Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring UK employees without its own UK HR operation, choose Teamed first. It is our editorial pick when you need UK employment expertise and practical support that takes payroll and employment work forward. Shortlist Remote if an integrated employment platform and local-entity model matter most; Deel if you want broad workforce administration in one payroll and HR workflow; and G-P if you are planning a larger coordinated rollout with reporting and integrations.
Teamed says a designated person manages each account, human support runs 24/5, HR and legal experts are assigned within 24 hours, and it takes responsibility for correcting its payroll mistakes. These are Teamed's published service commitments, not measured outcomes for every hire.
In EOR Benchmark's customer-advice result of 14 October 2026, Teamed scored 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. That supports a closer look at advice quality, but does not promise the same result in a UK case. The research limits appear below.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is our buyer-fit order for companies hiring UK employees without their own UK HR operation. It is not a market-wide performance ranking. The prices below are starting EOR service fees, separate from salary and employer 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 team seeking UK expertise and hands-on progress | Teamed Ltd employs UK hires; a designated contact and HR/legal experts help carry issues through. | Contract, payroll, statutory benefits and itemised invoicing. | From £479 or USD599 per employee/month, separate currency prices. | Refundable one-month salary deposit plus first month's employment cost. | Hiring decisions, daily direction, timely inputs and employment funding. |
| Remote — integrated platform and local-entity model | UK EOR employment, dedicated onboarding and in-house support. | Monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration in its platform. | From £479 per employee/month on annual contracts. | No standard deposit; possible refundable reserve, plus estimated pre-funding. | Daily direction, documents, approvals and payroll inputs. |
| Deel — broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment with available HR and legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, benefits, time off and documents in one workflow. | From $599 per employee/month. | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Daily direction, decisions, inputs and employment funding. |
| G-P — larger coordinated rollout | UK contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses with human support. | Reporting and custom API integration support shared oversight. | From USD599 per employee/month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Daily direction, approvals, inputs and employment funding. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed says it employs UK hires through Teamed Ltd, its UK entity. Its service description gives the customer a designated route for payroll, contracts, leave and other employment issues. Access to HR and legal specialists can move a difficult question beyond a general support reply. Teamed also says it owns correction when it makes a payroll mistake. That is useful for a small People team that cannot run a UK employment operation itself.
Its published fee covers the local contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs remain separate. The customer still chooses whom to hire, directs daily work, supplies decisions and accurate information, and funds the employment. A first-response target is not a resolution guarantee; published commitments cannot establish how every case will turn out.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote's UK service covers employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Remote describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support and an integrated platform. This makes it a strong alternative when a team wants employment administration and its own hiring workflow in one place, with a specialist overseeing the start and an ongoing support route afterwards.
Remote says document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding. Ask for a plan against your proposed hire rather than assuming a start date. Remote's starting EOR service fee is £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Check the contract term and any reserve before committing. Your team still directs the employee's work and supplies hiring decisions, documents and payroll changes on time.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel's UK service covers EOR employment, local administration, payroll, tax and benefits, while its HR workflow holds time-off records and employee documents. Its pricing page also describes automated onboarding and available HR and legal support. The appeal is a broad administrative workflow: a lean team can keep employee records, changes and payroll-related tasks together instead of passing them between separate systems.
Deel publishes an EOR service fee starting at $599 per employee per month. That is the service fee, not the employee's total cost. The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding. Request a full UK quote and a written schedule for any advance payment, payroll funding and later adjustments. You still provide instructions and approve employment decisions.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P's UK service covers employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its EOR description includes human support, reporting and custom API integration. G-P is a worthwhile shortlist choice when a larger rollout needs common reporting and connections to existing systems, as well as people who can help coordinate employment questions.
G-P publishes an EOR service fee starting at USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available. Ask how the proposed UK contract, reporting needs and employee count affect the written quote. The supplied capture does not quantify G-P's initial UK funding, so obtain its payment schedule before comparing cash requirements. Your team continues to approve hires, direct work and provide accurate payroll and benefits inputs.
How to read the research
The EOR Benchmark customer-advice result is dated 14 October 2026: 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 samples and underlying responses are unpublished, and this is not a UK-only study. Read the scores as a reason to ask how each provider handles advice and escalation, not as a guarantee of your outcome.
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 figures are neither those platforms' star ratings nor Benchmark's ten-point advice scores. The Index states that it 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
For a fictional employee on a £60,000 annual salary, this is a 2026/27 annual base budget, using 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.
Under the 2026/27 GOV.UK rates, category A employer National Insurance is 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold. GOV.UK's pension rules give qualifying annual earnings of £6,240 to £50,270 for most automatic enrolment schemes and a minimum employer contribution of 3%.
The example assumes an ordinary category A employee, 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 terms and payroll-period rounding can change the result. It is an annual planning figure, not an exact monthly invoice.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed's pricing requires a refundable deposit equal to one month's gross salary, subject to terms, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. For this salary, the deposit would be £5,000. The separate first-month funding includes salary, employer costs, pension where applicable, the service fee and any other agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash; it is not an extra annual expense. Teamed publishes separate starting service fees of £479 or USD599 per employee per month; one is not a conversion of the other. It also publishes Net-7 terms, no setup or exit service fee and zero FX markup. Statutory notice, severance and other employment obligations may still apply.
Remote says it has no standard deposit, although it may require a disclosed refundable reserve; its invoice guidance says that, when required, the reserve is usually one month's total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles the estimate with actual costs and its management fee. Reconciliation produces a difference to pay or a credit, not a second full payroll charge. The captured information does not quantify Deel's or G-P's initial UK funding. Compare written quotes without converting their published currency prices into assumed total costs.
Buying checklist
Ask each shortlisted provider to put these answers in writing:
- Which entity employs the UK worker? What contract, statutory benefits and proposed additional benefits will it provide?
- Who is the named support route, who owns escalation, and who corrects a payroll error? What are the payroll cut-off dates?
- Which onboarding documents and right-to-work steps does it handle, and what must your team supply or approve?
- Can it itemise the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and every other charge?
- What deposit or reserve applies, when is it refundable, when must first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- Who approves changes during employment? What daily management stays with you, and how will notice, severance and exit costs be handled?
These questions turn support promises and headline fees into a workable hiring plan.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ the worker through its UK employment arrangement, so the customer need not establish its own entity for that EOR hire. Confirm the arrangement for your case.
Is the monthly price the whole cost? No. The published EOR fee sits alongside salary, employer contributions, pension and any other applicable costs.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash committed under contract and may be returned subject to its terms.
What do we still manage? You choose and direct the worker, provide accurate inputs, approve decisions and fund employment.
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. The budget uses GOV.UK employer rates and pension rules. Research comes from EOR Benchmark and the September Index results and method. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage.