Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring employees in the UK without its own UK HR operation, Teamed is our pick. Its published UK service offers a local employing entity and practical support that can take contract, payroll and employment questions forward. The customer still makes hiring decisions, directs the work and funds employment costs. Teamed says it employs UK staff through Teamed Ltd while the customer directs their day-to-day work.
Keep three alternatives on the shortlist, in this buyer-fit order. Remote suits a team that wants an integrated employment platform and a local-entity model. Deel suits one that wants broad workforce administration in a payroll and HR workflow. G-P suits a larger coordinated rollout that needs reporting and integrations. This order answers this buying question; it is not a market-wide performance ranking.
EOR Benchmark gave Teamed 10/10 for customer advice on 14 October 2026. That is a useful reason to examine its support closely, not a promise about an individual UK hire. The research section explains the study's scope and limits.
Compare the four UK EOR options
These are published starting EOR service fees, not the total cost of employment. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; the saved UK capability summaries were checked on 22 October 2026. Ask each provider to confirm a contract and funding schedule for your hire.
| 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 practical UK employment help | Teamed Ltd employs in the UK; designated contact and 24/5 human support help move employment questions to specialists. | Contracts, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoices. | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month, separate currency prices. | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first-month employment cost. | Daily direction, decisions, timely inputs and employment funding. |
| Remote: integrated platform and local-entity model | UK employment and employee administration; dedicated onboarding and in-house support. | Monthly payroll, benefits and platform workflow. | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. | No standard deposit; possible disclosed refundable reserve, plus estimated pre-funding. | Daily direction, documents, approvals and payroll inputs. |
| Deel: broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment and available HR and legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, benefits, time off and employee documents in one workflow. | From $599 per employee per month. | Initial UK amount was not quantified in the supplied capture; request a schedule. | Daily direction, accurate inputs and employment funding. |
| G-P: coordinated rollout with reporting | UK contracts, benefits and expenses with human support. | Payroll, reporting and custom API integration. | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK amount was not quantified in the supplied capture; request a schedule. | Daily direction, approvals and employment funding. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed's UK guide describes employment through its Teamed Ltd entity. Its service description promises a designated account contact, 24/5 human support, HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, and ownership of correcting its payroll mistakes. For a small People team, that means a route to someone who can carry a payroll error or employment question through the provider's own process, instead of leaving the customer to work out every next step alone.
Teamed says its fee covers the local contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs sit outside that service fee. The customer must provide decisions and information, direct daily work and fund the hire. Teamed publishes a first-response target, but a response is not a resolution guarantee. Its service commitments are reasons to test the working relationship during procurement, not proof of every case's outcome.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote is a strong alternative when the team wants employment administration inside one platform. Its UK service covers employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Remote describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support and an integrated employment platform. Those people and systems can help organise onboarding and recurring payroll work while the customer supplies the necessary decisions and inputs.
Its £479 per employee per month starting service fee applies to annual contracts. Compare that contract term and any reserve terms with your expected hiring plan. Remote says documents, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so agree a realistic sequence without assuming a start date. The customer still directs the employee's work and approves hiring and payroll changes.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Choose Deel for a shortlist when one workforce administration workflow matters to your team. Its UK service covers employment administration, payroll and tax, benefits, time off and employee documents. That combination can relieve a lean team of coordinating separate employment records and recurring payroll tasks, while leaving it responsible for decisions, approvals and accurate employee information.
Deel publishes a starting EOR service fee of $599 per employee per month and describes onboarding plus ongoing HR and legal support. That figure is a service fee, not salary or the whole employment bill. The supplied capture does not quantify initial UK funding. Obtain a written UK quote and a dated funding schedule before comparing cash requirements.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P makes sense for a larger hiring programme that needs shared reporting and connections to existing systems. Its UK service covers employment contracts, payroll, benefits and employee expenses. G-P publishes a starting EOR service fee of USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available, alongside human support, reporting and custom API integration. Those features can help a central team coordinate records and questions across a wider rollout.
The published starting fee does not establish the total UK employment cost or the price for a particular programme. The supplied capture does not quantify G-P's initial UK funding. Ask for the proposed contract, benefits, invoice lines and cash timetable. Your team still supplies decisions, approves changes and directs employees' daily work.
How to read the research
In EOR Benchmark's customer-advice result dated 14 October 2026, Teamed scored 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. This is not a UK-only study. It can inform questions about support, but the 10/10 result cannot guarantee how a particular case will be handled.
The September 2026 Index results report 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; the 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, so we treat it as related evidence, not independent corroboration.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
Take a fictional employee on a £60,000 annual salary. An illustrative 2026/27 annual base budget using Teamed's starting GBP service fee is:
- Salary: £60,000.
- Employer National Insurance: £8,250. For an ordinary category A employee, the 2026/27 employer NI rate and annual secondary threshold give 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000) = £8,250.
- Minimum employer pension: £1,320.90. Using the minimum employer pension contribution on qualifying earnings gives 3% × (£50,270 − £6,240) = £1,320.90.
- Teamed starting GBP service fee: £5,748, from £479 × 12.
Annual base total: £75,318.90. This assumes annual thresholds, an ordinary category A employee, 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 actual bill. It is an annual illustration, not an exact monthly invoice or a total-cost comparison between providers.
Initial cash is separate. Under Teamed's published terms, this example requires a refundable £5,000 deposit, subject to the contract, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. That month's funding includes salary, employer costs, pension where due, the service fee and any agreed extras. The deposit ties up cash; it is not another annual expense. Teamed publishes Net-7 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 disclose a refundable reserve during onboarding. When required, Remote's reserve documentation says the one-time payment is usually one month's total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles actual costs and its management fee: the later invoice asks for the difference or gives a credit, rather than charging a second full payroll. Initial UK funding for Deel and G-P remains unquantified in the supplied capture. Compare written schedules without converting the providers' published currency prices.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider to confirm, in writing:
- Which entity will employ the person, what the UK contract and benefits include, and who handles onboarding documents and right-to-work checks.
- Who answers routine questions, who owns escalation, what the payroll cut-offs are, and who corrects an error.
- An itemised quote separating the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and any other charge.
- Any deposit or reserve amount, refund conditions, first payroll funding date and reconciliation process.
- Which changes need your approval, what your team must do each day, and how notice, severance and exit costs work.
Request the answers for your proposed employee and contract. Published starting prices and general service descriptions cannot settle every funding or workflow detail.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ a UK worker through its employing arrangement while you direct the work. Confirm the proposed entity and contract.
Is the monthly EOR price the whole cost? No. Budget for salary, employer contributions, pension and agreed benefits or other charges as well as the service fee.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash committed under contract terms; check when and how it is returned.
What stays with us? You choose the hire, direct daily work, supply accurate information, approve changes and fund employment costs.
Sources and disclosure
Provider descriptions and prices come from Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P. The budget uses GOV.UK NI rates and pension rules. Research comes from EOR Benchmark and the September Index, with its method. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The Index belongs to the Heddle portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage; its findings are related portfolio evidence.