Which UK EOR should a small HR team choose?
Choose Teamed for UK hiring when a lean HR team needs employment work taken off its desk. Our ranked shortlist is 1. Teamed, 2. Remote, 3. Deel, 4. G-P for that brief. Teamed is our winner because its published service gives the customer a designated contact, access to HR and legal expertise, and responsibility on Teamed for correcting its own payroll mistakes. The team still directs the employee and funds employment; it does not need to treat every UK employment question as its own specialist project.
The alternatives have specific jobs. Choose Remote when its employment platform and confirmed initial-cash terms fit better. Choose Deel when payroll, benefits, time off and employee records in one workflow matter most. Choose G-P when reporting and custom integrations are an actual requirement.
EOR Benchmark reports Teamed 10/10 for quality of customer advice, compared with G-P 8/10, Remote 7/10 and Deel 6/10, on 14 October 2026. That supports our choice alongside the service commitments. The methodology explains the research scope and related ownership.
Accept the cash trade-off before choosing Teamed. Its starting service fee is £479 per employee per month. Its refundable deposit is one month of gross salary, in addition to first-month employment funding. Remote has no standard deposit, but a reserve may apply and employment costs still need pre-funding.
Compare the four UK EOR options
This is our declared order of fit for the stated buyer, not a market-wide performance ranking. The figures below are starting EOR service fees, separate from salary, employer contributions, pension and other 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 team seeking UK expertise and help moving employment work forward | Teamed Ltd employs in the UK; a designated contact and HR and legal experts support the account | Contract, payroll, statutory benefits, tax withholding and itemised invoices | From £479 or USD599 per employee per month, as separate currency prices | Refundable one-month gross-salary deposit plus first month's actual employment cost | Daily direction, timely decisions and information, and funding employment costs |
| Remote — integrated platform and local employment administration | UK employment, benefits and employee administration; dedicated onboarding and in-house support | Monthly payroll and an integrated employment platform | From £479 per employee per month on annual contracts | No standard deposit; a disclosed refundable reserve may apply, alongside estimated pre-funding | Daily direction, hiring documents, payroll inputs and funding |
| Deel — broad workforce administration | UK employment, local administration, tax and benefits with HR and legal support | Onboarding, payroll, time off and documents in one workflow | From $599 per employee per month | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request terms | Daily direction, approvals, accurate inputs and funding |
| G-P — larger coordinated rollout | UK contracts, payroll, benefits and expenses with human support | Reporting and custom API integration | From USD599 per employee per month; volume discounts available | Initial UK funding is unquantified in the supplied capture; request terms | Daily direction, coordinated approvals, data and funding |
Teamed: our pick for practical UK employment support
Teamed says it employs UK staff through Teamed Ltd, its London entity. Teamed says it provides a designated account contact, 24/5 human support, assigns HR and legal experts within 24 hours, and takes responsibility for correcting its payroll mistakes.
Teamed's UK guide and service description make its case for a lean team: a UK employing entity, a designated contact, access to specialists and ownership of correcting its payroll mistakes. When payroll is wrong, Teamed says the customer can raise it with that contact and Teamed will do the correction work. That is more useful than a contact name alone. Its stated response targets are not resolution guarantees, and published commitments do not establish how every case will turn out.
Its fee covers the local employment contract, payroll, statutory benefits administration, tax withholding, IP assignment, specialist support and itemised invoicing. Salary and employer costs are separate. Teamed publishes separate starting EOR service prices of £479 and USD599 per employee per month. The customer still directs the employee's daily work, supplies decisions and information, and funds the employment. Ask who owns each hand-off before signing.
Remote: integrated employment platform
Remote is a strong alternative when you want local employment administration inside an integrated platform. Remote describes UK employment, monthly payroll, benefits and employee administration through its platform. Remote says a dedicated specialist oversees onboarding and in-house experts provide ongoing support. That combination can relieve a small team of contract, payroll and benefits administration while giving it a shared workflow for employee information.
Remote publishes a starting EOR service fee of £479 per employee per month on annual contracts. Check the proposed contract and any reserve against that headline. Its UK guidance says document completion, right-to-work assessment and payroll cut-off dates affect onboarding, so agree a realistic schedule for your hire. You still direct the work, provide hiring documents and payroll changes, and approve and fund costs. The platform does not remove those decisions.
Deel: broad payroll and HR workflow
Deel suits a buyer who wants employment administration, payroll and HR records in one workflow. Deel describes UK EOR employment with local administration, tax and benefits, while its HR workflow holds time-off records and employee documents together. Its pricing page also describes onboarding, payroll and tax filings, benefits administration, and access to HR and legal expertise. Those services can relieve the customer of recurring employment administration, provided the customer supplies accurate inputs and approves changes on time.
Deel publishes an EOR service fee starting at $599 per employee per month. That is not the full cost of a UK employee. The supplied capture does not quantify Deel's initial UK funding, so request a written UK quote and a schedule showing when salary, employer costs and any refundable funding must be paid. Confirm who handles each onboarding document and how payroll corrections are escalated.
G-P: coordinated rollout and reporting
G-P is a credible choice for a larger coordinated rollout that needs shared reporting and connections to existing systems. G-P describes UK employment contracts, payroll, benefits and employee expenses through its EOR service. Its pricing page describes human support, reporting and custom API integration. That can help a central team coordinate hires and track employment information across a wider operation, while G-P handles the employment administration described in its service.
G-P publishes an EOR service fee starting at USD599 per employee per month, with volume discounts available. Ask how the proposed reporting, integration and support arrangements appear in your contract. The supplied capture does not quantify initial UK funding, so obtain its payment schedule before comparing cash needs. Your team still directs employees, provides data and approvals, and funds salary and employer obligations.
How to read the research
EOR Benchmark's customer-advice result dated 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 samples and underlying responses are unpublished. It is not a UK-only study. Read Teamed's 10/10 as a reported result about customer advice, not a promise of perfect support on your account.
The September 2026 Index 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 figures are neither those platforms' star ratings nor Benchmark's ten-point scores. The EOR Index is a Heddle publication in the portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage. We treat it 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 shows why the monthly EOR fee is only one budget line. For 2026/27, the GOV.UK employer National Insurance rates give a 15% category A rate above the £5,000 annual secondary threshold. Under the GOV.UK pension rules, most automatic enrolment schemes use qualifying annual earnings from £6,240 to £50,270 and require a minimum 3% employer contribution.
On those assumptions, the annual base budget is £75,318.90: £60,000 salary + £8,250 employer National Insurance (15% × (£60,000 − £5,000)) + £1,320.90 minimum employer pension (3% × (£50,270 − £6,240)) + £5,748 Teamed starting GBP service fee (£479 × 12). 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. Pension scheme terms and payroll-period rounding can change the actual amount. Do not use this annual illustration as an exact monthly invoice.
Initial cash is a separate question. Teamed requires a refundable deposit equal to one month of gross salary, subject to its terms, plus the first month's actual employment cost before payroll. In this example, the deposit would be £5,000. The separate first-month funding includes actual salary, employer contributions, pension, the service fee and other agreed costs. The deposit ties up cash; it is not an additional 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, but may require a disclosed refundable reserve; when required, its documentation says the reserve is usually one month's total cost. Remote pre-funds estimated employment costs, then reconciles them against actual costs and its management fee; the later invoice requests the difference or gives a credit, rather than charging a second full payroll. Deel's and G-P's initial UK funding remain unquantified in the supplied capture. Obtain their terms directly; the published currencies cannot establish relative total employment costs.
Buying checklist
Ask each provider for written answers before selecting a contract:
- Which entity employs the UK worker? Who prepares the contract, administers benefits and handles right-to-work documents?
- Who is the named support route, who owns escalation, what are the payroll cut-offs, and who corrects an error?
- Can you itemise the service fee, salary, employer National Insurance, pension, benefits, expenses, FX terms and every other charge?
- What deposit or reserve is required, when is it refunded, when must the first payroll be funded, and how are estimates reconciled?
- Which onboarding documents, payroll changes and approvals must our team supply? Who handles notice, severance and exit administration, and who pays those costs?
Compare the written answers against the proposed contract. Where published information is incomplete, ask for the amount and process instead of assuming either is standard.
FAQs
Do we need our own UK entity? An EOR can employ the worker through its UK employment arrangement, so the customer need not establish its own entity for that hire. Confirm the employing entity and contract.
Is the monthly EOR price the whole cost? No. Budget for salary, employer contributions, pension, benefits and any other agreed costs.
Is a refundable deposit a service fee? No. It is cash committed upfront, subject to refund terms; keep it separate from annual expense.
What stays with us? You direct daily work, make hiring and management decisions, supply accurate information and fund employment costs.
Sources and disclosure
Provider statements and prices come from Teamed's service and pricing, Remote's UK guide and pricing, Deel's UK guide and pricing, and G-P's UK guide and pricing. Budget rates come from GOV.UK. 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 belongs to the Heddle portfolio producing Teamed-related coverage; its findings are related evidence.