picked.ai/hire/head-of-operations
Hire a head of operations
How to hire a
head of operations.
Salary bands, time-to-fill, what good actually looks like, and the assessment we put every candidate through. Built on nine years of validated psychometric data from Neuroworx.
Post this role
~30 seconds
Title, level, three must-haves. We syndicate, screen, score, and shortlist. First 50 candidates free.
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£105,000
Median salary · United Kingdom
£90-£130k senior range
42d
Typical time-to-fill
down to 4.2d with Picked
184
Applicants per role
Series A · public posting
9 / 184
Make it to interview
industry · pre-AI screening
Salary bands
What it costs to hire one.
2026 H1 · base + variable
LevelUSUKEURemote
Ops manager$82-$115k£52-£72k€55-€78k$70-$98k
Senior ops manager$115-$160k£72-£98k€78-€108k$98-$135k
Head of ops, seed$140-$200k£90-£130k€100-€142k$120-$170k
Head of ops, Series B$200-$285k£130-£175k€142-€190k$170-$240k
VP / COO$285-$420k£175-£260k€190-€285k$240-$360k
Source · 2,847 anonymised offers placed via Picked Q4 2025 to Q1 2026. Updated monthly.
What good looks like
Past credentials. Present signals.
01
Systems instinct
Sees the whole company as one funnel and one balance sheet. Can name the three places cash gets stuck this week.
02
Bias for the boring
Will fix a poorly-named expense category before suggesting a re-org. Knows the leverage is downstream of the boring.
03
Comms across functions
Writes the same memo for the CEO, the CFO, and the engineer. Has been the bridge between three people who would rather not talk.
04
Operational triage
Can name which fires to fight today and which to let burn until Friday. Has lost the ability to fight every fire and replaced it with a system.
05
Quiet ambition
Does not need a quarterly all-hands moment to feel they shipped. The thing they are proudest of is invisible to the org.
Nine years of Neuroworx outcome data on 14,000 head of operations hires says: the candidates rated high on systems instinct + comms across functions outperform high-prestige-CV candidates by a wide margin in the first twelve months.
Read the paper →
What Picked puts every candidate through
Four stages. Each one written down.
From the Neuroworx item bank · 1,247 items live
01
Triage
CV + cover screened against must-haves. Title, level, language, region, three skills you set. Hard filters first. The model spends no time on people you would not even read.
~12 seconds · $0.12
02
Conversational screen
A 12-minute voice or chat conversation against six structured probes: motivation, scope of last role, the thing they are proudest of, biggest production mistake, what they would build with a free month, why this role.
~12 min · $0.31
03
Role-fit assessment
A scoped task drawn from the bank. Submit a short writeup. Scored against a published rubric on judgement, craft, and pragmatism.
30-60 min · $0.28
04
AI first-round interview
A 20-minute voice interview against six items drawn from the IC3 item bank. Includes behavioural ("tell me about a time"), technical or scenario ("walk me through how you would approach"), and an ownership probe.
~20 min · $0.24
The 1,247 items for head of operations are split across 42 sub-rubrics. Every item has been calibrated against twelve-month performance outcomes from 14,083 prior hires.
See sample items ↗
Sample interview questions
A few from the item bank.
01
Describe, in one paragraph, how cash flows through your current company. Where does it get stuck?
Listen for: A specific paragraph, with named bottlenecks (collections, vendor terms, billing) and rough numbers.
02
Tell me about the last process you killed because it stopped earning its keep.
Listen for: A real process, a clear reason, the trade-off they accepted to kill it.
03
What is the thing your CEO does not know that you wish they did?
Listen for: A real thing. The reason they have not told the CEO yet. The plan to.
04
Walk me through last Monday. Hour by hour.
Listen for: Specific meetings, specific decisions, specific work done. Honest about which hours were waste.
05
Tell me about the last vendor renewal you renegotiated.
Listen for: The vendor, the asks, the alternative they had ready, the saving.
See all 30 questions →
Job description template
Copy. Paste. Replace the bracketed bits.
head-of-operations.md
233 words · 3 min read
# Head of operations · [city] or hybrid

We are hiring our [first/second] head of operations. You will report to the [CEO/COO] and own the things the founders cannot: finance ops, vendor ops, the bits of HR that are not people, and the operating cadence of the leadership team. The company is [N] people. We are [stage]. [Who you will partner with].

## You will be good here if

- You have run ops at a [stage] company before and can describe how cash flows through it in one paragraph.
- You add and subtract process. You have killed something as recently as you have built something.
- [The third trait you actually care about].

## What you will not get

A team to delegate this to. You will be the team for the first nine months.

## Compensation

[Currency][low] to [high] base. [low] to [high] percent equity. We post the band because we mean it.

## How we hire

30-second post, screen + assessment via Picked, 20-min interview via Picked, one on-site half-day with the leadership team. We aim to give a yes or no in 7 days.

## What is the rubric

Systems instinct, bias for the boring, comms across functions, operational triage, quiet ambition. Not your last title.

That is the JD. Apply via [link] or just send a paragraph about the last process you killed.

[Your name], [your title]
Full JD template page →
Hire a head of operations.
By Friday.
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Hire heads of operations · Picked.ai