Interim management:
the interim manager’s role, day rates and how a firm runs its pool.

Interim management is the use, for a limited time, of a highly experienced executive or manager who holds an operational role in the client company. It meets an immediate need that permanent recruitment does not cover fast enough: a departure, a crisis, a transformation, an acquisition to integrate.

The company gains time and someone who has held the role before. The manager arrives within days or weeks, where an executive search takes several months, and leaves once the assignment is done. The French market is estimated at €800m in revenue in 2023, according to the Xerfi study published by France Transition.

Most assignments go through an interim management firm. The firm qualifies the need, presents a short list of managers, contracts with the client, then follows the assignment to its end. The manager usually works as a self-employed professional, through their own company or an umbrella arrangement (portage salarial in France).

An interim manager holds a real position: managing director of a subsidiary, finance director, HR director, plant manager, purchasing director. They lead a team, take decisions and answer for results during the assignment. Their roadmap is agreed with the client at the start, with objectives and an end date.

There are two families of assignments:

• Cover: replacing a director who has left, is ill or on leave, while a successor is recruited or until they return. It is still the most common assignment, but fell below 45% of assignments in the second half of 2025, according to France Transition.
• Transformation, crisis and project: reorganising a function, turning round a company in difficulty, integrating an acquisition, running an industrial or IT project. These assignments have grown for two years in the federation's barometer.

The typical profile is an executive who has spent most of their career in leadership roles. In the barometer for the second half of 2025, 53% of interim managers are aged 50 to 59 and 27% are over 60.

An interim manager differs from a consultant by their place in the company: they take the job and the authority that comes with it, while a consultant advises and recommends without leading. They differ from a temporary executive hire by their seniority, their autonomy and the nature of the assignment, which centres on a result.

An interim management assignment is billed by the day. In France, France Transition reports an average day rate of €1,330 in the first half of 2025 among its member firms; its barometer for the second half still puts it above €1,300, with price concessions at the end of the year and fewer assignments below €1,000 a day.

This rate is what the firm invoices the client. The firm then pays the manager a lower buying rate, and the difference is its margin. The manager, if self-employed or under an umbrella arrangement, pays from what they receive their own costs, the periods without assignments and their business development.

Several factors move the rate:

• the role: a managing director or finance director costs more than a site director;
• the size of the company and the stakes: a listed group, a turnaround or a sale push the rate up;
• urgency: a start within a week is negotiated differently from a planned assignment;
• length and pace: a part-time assignment, two or three days a week, is billed per day worked.

To budget an assignment, multiply the day rate by the number of days billed per month, then by the planned length. As an illustration, an assignment at €1,200 a day, 18 days a month for six months, comes to €129,600 excluding VAT, before travel expenses.

An assignment follows five steps: defining the need with the client, presenting a short list of managers, the start, follow-up during the assignment with regular reviews, then the exit, through a handover to a successor, an extension or a hire. The phase before the start is not billed.

1. Scoping: the firm agrees with the client the role, objectives, length, pace and budget.
2. Presentation: the firm presents two or three available managers, with a profile for each. This is the phase where speed matters most.
3. Start: the contract is signed between the firm and the client, then between the firm and the manager, and the assignment begins.
4. Follow-up: the manager logs their days each month on a timesheet, which the client approves before invoicing; regular reviews check progress against the roadmap.
5. Exit: handover to the hired director, extension by amendment, or the client hiring the manager. France Transition reports that just under 10% of assignments ended that way in the second half of 2025.

An interim management firm sells the ability to put forward the right executive, available, within days. Its pool is therefore its main asset, but it goes stale fast: a manager available today will be on assignment next month, and their rate and latest assignments change from one year to the next.

The firms that keep their pool current follow a few rules:

• Ask managers to declare their own availability, rather than calling each of them every month. A known assignment end date tells you when the manager becomes free.
• Qualify each profile on the criteria clients use: function, sector, company size (SME, mid-sized company, large group), type of assignment, day rate, mobility.
• Log every conversation on the profile: an interview, a reference, a finished assignment. That is what lets you find the right profile through a search, not just from memory.
• Stay in touch between assignments, a period the barometer for the second half of 2025 sees lengthening, with more assignments ending than starting at the end of the year.
• Renew the pool: according to France Transition, about a third of managers discover the profession each year.

To choose the tool that holds this pool, see our comparison of interim management software.

Marvin brings the pool of managers, assignments, timesheets and invoicing together in one tool, hosted in France. The manager declares their own availability and logs their days; your team builds the short list with a search, then follows the assignment through to the invoice.

• The manager keeps their availability up to date: from their own space, opened with a secure link and no password, they declare whether they are free and from when.
• The short list comes from one search across the text of CVs and interview notes, with availability as a filter. Day rate or company size go through custom fields.
• An assignment record holds the client, the manager, the dates, the buying and selling day rates, and the margin can be read per assignment, per manager and per client.
• The timesheet is approved twice: your team approves it, then the client signs online with a one-time code; the invoice is generated from the approved timesheet.

See Marvin for interim management firms.

• France Transition, barometer for the first half of 2025: press release of 10 September 2025 (day rate and average length).
• France Transition, barometer for the second half of 2025, press release of 2 February 2026 (day rate, assignment length, assignment types, managers’ ages, hires at the end of assignments). The federation's barometers are listed on francetransition.org.
• France Transition, Le marché du management de transition en France en 2024 (Xerfi study), 21 June 2024.