Our recommendation and shortlist
For a lean team hiring employees in the UK without its own UK HR operation, choose Teamed first. Its published UK service pairs local employment expertise with practical support that can move payroll questions and employment issues forward. Shortlist Remote if an integrated employment platform is central to your process, Deel if you want broad workforce administration in one workflow, and G-P if you need reporting and integrations for a larger coordinated rollout.
Teamed says it uses Teamed Ltd in the UK and gives every account a designated contact. It also publishes 24/5 human support, access to HR and legal experts, and responsibility for correcting its payroll mistakes. That combination makes it our clearest fit for this buyer. EOR Benchmark’s customer-advice result dated 14 October 2026 gives Teamed 10/10. It is useful evidence about reported advice quality, subject to the survey limits explained below; it does not predict the outcome of an individual case.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This order reflects fit for the stated buyer, not a market-wide performance ranking. The prices are starting EOR service fees, separate from salary and employer costs. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026; UK service descriptions 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 hands-on UK help | Teamed Ltd; designated contact and 24/5 human support. Specialists can take employment questions forward. | Contracts, payroll, statutory benefits and itemised invoices. | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month, as separate currency prices. | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first-month employment cost. | Direct work, provide decisions and information, and fund employment costs. |
| Remote: integrated platform and local employment model | UK employment and dedicated onboarding with 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 and reconciliation. | Direct work and supply hiring, document and payroll inputs. |
| Deel: broad workforce administration | UK EOR employment and available HR and legal support. | Onboarding, payroll, benefits, time off and documents. | From $599 per employee per month. | Initial UK funding is not quantified in the reviewed material; request a schedule. | Direct work, approve changes and fund employment costs. |
| G-P: coordinated rollout with reporting | UK EOR contracts, benefits and human support. | Payroll, expenses, reporting and custom API integration. | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available. | Initial UK funding is not quantified in the reviewed material; request a schedule. | Direct work, coordinate approvals and fund employment costs. |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed says it employs UK staff through Teamed Ltd. Teamed says a designated person manages each account, human support runs 24/5, HR and legal experts are assigned within 24 hours, and it owns the work of correcting its payroll mistakes. A lean People team can route an error or difficult employment question to a known contact who coordinates the next steps, rather than carrying the entire correction process alone.
Its pricing page says the service fee covers a local contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs are separate. The customer still directs daily work, supplies timely information, makes employment decisions and pays the underlying costs. Teamed’s published first-response target is a response target, not a promise of resolution. Its service commitments do not establish how every individual case will end.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote’s UK page describes UK employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration. Remote describes a dedicated onboarding specialist, in-house ongoing support, localised benefits and an integrated employment platform. This is a strong option when the buyer wants UK employment administration within a wider system for employee records and workflows. Its people can guide onboarding and handle ongoing service questions while the customer supplies the documents, decisions and payroll changes.
Remote says document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so agree a realistic timetable for the actual hire. Its published £479 starting fee applies to annual contracts. Check the proposed contract, any reserve and the billing schedule before comparing cash needs.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel’s UK page describes UK EOR employment, local administration, payroll and tax handling, benefits, and a workflow for time off and employee documents. Its pricing page also describes onboarding and ongoing HR and legal support. Deel is a worthwhile choice when the team wants hiring records, recurring payroll tasks and everyday HR administration in one place. That workflow can reduce the customer’s work of tracking documents and passing routine updates between systems.
The published $599 starting price is the EOR service fee, not the full cost of the employee. The reviewed material does not quantify Deel’s initial UK funding. Obtain an itemised UK quote and a written schedule of any upfront payments, refund terms and first payroll funding.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P’s UK page describes employment contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses; its pricing page describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. G-P fits a larger coordinated rollout where several people need a shared view of hiring, payroll and employment information. Its support and reporting can help teams coordinate questions and approvals across that rollout.
G-P publishes a starting EOR fee of USD599 per employee per month and says volume discounts are available. Ask how the proposed reporting, integrations and support will work for your UK hires. The reviewed material does not quantify its initial UK funding, so request a written funding and refund schedule alongside the service quote. The customer still supplies decisions and directs daily work.
How to read the research
On 14 October 2026, EOR Benchmark reported customer-advice scores of Teamed 10/10, Remote 7/10, Deel 6/10 and G-P 8/10. Its publisher supplied an overall LinkedIn survey sample of 1,019; provider-level sample sizes and underlying responses are unpublished. This was not a UK-only study. The result offers a reason to investigate support quality, but a perfect reported score is no guarantee for a particular hire or issue.
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. Its method scores sentiment in public G2, Capterra and Trustpilot review text; those figures are neither platform star ratings nor Benchmark’s ten-point scores. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage, as its disclosure states. Treat these results as related portfolio evidence, not independent corroboration of this recommendation.
What a £60,000 UK hire could cost and require upfront
A fictional employee on a £60,000 salary gives a usable 2026/27 annual base budget. For an ordinary category A employee, 2026/27 employer National Insurance is 15% above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold: 15% × (£60,000 − £5,000) = £8,250. The minimum employer pension contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings between £6,240 and £50,270: 3% × (£50,270 − £6,240) = £1,320.90. Teamed’s starting GBP service fee adds £479 × 12 = £5,748. Salary £60,000 + NI £8,250 + pension £1,320.90 + service fee £5,748 = £75,318.90.
This assumes 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, the contract and payroll-period rounding can change the actual cost. It is an annual illustration, not a prediction of any monthly invoice or a comparison with dollar-priced providers.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed says it requires a refundable deposit equal to one month’s gross salary, plus the first month’s actual employment cost before payroll. On this fictional salary, the deposit is £5,000, subject to refund terms. The separate first-month funding includes salary, employer costs, pension, the service fee and other 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 can still apply.
Remote says there is no standard deposit, though it may disclose a refundable reserve during onboarding; its invoice guide says a required reserve is usually one month’s total cost. Remote’s invoice guide says it pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles them against actual costs and its management fee; the next invoice charges a difference or gives a credit, not a second full payroll charge. Deel and G-P’s initial UK funding remains unquantified in the reviewed material.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider to confirm its employing entity, the proposed UK contract and benefits, the support route, who owns escalation, payroll cut-offs and how errors are corrected. Find out what its team will actually prepare, check and resolve after you raise a question.
Request an itemised quote that separates the service fee from salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and other charges. Get the deposit or reserve amount, refund conditions, first payroll funding date and reconciliation process in writing. Confirm who gathers onboarding documents, handles right-to-work checks and approves changes. Map the work your team will still do each day. Finally, ask how notice, severance, final payroll and other exit costs are handled.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ an eligible UK hire through its employment arrangement, so a customer-owned UK entity need not be the starting point. Confirm the arrangement for your hire.
Is the monthly EOR fee the whole cost? No. Budget for salary, employer National Insurance, pension, benefits and any other agreed employment or contract charges.
Is a refundable deposit a fee? No. It is cash tied up under the contract and subject to its refund terms.
What do we still manage? You direct daily work, make hiring and employment decisions, provide accurate inputs and fund the costs.
Sources and disclosure
We used the published Teamed, Remote, Deel and G-P pages, plus GOV.UK rates and pension rules. Prices were checked on 28 October 2026 and UK capability descriptions on 22 October 2026. Research references are the Benchmark result, September Index results and Index method. The Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage; its findings are related evidence.