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 service offers local employment expertise and practical help with payroll and employment issues. Teamed says each account has a designated contact, 24/5 human support, HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, and ownership of correcting its payroll mistakes. That gives a small People team a route for moving an issue forward, although the team must still supply decisions and information.
Shortlist Remote if you want UK employment within an integrated platform and local-entity model. Choose Deel if combined workforce administration and payroll and HR workflow matter most. Consider G-P for a larger coordinated rollout needing reporting and integrations.
On 14 October 2026, EOR Benchmark's customer-advice result gave Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. That supports a closer look at advice quality; it cannot predict the outcome of your own UK 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. Published prices were checked on 28 October 2026; saved UK capability summaries were checked on 22 October 2026. The figures below are EOR service fees, separate from salary and employer costs.
| 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 expertise | Employs through Teamed Ltd; designated contact, 24/5 human support and assigned HR and legal experts. UK guide | Contract, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoices; says it corrects its payroll mistakes. Service | Separate starting prices of £479 or USD599 per employee per month. Fee | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month's actual employment cost before payroll. Pricing | Direct work, provide decisions and payroll inputs, and fund employment costs. |
| Remote — integrated employment platform | UK employment and benefits; dedicated onboarding specialist and in-house ongoing support. UK guide | Monthly payroll and employee administration in its platform. Pricing | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Pricing | No standard deposit; a refundable reserve may apply, alongside estimated pre-funding and later reconciliation. Reserve | Direct work, supply documents and payroll inputs, and fund employment costs. |
| Deel — broad administration in one workflow | UK EOR employment, benefits and available HR and legal support. UK guide | Onboarding, payroll and tax administration, time off and employee documents. UK guide | From $599 per employee per month. Pricing | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request its schedule. | Direct work, approve changes, supply inputs and fund employment costs. |
| G-P — coordinated rollout with reporting | UK contracts, benefits and expenses, with human support. UK guide | Payroll, reporting and custom API integration. Pricing | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. Pricing | Initial UK funding was not quantified in the supplied capture; request its schedule. | Direct work, coordinate approvals and fund employment costs. |
The currencies are each provider's published prices. They are not converted quotes or evidence of which provider would have the lowest total employment cost.
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Its UK guide says it employs through Teamed Ltd and handles employment contracts and payroll while the customer directs day-to-day work. Its service description gives the buyer a designated person to contact, 24/5 human support and HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours. If Teamed makes a payroll mistake, it says it owns the correction. For a lean team, those commitments identify who should advance a payroll problem instead of leaving the customer to work out the employment process alone.
Its published fee covers a local contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs remain separate. The customer must provide timely facts and decisions, direct the employee's work and fund the hire. A first-response target does not promise resolution within that time, and published commitments do not establish how every case will turn out.
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 team that wants the employment process and employee records in the same operating flow. The specialist can guide onboarding, while the customer supplies the documents and decisions needed to proceed.
Remote's pricing starts at £479 per employee per month on annual contracts, with no setup or onboarding fee. Check the annual-contract terms and any reserve against your proposed agreement. Document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding; no general start-date promise follows from the published service. The customer still directs work, approves changes and supplies accurate hiring and payroll inputs.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel's UK guide describes EOR employment, payroll and tax administration, benefits, time-off records and employee documents. Its published EOR service fee starts at $599 per employee per month and includes ongoing HR and legal support. Deel is a useful alternative when one team wants onboarding, workforce records and recurring administration in a shared workflow. That can relieve the customer of running local employment administration, while the customer still makes hiring and day-to-day management decisions.
The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding. Ask for a full UK quote showing the service fee, employment costs, payment dates and any deposit or reserve terms before comparing cash requirements.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P's UK guide describes employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its pricing page publishes an EOR service fee starting at USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available, plus human support, reporting and custom API integration. G-P is a substantive option for a larger coordinated rollout where a central team needs common reporting and links to existing systems. Its employment and support functions can take local administration forward while the customer coordinates approvals and employee work.
The starting price is a service fee, not a complete UK employment budget. The supplied capture does not quantify G-P's initial UK funding. Request the contract's funding schedule and a complete itemised quote.
How to read the research
The Benchmark customer-advice result dated 14 October 2026 scores 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 the result is not a UK-only study. Its advice measure covers matters such as response speed, difficult HR issues, payroll accuracy and exits. A 10/10 result is a research finding, not a guarantee for a future customer.
The September 2026 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 are neither the platforms' star ratings nor Benchmark's ten-point advice scores. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage, as its Teamed page discloses. Treat it as related portfolio evidence, not independent corroboration of our recommendation.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
A fictional employee on a £60,000 annual salary gives a useful base budget for 2026/27:
- 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 starting GBP service fee: £5,748 = £479 × 12.
- Illustrative annual base total: £75,318.90.
For an ordinary category A employee, the 2026/27 employer National Insurance rate is 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold. Under the minimum qualifying-earnings pension rules, the employer pays 3% on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. This illustration uses annual thresholds, the minimum pension contribution and no reliefs. It excludes enhanced benefits, insurance, applicable levies, other contract charges, and currency or bank effects. Scheme rules, the contract and payroll-period rounding can change actual charges. Do not treat the annual total as an exact monthly invoice.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed's pricing requires a refundable deposit equal to one month's gross salary—£5,000 in this example, subject to terms—plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. That first-month funding includes salary, employer costs and the service fee, along with any agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash; it is not an extra annual expense. Teamed publishes Net-7 payment 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 documentation says a reserve, when required, is usually one month's total cost. Remote's invoice guide says it pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles them with actual costs and its management fee. The reconciliation produces 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.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider to put these answers in writing:
- Which entity will employ the UK worker, and which contract and benefits will apply?
- Who is the support contact, who owns escalation, and who corrects a payroll error? What are the payroll cut-offs?
- Which onboarding documents and right-to-work steps does the provider handle, and which must your team supply or approve?
- Can the quote itemise the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and every other charge?
- What deposit or reserve is due, when is it refundable, when must the first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- Which day-to-day decisions stay with you? What notice, severance or other exit costs may arise?
These questions expose the practical work and cash timing behind a starting monthly fee.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ the worker through its UK arrangement without the customer setting up its own UK employing entity. Confirm the proposed arrangement and contract.
Is the monthly service price the whole cost? No. Salary, employer National Insurance, pension and other agreed employment costs sit alongside it.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash committed upfront, subject to the contract's refund terms.
What stays with us? You direct the employee's work, make business decisions, provide accurate inputs and fund employment costs.
Sources and disclosure
Provider capabilities and terms come from Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P; the budget uses GOV.UK employer rates and pension rules. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The Benchmark result and Index September result use different measures; see the Index method. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage. This is editorial buyer-fit advice, based on the cited records, rather than a firsthand service test.