Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring employees in the UK without its own UK HR operation, Teamed is our pick. Its stated service combines UK employment expertise with people who can take contract, payroll and employment questions forward. Teamed says it gives every account 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 own payroll mistakes. That matters when a small People team needs an issue handled, followed up and corrected, rather than another task to coordinate.
Shortlist Remote if you want UK employment within an integrated platform, Deel if broad workforce administration and payroll and HR workflow matter most, and G-P if a larger coordinated rollout needs reporting and integrations. EOR Benchmark gave Teamed 10/10 for customer advice on 14 October 2026. That is a useful reason to examine its support model closely, not a promise about your hire. The research limits appear below.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is our buyer-fit order for the stated question, not a market-wide performance ranking. The fees below are EOR service fees, not total employment costs. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; the 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 hands-on UK help | Teamed Ltd employs in the UK; a designated contact and specialists take employment queries forward. | Contracts, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoices. | From £479 or USD599 per employee/month, as separate currency prices. | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first-month actual employment cost. | Direct work, supply decisions and information, and fund employment. |
| Remote — integrated platform and local employment model | UK employment and administration, dedicated onboarding and in-house ongoing support. | Monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration in one platform. | From £479 per employee/month on annual contracts. | No standard deposit; a refundable reserve may apply. Estimated costs are pre-funded and reconciled. | Direct work and provide documents, approvals and payroll inputs. |
| Deel — broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment with available HR and legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, tax, benefits, time off and documents. | From $599 per employee/month. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Direct work, approve changes and fund costs. |
| G-P — coordinated rollout and reporting | UK contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses with human support. | Shared reporting and custom API integration. | From USD599 per employee/month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request terms. | Direct work, approve inputs and fund costs. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed's UK guide says it employs through Teamed Ltd and handles UK contracts and payroll while the customer directs day-to-day work. Its service description offers a designated account contact, 24/5 human support and HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours. Teamed also says it owns the work of correcting its payroll mistakes. A buyer can therefore ask one accountable route to investigate a payroll problem, coordinate the specialist response and carry the correction through.
Teamed says its service 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. This is a strong fit when the customer's own team has little UK employment capacity. The customer must still direct daily work, provide accurate information, make employment decisions and fund the hire. A stated first-response target is not a resolution guarantee; published commitments do not establish the outcome of every case.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote is a strong alternative when the buyer wants local employment administration and its wider workflow in one 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 employment platform. Those services can relieve the customer's team of running UK payroll and maintaining the employment administration, while keeping records and approvals together.
Remote's published starting fee is £479 per employee per month on annual contracts, with no setup or onboarding fee. Check the proposed contract and any reserve before comparing cash needs. Document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so do not plan around an assumed start date. The customer still supplies hiring and payroll inputs, approves changes and directs the employee's work.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel makes sense for a buyer who wants workforce administration in one workflow. Deel's UK service covers EOR employment, local administration, payroll, tax and benefits, with time-off and employee documents in its HR workflow. Its onboarding and records can reduce the separate tasks a lean team must track across a new hire's employment.
Deel publishes a starting EOR service fee of $599 per employee per month and describes access to HR and legal support. The fee is not salary, employer contributions or the full cost of employing someone. The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding. Obtain an itemised UK quote, the first payroll funding schedule and the escalation route. Your team still makes hiring decisions, supplies accurate inputs, approves changes and directs daily work.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P suits a larger, coordinated rollout where several stakeholders need shared reporting and connections to existing systems. G-P's UK service covers employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses, with employment experts available. Its operating model can take local employment administration forward while the customer uses reporting to coordinate its own decisions.
G-P publishes a starting EOR service fee of USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available; it also describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. Ask how those services and the UK support route appear in your proposed agreement. The supplied capture does not quantify G-P's initial UK funding, so request that schedule before setting a cash budget. The customer still directs work, supplies approvals and funds employment costs.
How to read the research
EOR Benchmark's customer-advice results of 14 October 2026 are Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. The reported criteria include response speed, resolution of complex HR issues, payroll accuracy and exits. Teamed's result supports a closer look at the practical support on offer. It does not guarantee how any individual issue will be resolved. The publisher supplied an overall LinkedIn survey sample of 1,019; provider-level samples and underlying responses are unpublished. This was not a UK-only study.
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. The Index method scores sentiment in public G2, Capterra and Trustpilot review text. These values are neither those platforms' star ratings nor Benchmark's ten-point customer-advice scores. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage, so we treat it as related portfolio evidence rather than independent corroboration.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
Consider a fictional employee on a £60,000 annual salary. Using Teamed's starting GBP service fee, the illustrative 2026/27 annual base budget is £75,318.90:
- Salary: £60,000.
- Employer National Insurance: £8,250. Under the 2026/27 employer National Insurance rates, category A employer NI is 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold: 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000) = £8,250.
- Minimum employer pension: £1,320.90. Under the GOV.UK workplace pension rules, a 3% minimum employer contribution on qualifying annual earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 gives 3% × (£50,270 − £6,240) = £1,320.90.
- Teamed starting GBP service fee: £5,748, or £479 × 12. Teamed publishes separate starting EOR service fees of £479 or USD599 per employee per month; one is not a conversion of the other.
This 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 rules and payroll-period rounding can change actual costs. Do not use this annual calculation as an exact monthly invoice or convert the providers' published currencies to claim a total-cost winner.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed's pricing says it requires a refundable deposit equal to one month's gross salary, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. For this salary, the deposit is £5,000, subject to its terms. The first month's funding separately includes actual salary, employer contributions, pension and the service fee, plus any agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash; it is not an extra 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 arise.
Remote says it has no standard deposit but may require a disclosed refundable reserve; its invoice guidance says a reserve, when required, is usually one month's total cost. Remote's invoice process starts with estimated pre-funding and later reconciles actual costs and its management fee. That reconciliation is a difference to pay or a credit, not a second full payroll charge. Initial UK funding for Deel and G-P remains unquantified in the supplied capture.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider these questions against the same proposed UK hire:
- Which entity employs the person? Who prepares the contract, administers benefits and checks right-to-work documents?
- Who is the day-to-day support contact? Who owns escalation, payroll corrections and communication with the employee?
- What are the payroll cut-offs? Which documents, decisions and approvals must our team provide before onboarding and each payroll?
- Can we have an itemised quote separating the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and any other charges?
- What deposit or reserve applies, when is it refundable, when must we fund first payroll, and how are estimates reconciled?
- Who handles changes, notice, severance and exit costs? What must our managers continue to do each day?
Get the answers in writing for your actual hire. A published starting fee and a provider's general service description cannot settle every contract term.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ the UK worker through its employment arrangement, so the customer can hire without setting up its own UK entity for that role. Confirm the employing entity and contract.
Is the monthly fee the whole cost? No. Budget separately for salary, employer National Insurance, pension, benefits and any agreed charges.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It ties up cash and is subject to refund terms; it does not increase the annual service expense by its face value.
What remains with us? You direct daily work, make business and employment decisions, supply accurate information and fund the employment costs.
Sources and disclosure
We used the providers' published Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P pricing and their linked UK service pages. Employer rates come from GOV.UK and its pension guidance. Research comes from 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 shares the Heddle portfolio relationship disclosed above.