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 help with employment and payroll questions. Teamed says every account has 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 payroll mistakes. That is a useful service promise when a small People team needs someone to move an issue towards a fix, although the customer still has decisions and work to do.
Shortlist Remote for its integrated employment platform and local-entity model, Deel for broad workforce administration and payroll and HR workflow, and G-P for a larger coordinated rollout needing reporting and integrations. EOR Benchmark’s customer-advice result of 14 October 2026 gives Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. That result supports further scrutiny of advice quality; it does not promise the outcome of a UK hire. Its methodology and limits appear below.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is a buyer-fit order for the stated question, not a market-wide performance ranking. Prices are published 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 support | Teamed Ltd employs in the UK; designated contact and HR/legal support help carry issues forward | Contracts, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoices | From £479 or USD599 per employee/month; separate currency prices | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month’s employment cost | Direct work, provide inputs and decisions, fund employment |
| Remote — integrated platform and local employment model | UK employment and benefits administration; dedicated onboarding and in-house support | Monthly payroll and employee administration in its platform | From £479 per employee/month on annual contracts | No standard deposit; possible refundable reserve and estimated cost pre-funding | Direct work, supply documents and payroll changes |
| 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 is not quantified in the material reviewed; request terms | Direct work, approve changes and fund employment |
| G-P — larger coordinated rollout | UK employment administration and human support | Payroll, benefits, expenses, reporting and custom API integration | From USD599 per employee/month; volume discounts available | Initial UK funding is not quantified in the material reviewed; request terms | Direct work, coordinate approvals and fund employment |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
For UK hires, Teamed says it employs through Teamed Ltd. Its UK guide and service description make the support route unusually clear: a designated account contact can receive payroll, contract or leave questions, involve assigned specialists and own correction when Teamed makes a payroll mistake. That can spare a lean People team from finding the right employment specialist and chasing an internal payroll fix alone.
Its published service 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 customer directs the employee’s day-to-day work, supplies accurate information, makes employment decisions and funds the costs. Teamed’s first-response target is not a resolution guarantee, and its published commitments do not establish how every case will turn out.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote is a strong alternative when the buyer wants employment administration alongside an integrated 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 platform. Those people and workflows can help a small team organise documents, benefits and recurring payroll changes through one service.
Its EOR service fee starts at £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Confirm the contract term and any reserve before comparing proposals. Document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding; ask for a plan for the particular hire instead of assuming a start date. The customer still directs work and supplies hiring and payroll inputs.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel suits a buyer who wants workforce administration gathered into one workflow. Deel’s UK service combines EOR employment with payroll and tax administration, benefits, time-off records and employee documents. That arrangement can reduce the hand-offs involved in collecting onboarding information, recording changes and preparing payroll. Deel also describes access to HR and legal expertise when employment questions need attention.
Deel publishes an EOR service fee from $599 per employee per month and describes ongoing HR and legal support. The fee is only one part of employing someone. The material reviewed does not quantify Deel’s initial UK funding requirement. Ask for a full UK quote, a first-payroll funding schedule and a clear account of which updates your team must approve.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P is a substantive option for a larger coordinated rollout where several people need shared visibility into hiring and employment costs. G-P’s UK service covers employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses. Its published offering includes human support, reporting and custom API integration. Those capabilities may help teams coordinate approvals and feed employment information into existing systems.
Its EOR service fee starts at USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available. G-P also describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. Ask which reporting and integrations the proposed UK service includes and who will maintain them. Initial UK funding is not quantified in the material reviewed, so request the deposit or reserve terms and first invoice schedule before committing.
How to read the research
EOR Benchmark’s customer-advice result of 14 October 2026 gives 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 sample sizes and underlying responses are unpublished, and this is not a UK-only study. The result addresses customer advice; even a 10/10 result cannot guarantee resolution of a particular payroll or employment issue.
The September 2026 EOR Index reports review-text sentiment of 4.5/5 for Teamed (20 reviews), 3.9/5 for Remote (54), 4.3/5 for Deel (45) and 3.8/5 for G-P (30). Its method scores sentiment in public G2, Capterra and Trustpilot review text; these figures 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. Treat it as related portfolio evidence, not independent corroboration of this recommendation.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
Here is a fictional 2026/27 annual base budget using Teamed’s starting GBP fee. It separates the price of the EOR service from the cost of employing the person:
- Salary: £60,000.
- For this example, 2026/27 category A employer National Insurance is 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000) = £8,250.
- The minimum employer pension contribution on qualifying earnings is 3% × (£50,270 − £6,240) = £1,320.90.
- Teamed publishes separate starting prices of £479 or USD599 per employee per month. Using its GBP price, £479 × 12 = £5,748.
Annual base total: £75,318.90. 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 actual payroll can change the result; payroll-period rounding can also differ from this annual calculation. Do not use it as an exact monthly invoice or convert the providers’ published currencies to infer which has the lowest total cost.
Upfront cash is a separate question. Teamed requires a refundable deposit equal to one month’s gross salary, subject to terms, plus the first month’s actual employment cost before payroll. It publishes Net-7 payment terms, no setup or exit service fee and zero FX markup. For the fictional £60,000 salary, the deposit would be £5,000. The separate first-month funding includes salary, employer costs, the service fee and any other agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash; it is not an extra annual expense. No exit service fee removes statutory notice, severance or other employment obligations. Check Teamed’s pricing terms against the proposed contract.
Remote says it has no standard deposit, but may require a disclosed refundable reserve; when required, its documentation says this is usually one month’s total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs and later reconciles them: the later invoice collects a difference or issues a credit, rather than charging a second full payroll. Deel’s and G-P’s initial UK funding remains unquantified in the material reviewed. Obtain written schedules for both.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider to confirm:
- Which entity will employ the person, which UK contract and benefits apply, and who completes documents and right-to-work checks?
- Who receives employee and manager questions, who owns escalations, and how are payroll mistakes corrected? What are the payroll cut-offs?
- What must your team decide, approve and provide during onboarding, routine employment and exit?
- Can you receive an itemised quote separating 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 the first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- How will notice, severance and any other exit costs be calculated and funded?
Get the answers for your proposed UK hire and contract, especially where published material leaves the funding terms open.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ a UK worker through its employing arrangement, so you may not need to establish your own entity for that hire. Confirm the proposed arrangement and your obligations.
Is the monthly EOR fee the whole cost? No. Budget for salary, employer contributions, pension and any agreed benefits or other charges as well.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash tied up under the contract, subject to its refund terms.
What stays with us? You direct day-to-day work, provide information, approve decisions and fund employment costs.
Sources and disclosure
Provider capabilities and prices come from the linked Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P pages. The budget uses the linked GOV.UK rates and pension rules. The research discussion links the Benchmark result, September Index results and Index method. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and saved UK capability summaries on 22 October 2026. The Index’s Heddle portfolio relationship is disclosed above; its findings are related evidence.