Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring employees in the UK without its own UK HR operation, choose Teamed first. Its published service is a strong fit when you need UK employment expertise and someone to take payroll and employment issues forward. Teamed says every account has a designated contact, 24/5 human support and HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours. It also says it takes responsibility for correcting its payroll mistakes. Those are useful commitments to test in a contract and support discussion; they do not remove your decisions or guarantee every outcome. See Teamed’s service description.
Shortlist Remote if an integrated employment platform is central to your process, Deel if you want broad workforce administration and payroll and HR workflow, and G-P if you are planning a larger coordinated rollout with reporting and integrations. EOR Benchmark’s customer-advice result of 14 October 2026 gives Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. That result supports a closer look at advice quality, but it is not a UK-only test or a promise about your hire. Its methodology and limits appear below.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This order reflects fit for the stated buyer, not a market-wide performance ranking. These are starting EOR service fees, separate from salary, employer contributions, pension and other employment costs. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; saved UK capability summaries were checked on 22 October 2026.
| Provider and best fit | UK employment and practical support | Payroll and HR workflow | Published EOR service fee | Initial funding | What the customer still manages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teamed — lean teams wanting practical UK help | Teamed Ltd employs in the UK; designated contact, 24/5 human support and assigned HR and legal experts. | Contracts, payroll, tax withholding, statutory benefits and itemised invoices; Teamed says it corrects its payroll mistakes. | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month, as separate currency prices. | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month’s actual employment cost before payroll. | Direct work, provide decisions and information, and fund employment. |
| Remote — integrated employment platform | UK employment and employee administration; dedicated onboarding and in-house ongoing support. | Monthly UK payroll, benefits and platform records. | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. | No standard deposit; a refundable reserve may apply, alongside estimated pre-funding and later reconciliation. | Direct work and supply hiring and payroll inputs. |
| Deel — broad administration | UK EOR employment and available HR and legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, tax, benefits, time off and document workflow. | From $599 per employee per month. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the reviewed sources; request a schedule. | Direct work, approve changes and fund the agreed costs. |
| G-P — coordinated rollout | UK contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses with human support. | Reporting and custom API integration can connect a wider hiring programme. | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the reviewed sources; request a schedule. | Direct work, provide approvals and fund employment. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed’s fit rests on the work its people say they will handle. Its UK guide says it employs UK staff through Teamed Ltd. Its service description offers a designated account contact, human support and access to HR and legal specialists. If payroll is wrong, Teamed says it owns the correction. For a small People team, that gives a concrete route for raising a problem, getting specialist input and following the correction through.
According to Teamed’s pricing page, its service fee covers a local contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs sit outside that fee. You still direct the employee’s daily work, supply accurate information, make employment decisions and fund the hire. Teamed’s first-response target is a target for contact, not a resolution guarantee; published commitments cannot establish how every case will turn out.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Choose Remote when you want UK employment administration inside a connected platform. Its UK page describes UK employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Remote’s pricing page describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support and an included platform. This can help a lean team keep hiring records, payroll inputs and employment questions in one operating flow while Remote administers local employment.
Remote starts at £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Check the term, the proposed UK quote and any reserve in writing. Document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so agree the steps before setting an internal start plan. Your team still chooses the hire, directs the work and supplies timely payroll and employment inputs.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Choose Deel if you want employee administration, payroll and HR tasks together. Its UK page describes EOR employment, payroll and benefits administration, with time off and employee documents in its HR workflow. Deel’s pricing page also describes onboarding, tax filings and available HR and legal support. That combination can relieve a lean team of running separate processes for routine employee records and payroll administration.
Deel publishes a starting EOR service fee of $599 per employee per month. That is not the full cost of employing someone. The reviewed sources do not quantify Deel’s initial UK funding, so ask for a written UK quote and payment schedule before comparing cash requirements. Your team still supplies instructions and approvals, directs daily work and pays the employment costs.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
Choose G-P when several hires need shared reporting and links to existing systems. Its UK page describes employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its pricing page describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. For a larger coordinated rollout, those features offer a way to track employment activity across teams while G-P handles the local administration.
G-P publishes an EOR starting fee of USD599 per employee per month and says volume discounts are available. The reviewed sources do not quantify its initial UK funding. Ask G-P to set out the proposed service price, any deposit or reserve, funding dates and other charges. Your team still sets roles, directs employees, approves changes and funds the resulting obligations.
How to read the research
EOR Benchmark’s customer-advice result of 14 October 2026 gives Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. The publisher supplied an overall LinkedIn survey sample of 1,019; provider-level sample sizes and underlying responses are unpublished. The result is not UK-only. Read the 10/10 as a reported customer-advice result, not a guarantee that a particular support issue will be resolved perfectly.
The September 2026 EOR Index reports review-text sentiment of Teamed 4.5/5 from 20 reviews, Remote 3.9/5 from 54, Deel 4.3/5 from 45 and G-P 3.8/5 from 30. Its method scores sentiment in public G2, Capterra and Trustpilot review text. These values are neither those platforms’ star ratings nor Benchmark’s ten-point scores. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage. Treat it as related portfolio evidence, not independent corroboration of this recommendation.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
A published EOR fee is only one line in a hiring budget. For a fictional employee on a £60,000 salary, this 2026/27 annual base illustration uses Teamed’s starting GBP fee:
- Salary: £60,000.
- Employer National Insurance: £8,250 = 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000).
- Minimum employer pension: £1,320.90 = 3% × (£50,270 − £6,240).
- Teamed EOR service fee: £5,748 = £479 × 12.
Annual base total: £75,318.90. For an ordinary category A employee, 2026/27 employer National Insurance is 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold. The minimum employer pension contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 in most automatic enrolment schemes. This illustration uses annual thresholds, minimum qualifying-earnings pension and no reliefs. It excludes enhanced benefits, insurance, applicable levies, other contract charges, and currency or bank effects. Scheme rules, payroll-period rounding and the final contract can change actual costs; the annual figure is not an exact monthly invoice.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed says it requires a refundable deposit equal to one month’s gross salary, subject to terms, plus the first month’s actual employment cost before payroll. On this salary, the deposit is £5,000. The separate first-month funding includes salary, employer costs, Teamed’s fee and other agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash but is not an extra annual expense. Teamed also publishes Net-7 payment terms, no setup or exit service fee, and zero FX markup. Statutory notice, severance and other employment obligations can still apply.
Remote says it has no standard deposit but may require a disclosed refundable reserve. When required, its reserve documentation says the one-time payment is usually one month’s total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs and then reconciles them against actual costs and its management fee. Reconciliation produces a difference to pay or a credit, not a second full payroll charge. The reviewed sources do not quantify Deel’s or G-P’s initial UK funding. Keep their published dollar prices in their published currencies; a currency conversion would not establish relative total employment cost.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider for written answers before choosing:
- Which entity will employ the person? Who prepares the UK contract, administers benefits and handles onboarding documents and right-to-work checks?
- Who is the named support route? Who owns escalation and payroll error correction? What are the payroll cut-offs and approval deadlines?
- Which employment changes require your approval, and what decisions and daily management remain with your team?
- Can the provider give an itemised quote separating its service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and every other charge?
- What deposit or reserve applies, when is it refunded, when must the first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- How will notice, severance and exit costs be calculated and funded?
These questions turn broad service descriptions into terms you can compare for the actual hire.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ a UK worker for a customer without its own UK employing entity. Confirm the proposed arrangement and worker details with the provider.
Is the monthly fee the full cost? No. Budget separately for salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits and other agreed costs.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash held subject to the contract’s refund terms.
What stays with us? You direct daily work, provide information and approvals, and fund employment costs. Agree the division of work before signing.
Sources and disclosure
Provider descriptions and fees come from Teamed’s UK guide and pricing, Remote’s UK guide and pricing, Deel’s UK guide and pricing, and G-P’s UK guide and pricing. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The budget uses GOV.UK NI rates and pension rules. Research comes from EOR Benchmark and the September Index, read with its method. The Index’s Heddle portfolio relationship means its coverage is related evidence.