Mike Seery is a board-level technology professional with more than 20 years experience including senior roles at the Cabinet Office, British Gas and with commodity broker Rudolf Wolff. He joined the Economist Group in 1998 as global infrastructure manager, going on to become its CTO and, from 2004, worked as CIO, when he was instrumental to developing the group's various web sites.

Since leaving the Economist Group in 2008, he has offered his services as a "freelance" CIO, a job that requires a multitude of skills, including those around technology consultancy and strategic planning.

Computing: CIO seems an odd role for companies to outsource – where do you see demand for your skills?

Seery: It is still early days but one reason I became a freelance CIO was the fact that there did appear to be a niche among small to medium enterprises (SMEs). These firms want advice in terms of technology but are wary of the big four consultancy firms, such as PwC, because they are concerned about the cost. There is also demand from organisations that in the past have been too reliant [on advice] from vendors, service providers and others who have something to sell.

What do these companies commonly ask you to do?

Often they have an [IT related] problem and want it resolved, but don’t know how to do it. Rather than just helping them with a particular technology problem, I am often asked to run a sense check over all processes, or tell them whether anything more is needed in terms of project implementation, or contingency planning. I have also advised some organisations on developing their online strategy, as well as analysed their existing offering in that area. Another aspect to the role is having discussions with the board, who are often sceptical of people in technology. I also give supply management advice, explaining how to get better deals from suppliers by thinking more str ategically about the supply process, for example.

How do you manage conflicts between ground level technical troubleshooting and top down strategy direction?

There is often a perception that when there is a problem it is a technical one, but when you drill down it is actually more of a strategic issue. For example, a company might have a system that is old and needs replacing and so they might say they need advice on what to replace it with, but what they really want to know is, are they doing the right thing by replacing an old system in the first place. This is more of an issue in smaller organisations with older systems where the internal team has been around a long time and has not been exposed to the rest of the world.

Do you work alone or do you have a team of partners behind you?

I work on my own. My core competencies are in areas such as service delivery and online web presence. I can help to develop a strategy too, and while I am not the best person to advise on any one technology, I use a network of contacts to help find partners in a required area. It is still a nascent venture, so there have not been any paying referrals yet, but I have spoken to people about this.

How do you see your future panning out and what does the CIO job market look like right now?

On the one hand I am looking for permanent opportunities, but in the meantime this venture appears to have legs. There is definitely a market for a freelance CIO but it is a question of looking in the right place and the SME area is where it is most relevant. I can act as a CIO for companies that are too small to have one. In addition, the CIO jobs market seems to have picked up a bit in recent months.