demand on the other side. Board seats turn over: the average non-executive tenure across the FTSE 150 is 4.3 years, on the 2025 Spencer Stuart UK Board Index, so vacancies come free every year. Boards want commercial judgement, some real grounding in regulation and risk, and people who can question a chief executive without trying to run the company themselves. If you have led something substantial through a difficult period, you have most of what a nominations committee is looking for. The hard part is proving it to people who have never worked with you.
The first seat is the hardest to win
There is a catch, and most people hit it. Boards prefer non-executives who have already been non-executives. The expectations are particular, mistakes are visible to shareholders, and a committee carrying legal responsibility would sooner appoint someone whose conduct in a boardroom is already known. So the first appointment is harder to win than the second or the third, and plenty of accomplished executives stall here, surprised that thirty years of running things has not opened the door.
It is quieter than that, even. Most of these roles never reach a job board. Board appointments are largely filled through the networks of people already on boards and the search firms that work for them. If you are waiting to apply for a non-executive vacancy the way you applied for your last operating job, you will be waiting a long time. The real work happens earlier, in conversations, before a brief is ever written.
What a nominations committee is actually buying
This is where a lot of strong candidates go wrong. A board is not appointing you to do a slimmed-down version of your old job once a month. It wants independent judgement and the nerve to ask the difficult question in the meeting itself, while the decision can still be changed. The CV that wins executive roles sells what you have delivered. A board is looking for something else: someone who can hold management to account and advise them without trying to do their job.
So you need to present yourself differently, because a board profile reads nothing like the CV that won you your last executive role. Your non-executive CV and your executive biography need to put forward the things a chair cares about: how you have handled risk, audit, pay, succession, and difficult stakeholders. The committee also wants to see that you understand where holding management to account ends and doing their job for them begins. Get that wrong in your first meeting and there will not be a second board.
Build the case before you need it
The people who move into board work smoothly are usually the ones who started a couple of years before they needed to. Begin where the bar is realistic. A first appointment at an AIM-listed company, a private-equity-backed business, a charity, or a public body builds a record that a larger main-market board will later take seriously. Holding out for a FTSE 100 seat as your first is the surest way never to get one.
Treat the search as a campaign. Approaching it like a job application will stall you before you start. Tell the chairs, search consultants, and investors you already know that you are open to board work, and be specific about the sectors and the committee roles you can take on. Register with the firms that handle board mandates. Have your governance story clear, on paper and in person, before anyone asks for it. It is patient work that rewards preparation, which is why structured board advisory preparation and executive coaching usually earn their keep. If you are thinking about leaving executive life altogether, our executive career transition work covers the whole move. And if the interim route appeals as a quicker way to keep earning while you build, the piece on where senior hiring went this year is worth a read.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to win a first non-executive role?
Plan for the better part of two years, from starting to position yourself to being appointed. The people who move faster tend to be those who began the conversations while still in an executive role, with a clear governance pitch and a network that already knew they were available.
What does a non-executive role pay?
It varies widely by company size and workload. As a benchmark, the average non-executive retainer across the FTSE 150 was £82,314 in the 2025 Spencer Stuart UK Board Index. Smaller listed companies, private boards, and charities pay well below that. A first seat is rarely a money decision. Its real value is the record it builds, which makes the next two seats possible.
Do I need board experience to win a board seat?
You need evidence of board-relevant judgement, which is a different thing. Committee work, advisory roles, trusteeships, and any exposure to audit, risk, or pay all count. The point is to show a nominations committee that you will think like a non-executive from the first meeting.
Should my executive CV and my board CV be the same document?
No. They are written for different readers. An executive CV sells delivery and results. A board profile sells oversight, independence, and judgement. Leading with the wrong one is a common reason strong executives are quietly passed over for a first seat.
Moving into board work is one of the better decisions a senior leader can make, and a slow executive market is a sensible time to start. Go in with your eyes open. A strong CV that arrives cold rarely wins a first seat. The groundwork does: knowing the right people, having your governance story straight, and starting a year or two before the market forces your hand. Do that, and the first seat leads to the second, and the plural career you were picturing starts to take shape.
