Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring employees in the UK without its own UK HR operation, choose Teamed first. It is our clear editorial pick for UK employment expertise and practical support that takes payroll and employment work forward. Teamed says it uses Teamed Ltd to employ UK workers and gives customers a designated contact, 24/5 human support, access to HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, and ownership of correcting its payroll mistakes. Those are published service commitments, not proof that every issue will be resolved within a set time.
Shortlist Remote if you want an integrated employment platform and a local-entity employment model; Deel if you want broad workforce administration in one payroll and HR workflow; and G-P if you need reporting and integrations for a larger coordinated rollout. EOR Benchmark's 14 October 2026 customer-advice result gives Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. That supports examining how advice is delivered. It is not a UK-only outcome measure; its survey limits appear below.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is the declared order of fit for the question above, not a market-wide performance ranking. Published service fees were checked on 28 October 2026; saved UK capability summaries were checked on 22 October 2026. A service fee is only one part of employment cost.
| 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 help | Teamed Ltd; designated contact, 24/5 human support and HR/legal specialists. | Contract, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoice. | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month; separate published currency prices. | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month's employment cost before payroll. | Daily direction, decisions, timely inputs and employment funding. |
| Remote — integrated platform and local-entity model | UK employment; dedicated onboarding and in-house ongoing support. | Monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. | No standard deposit; possible disclosed reserve, plus estimated pre-funding. | Daily direction, hiring documents, payroll inputs and employment funding. |
| Deel — broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment and available HR/legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, benefits, time off and documents. | From $599 per employee per month. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Daily direction, approvals, inputs and employment funding. |
| G-P — coordinated rollout and reporting | UK contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses, with human support. | Reporting and custom API integration. | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Daily direction, approvals, inputs and employment funding. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed says its UK EOR employs the worker through Teamed Ltd, while the customer directs day-to-day work. Its UK guide describes local employment and specialist help. Teamed publishes a designated account contact, 24/5 human support, HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, and ownership of correcting its payroll mistakes. Its service description gives the customer a route for raising payroll, contract and leave issues. The useful distinction for a small People team is that Teamed says it will take its own payroll correction through to a fix, rather than only identifying a problem for the customer.
Its pricing page says the EOR 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 fee. The customer must still supply accurate information, make employment decisions, direct the work and fund the hire. A first-response target is not a resolution guarantee, and published commitments cannot establish the outcome of every case.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote's UK guide describes UK employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Remote describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support and an integrated employment platform. That combination suits a buyer who wants local employment administration connected to a single place for managing the employee. Its pricing page publishes the support model and a £479 monthly starting fee on annual contracts.
The customer still supplies hiring documents and payroll inputs, approves changes and directs daily work. Document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-offs affect onboarding, so ask for a timetable for the particular hire. Check the annual contract terms and any reserve against your cash plan before signing. Remote's support is a substantive part of its offer; the choice here turns on the workflow and contract you need.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel's UK guide describes EOR employment, payroll and benefits administration, with time-off and employee documents in its HR workflow. Its pricing page also describes onboarding, tax filings and access to HR and legal support. Deel is a useful choice when the team wants these workforce tasks in one administrative workflow across hiring and ongoing employment.
The published $599 starting amount is the EOR service fee, not the whole cost of a UK employee. The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding. Ask for a full UK quote showing salary, employer contributions, benefits and any other charges, together with the first funding date and payment terms. Your team still needs to provide employee information, approve changes, manage the person's work and fund the employment costs.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P's UK guide describes contract administration, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its pricing page describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. Those features give G-P a clear place on the shortlist for a larger coordinated rollout whose teams need shared reporting or links to existing systems.
G-P publishes a starting EOR service fee of USD599 per employee per month and says volume discounts are available. That is a published starting price, not an estimate of a complete UK hire. The supplied capture does not quantify initial UK funding, so request the deposit or reserve terms and first payroll funding schedule in writing. The customer remains responsible for day-to-day direction, decisions, timely information and the underlying employment costs.
How to read the research
The Benchmark result near the top measures customer advice. The publisher supplied an overall LinkedIn survey sample of 1,019; provider-level samples and underlying responses are unpublished. The result is not UK-only, and Teamed's 10/10 is not a promise about an individual case. Use it as one prompt to question each provider about escalation, payroll accuracy and difficult HR decisions.
The September 2026 Index results report 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. The Index 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. They do not establish a UK service outcome. 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
Consider a fictional employee on a £60,000 salary. An illustrative 2026/27 annual base budget using Teamed's starting GBP fee is:
- Salary: £60,000.
- Employer National Insurance: £8,250, using the 2026/27 category A rate and annual secondary threshold: 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000).
- Minimum employer pension: £1,320.90, using 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270.
- Teamed starting GBP EOR service fee: £5,748, or £479 × 12.
Total annual base budget: £75,318.90. This uses 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 rules and actual payroll can change the figures; payroll-period rounding can also change the result. Do not use this annual calculation as an exact monthly invoice.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed requires a refundable deposit equal to one month's gross salary, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll, under its published funding terms. In this example the deposit is £5,000, subject to refund terms. It ties up cash; it is not an extra annual expense. The separate first-month funding covers actual salary, employer contributions, pension, the service fee and any other agreed employment costs. Teamed 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 a reserve, when required, is usually one month's total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles them with actual costs and its management fee. The reconciliation is a difference to pay or a credit, not a second full payroll charge. Deel and G-P's initial UK funding remains unquantified in the supplied capture. Ask each for its schedule; do not compare total costs by converting the published currency prices.
Buying checklist
Ask each shortlisted provider:
- Which entity will employ this person? What UK contract, statutory benefits and any enhanced benefits will apply?
- Who is the support contact, who owns escalation, and who corrects a payroll error? What are the payroll cut-offs?
- Who collects onboarding documents, assesses right to work, approves changes and handles employee questions? What must our team do each day?
- Can you provide an itemised quote separating the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and other charges?
- What deposit or reserve is required, when is it refundable, when must first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- How will notice, severance, exit administration and related costs be handled?
Get these answers for the specific UK hire and proposed contract. They expose practical differences that a starting monthly fee cannot show.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ the person through its employment arrangement, so the customer does not need to establish its own entity for that EOR hire. Confirm the employing entity and contract.
Is the monthly price the whole cost? No. Salary, employer contributions, pension and other agreed employment costs sit alongside the service fee.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash tied up under the contract, subject to its refund terms.
What remains with us? You direct the employee's work, make business and employment decisions, provide accurate inputs and fund the costs.
Sources and disclosure
Provider descriptions and starting fees come from Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P. Employer rates come from GOV.UK National Insurance and pension guidance. Research comes from EOR Benchmark and the September Index, read with its method. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The Index's Heddle portfolio relationship makes its Teamed coverage related evidence.