United Kingdom · Employer of Record · Payroll · PEO
You have found the person you want to hire in the UK — now you need a compliant way to employ them. JN Recruitment is the expansion partner that connects international companies with vetted Employer of Record and payroll partners in the United Kingdom — plus the employment lawyers, accountants and PAYE payroll bureaus a post-Brexit UK expansion actually needs — and delivers the boutique recruitment that finds the candidate in the first place.
for an EOR to issue a compliant UK employment contract once documents and right-to-work checks are complete
employer National Insurance above the threshold, plus 3% minimum pension — budgeted before you make the offer
no Ltd required — with an Employer of Record, the partner is the legal employer in the UK
our recommendation is free — the best specialist from our vetted UK network, matched to your case
Payroll partner UK
The UK is one of the easiest countries in Europe to employ in on paper — and one of the easiest to get wrong in practice. PAYE registration with HMRC, Real Time Information (RTI) filings on or before every payday, employer National Insurance at 15% above the threshold, pension auto-enrolment with The Pensions Regulator watching, right-to-work checks that Brexit made mandatory for EU citizens too: none of it is optional, and all of it lands before your new hire receives a first payslip. Companies that have already found their candidate lose weeks here — or improvise with a contractor arrangement that IR35 rules later turn expensive.
There are two clean routes. If you have (or will build) a UK entity, a payroll service provider in the UK runs the monthly PAYE payroll, RTI filings and pension submissions for you. If you have no entity and don’t want one yet, an Employer of Record (EOR) employs your hire legally in the UK while you direct the day-to-day work — what many US companies would call a PEO, and what the British contracting world partly overlaps with under the label “umbrella company”. The market for all of this is the most crowded in Europe; service depth, compliance quality and pricing vary enormously. And sooner or later a UK expansion also needs an employment lawyer for the contract, an accountant for the books and a tax advisor for the cross-border questions. We vet all of it for you.
JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm headquartered in Mannheim, with offices in Poland and Cyprus — and the expansion partner international companies use for the British market. Years of placing people in the UK have built us a network of the best employment lawyers, accountants, PAYE payroll bureaus and licensed-and-audited EOR providers in the country. We recommend exactly the specialists your case needs — free of charge, at the partner’s standard rates — and stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the headhunting: the sales recruitment agency for the UK that international machinery, industrial-technology and recycling companies already use to enter the market.
What we arrange
Whatever stage your UK plans are at — first hire without an entity, or a full team on an existing Ltd — this is what our vetted British network delivers: EOR providers, PAYE payroll bureaus, employment lawyers, accountants and umbrella specialists, matched and introduced by us:
The partner becomes the legal employer of your hire in the UK — British employment contract, PAYE payroll, National Insurance, pension auto-enrolment, right-to-work checks — while you manage the work day-to-day. Live within days, no Ltd required, and unlike Germany there is no statutory time limit on the arrangement.
For companies with a UK entity: a specialised payroll bureau registers the PAYE scheme with HMRC, runs the monthly payroll, files RTI submissions on or before each payday, manages pension contributions to NEST or another provider, and issues payslips, P45s and P60s — no in-house UK payroll expertise needed.
Searching for a “PEO UK” or told you need an umbrella company? The US-style PEO doesn’t exist 1:1 under British law, and umbrella companies are built for the contractor market with its own compliance history. We translate what you actually need — usually EOR employment or outsourced payroll — into the right UK construct, with a vetted provider behind it.
Specialised employment solicitors for watertight British contracts, restrictive covenants and dismissals, accountants for the books and Companies House filings, tax advisors for cross-border and permanent-establishment questions — the advisory bench every UK expansion eventually needs, already vetted and briefed.
Onboarding paperwork, right-to-work documentation, absence tracking and statutory-leave administration — plus audits of UK contractor setups: under the off-payroll working rules (IR35), medium and large clients carry the status risk themselves, and partners convert contractors into compliant employment before HMRC does it for you.
The part we deliver ourselves: executive search for technical sales and leadership roles in the UK. If you don’t have the candidate yet, we find them — then plug employment and payroll in behind the signed offer.
Market knowledge
British employment is flexible by European standards — but HMRC’s payroll machinery is strict and real-time. The essentials we brief every company on before a UK hire:
Since April 2025, employer NICs run at 15% on earnings above a secondary threshold of roughly £5,000 a year — the single biggest employment cost after salary. Add the 3% minimum pension contribution and the rule of thumb becomes: budget roughly 16–18% on top of gross for a professional salary.
UK payroll runs on Real Time Information: a Full Payment Submission must reach HMRC on or before every single payday, with penalties for late filings. There is no monthly grace window as in much of the continent — which is exactly why even small UK employers outsource payroll to a bureau.
Ordinary unfair-dismissal rights currently begin after two years’ service, which makes the UK one of Europe’s most flexible markets for parting ways early. The Employment Rights Act reforms are set to move this towards a day-one right with a statutory probation period — a shift we flag in every UK introduction, because contracts signed now should anticipate it.
Engaging a UK “contractor” who works like an employee is no longer the contractor’s tax problem: under the off-payroll working rules, medium and large engagers must determine employment status themselves and carry the PAYE liability if they get it wrong. Genuine employment via EOR or payroll costs little more — and removes the risk entirely.
Employer cost benchmarks
Payroll quotes in the UK are built on employer National Insurance, pension auto-enrolment and PAYE withholding. The 2026 picture — the source of the “roughly 16–18% on top” rule every employer budget should use:
| Contribution | Employer pays | Employee pays |
|---|---|---|
| Employer National Insurance (Class 1) | 15% above ≈£5,000/yr threshold | — |
| Employee National Insurance (Class 1) | — | 8% (2% above upper limit) |
| Workplace pension auto-enrolment | min. 3% of qualifying earnings | min. 5% (incl. tax relief) |
| Apprenticeship Levy | 0.5% (payrolls over £3m) | — |
| Income tax (withheld via PAYE) | — | 20–45% |
| Employers’ liability insurance (mandatory) | premium varies by sector | — |
Orientation figures for 2026, rounded: the Employment Allowance offsets up to ≈£10,500 of employer NICs for eligible smaller employers, pension minimums apply to a qualifying-earnings band, and Scotland sets its own income-tax bands. Rule of thumb: a £70,000 gross salary costs the employer roughly £81,000–83,000 all-in. Your payroll or EOR partner’s quote is the binding number.
Yes. An Employer of Record (EOR) employs your candidate in the UK on your behalf: the EOR holds the British employment contract, runs PAYE payroll, National Insurance and pension auto-enrolment, and you direct the day-to-day work. No Ltd, no UK bank account, no HMRC registrations on your side. Unlike Germany, the UK sets no statutory time limit on EOR employment and requires no special labour-leasing licence — which makes vetting the provider’s actual compliance quality all the more important.
The EOR is the legal employer under British law. It issues a compliant UK employment contract, completes the mandatory right-to-work check, registers the employment with HMRC, withholds income tax and employee NICs via PAYE, files RTI submissions every payday, auto-enrols the employee into a workplace pension, administers holiday (5.6 weeks statutory) and statutory sick pay, and issues payslips, P45s and P60s. You remain in charge of the work itself — targets, tasks, tools, day-to-day management — and reimburse the EOR for gross salary, employer costs and a service fee.
Typical UK EOR pricing is a flat £250–600 per employee per month, or a percentage of gross salary — on top of the salary itself, roughly 15% employer National Insurance and the 3% minimum pension. Compare that with the alternative: forming a Ltd is cheap and fast, but running it means registered-office duties, Companies House and HMRC filings, accounting, employers’ liability insurance and a payroll setup — rarely worth it below three to five employees. We match you with a partner whose pricing fits your head-count and flag the all-in monthly number before you commit.
Budget roughly 16–18%: employer National Insurance at 15% on earnings above a threshold of about £5,000 a year, plus a minimum 3% employer pension contribution on qualifying earnings, plus mandatory employers’ liability insurance and, for payrolls over £3 million, the 0.5% Apprenticeship Levy. Competitive professional packages usually add more than the pension minimum, private health cover and a car allowance of £5,000–7,000 for field roles. As a rule of thumb, a £70,000 gross salary costs the employer roughly £81,000–83,000 all-in per year, before any bonus or EOR fee.
An EOR employs your hire fully so you need no UK entity. A US-style PEO co-employs staff alongside your own entity — a construct with no exact UK equivalent, where the practical answer is outsourced payroll and HR on your Ltd. An umbrella company is a UK-specific vehicle from the contractor market: it employs temporary workers between assignments, typically fed by recruitment agencies, and the sector has a documented history of non-compliant schemes that new legislation is tightening. For a permanent hire of your own, EOR or own-entity payroll is almost always the right construct — and we check what a provider actually delivers before we introduce them.
Yes. The UK requires no special licence for EOR employment — a key difference from Germany’s AÜG regime — and there is no maximum duration. The flip side is a low barrier to entry: anyone can call themselves an EOR, and compliance quality ranges from excellent to reckless, particularly around right-to-work checks, holiday-pay calculation and pension duties. Provider vetting — accreditations, insurance, client references, how they handle statutory rights — is precisely the work we do before recommending a partner.
Yes. If your Ltd or branch already exists, a British payroll partner takes over the monthly run: PAYE registration if you have never employed in the UK before, RTI filings to HMRC on every payday, pension assessments and submissions, payslips, P45s, P60s and year-end reporting. Typical pricing runs per payslip per month. The same partners handle auto-enrolment setup with NEST or another scheme — a statutory duty from your first employee’s first day.
Via EOR: the British employment contract is typically ready within two to five working days once the candidate’s documents and right-to-work check are complete — UK employment paperwork is genuinely fast. In practice the binding constraint is usually the candidate’s notice period: one month is standard for UK professionals, three months for senior sales leadership — which, as recruiters, is the part we actively manage for you. Remember that since Brexit, EU citizens need immigration status to work in the UK, so hires are best made among candidates already based and eligible in the country.
Only if they are genuinely in business on their own account. Under the off-payroll working rules (IR35), medium and large engagers must assess employment status themselves — and if a contractor works like an employee, the PAYE and NIC liability lands on the fee-payer, with HMRC actively enforcing. One client, set hours and integration into your team are classic red flags. If the working reality is employment, EOR employment costs little more and removes the risk; our partners also audit and convert existing UK contractor setups.
No — and that is deliberate. JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm and your expansion partner for the UK: over years of placing candidates here we have built a vetted network of the best employment solicitors, accountants, PAYE payroll bureaus and EOR providers — and we recommend exactly the specialists your case needs. You contract directly with the partner at their standard rates; the recommendation costs you nothing, and we stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the search: if the candidate doesn’t exist yet, our UK headhunting finds them.
Across Europe
The same specialised technical sales search opens every market on the continent — pick the country you are expanding into.
Hiring in several markets at once?
Hiring at leadership level? Our executive search practice:
Candidate found — and now need a compliant way to employ them?
Talk to us — no strings attached. We get back to you within 24 hours.
Our mission is simple: placements that open new markets.
30-minute intro call
Two quick steps — tell us what you need and how to reach you. Within one business day you get an intro call and, where it fits, a direct introduction to the right specialists from our vetted network.
Your contact person Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment +49 1525 2077583 [email protected] Thank you — we’ll get back to you within one business day to schedule your intro call.
An honest read on your vacancy & market — in your first call.
Free vacancy check · reply within 24 hours
Before you go
Every month a key sales seat stays empty pushes your expansion plans back — and leaves serious revenue on the table. We fill technical sales positions within weeks, so you hit your expansion targets on schedule.
Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment Free vacancy check · reply within 24 hours
