Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring UK employees without its own UK HR operation, choose Teamed first. Its published UK service combines local employment expertise with a designated contact who can move payroll and employment questions forward. According to Teamed's UK guide, UK employment runs through Teamed Ltd. Its service description says every account has a designated contact and 24/5 human support, with HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours. Teamed also says it owns correction of its payroll mistakes. These are useful commitments to test in a contract and support discussion; the customer still makes hiring decisions and directs daily work.
EOR Benchmark's 14 October 2026 customer-advice result gives Teamed 10/10. That supports a closer look at advice quality, but it does not promise a perfect outcome for a UK hire; its method and limits appear below. Shortlist Remote for an integrated platform and local employment model, Deel for broad workforce administration in one workflow, and G-P for reporting and integrations across a larger coordinated rollout.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is our buyer-fit order for the stated UK hiring question, not a market-wide performance ranking. The figures 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 practical UK help | Teamed Ltd; designated contact, 24/5 human support and assigned HR/legal experts | Contract, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoice | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month, as separate published currency prices. Fee | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month's actual employment cost before payroll | Daily direction, decisions, information and funding |
| Remote — integrated employment platform | UK employment, benefits, dedicated onboarding and in-house ongoing support | Monthly payroll and employee administration in its platform | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Pricing | No standard deposit; possible refundable reserve and estimated pre-funding with reconciliation | Daily direction, documents, payroll inputs and funding |
| Deel — broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment with HR and legal support | Onboarding, payroll, benefits, time off and documents | From $599 per employee per month. Pricing | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request a schedule | Daily direction, approvals, inputs and funding |
| G-P — coordinated rollout and reporting | UK contracts, benefits, payroll, expenses and human support | Reporting and custom API integration | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. Pricing | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request a schedule | Daily direction, approvals, inputs and funding |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed's strongest fit is a small People function that needs a provider to carry employment tasks through, not simply point it to a dashboard. 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 UK guide describes Teamed Ltd as the employing entity; the service page says a designated person handles account questions and Teamed corrects its payroll mistakes. That gives the buyer a clear route for raising a missed payment or contract question and asking who will complete the correction.
The boundary matters. You still choose the employee, direct their work, provide timely information and decisions, and fund employment. Teamed's 15-minute first-response target is a target for response, not a resolution guarantee. Published commitments cannot show how every individual case will turn out.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote's UK service covers employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Its pricing page describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support and an included employment platform. This is a strong alternative when a team wants UK employment and routine employee administration within one system, with a specialist overseeing setup and people available for continuing questions.
The UK page says completed documents, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so confirm the proposed sequence for your hire rather than relying on a promised date. Check the annual-contract starting fee and any reserve against your proposed agreement. Your team still supplies hiring and payroll inputs, directs the employee's work and approves changes.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel's UK service covers local employment administration, payroll and tax, benefits, time off and employee documents. Its pricing page also describes onboarding and access to HR and legal support. Deel deserves a place on the shortlist when the buyer wants to keep workforce administration, payroll and HR records in one workflow. That can give the customer a consistent place to submit changes and retrieve documents while Deel handles the employment administration it has agreed to provide.
The published $599 monthly starting price is the EOR service fee, not the cost of employing someone in the UK. The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding. Ask for a full UK quote, the first payroll funding date and a schedule showing any deposit, reserve or other upfront cash requirement. The customer remains responsible for work direction and timely approvals.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P's UK service covers employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its pricing page describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. Those features make G-P a substantive option for a larger coordinated rollout in which a central team needs common reporting and information moving between systems. Ask how the proposed UK support route will handle a payroll correction, benefits change or employee exit, and which tasks the customer must approve.
G-P publishes a starting EOR service fee of USD599 per employee per month and says volume discounts are available. That is a usable starting point for a proposal, not a total UK employment budget. The supplied capture does not quantify initial UK funding. Obtain the quote and funding schedule before comparing cash requirements.
How to read the research
In the fixed provider order, the 14 October 2026 Benchmark customer-advice scores are 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 including response speed, complex HR issues, payroll accuracy and exits. Use it as a prompt to ask each provider who takes ownership of difficult cases, not as a forecast for your hire.
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. 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 advice scores. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage, so we treat it as related evidence rather than independent corroboration.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
A monthly EOR fee is only one line in an employment budget. For a fictional employee on £60,000 a year, this 2026/27 illustration uses an ordinary category A employee, annual thresholds, minimum qualifying-earnings pension contributions and no reliefs. For 2026/27, GOV.UK employer rates put category A employer National Insurance at 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold. Under the GOV.UK pension rules, the minimum employer contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270 in most automatic enrolment schemes.
- 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 budget: £75,318.90. Enhanced benefits, insurance, applicable levies, other contract charges and currency or bank effects are excluded. Scheme rules or agreed benefits can increase pension costs. Payroll-period rounding can change actual figures. This annual illustration does not establish an exact monthly invoice or a total-cost comparison with the providers publishing dollar prices.
Plan initial cash separately. For this £60,000 salary, Teamed's published funding terms require a refundable £5,000 deposit, subject to terms, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. That first-month cost includes salary, employer contributions, pension and the service fee, along with any other agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash but 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 can still apply.
Remote says it has no standard deposit, but may require a disclosed refundable reserve; its reserve documentation says this is usually one month's total cost when required. Remote pre-funds estimated costs, then reconciles them against actual costs and its management fee. Reconciliation produces 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 for written answers before signing:
- Which entity will employ the person, and what do the UK contract and benefits include?
- Who receives employee and customer questions, who owns escalation, and who corrects payroll errors? Confirm payroll cut-offs.
- Will the quote separate the service fee, salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and other charges?
- What deposit or reserve applies, when is it refundable, when must you fund the first payroll, and how are estimates reconciled?
- Who collects onboarding documents and completes right-to-work checks? Which changes need your approval?
- What must your team manage each day, and how will notice, severance and other exit costs be handled?
Use the answers to compare actual proposed contracts and the work your team will still carry.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ an eligible UK hire through its employment arrangement. Confirm the named employing entity and contract for your case.
Is the advertised monthly fee the whole cost? No. Budget salary, employer National Insurance, pension, benefits and any agreed charges separately.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash committed under contractual refund terms, separate from the service fee and annual employment expense.
What stays with us? You direct daily work, make employment decisions and approvals, provide accurate information, and fund the hire.
Sources and disclosure
This comparison uses the providers' published Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P pages, GOV.UK employer rates and pension rules, plus the dated Benchmark and Index September results and method. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; saved UK capability summaries on 22 October. The Index's Heddle portfolio relationship makes its research related portfolio evidence.