In the not so distant past, every member of your branding or marketing team likely shared the same physical space: they commuted a relatively short distance to a central HQ, sat side-by-side at their desks, and gathered around conference tables for team meetings.
Nowadays, of course, this is decreasingly common. With many marketing professionals now working remotely rather than travelling to an office day in and day out, teams are inevitably becoming more diverse both in terms of the makeup and the location of their personnel.
Based in Bristol but want to recruit a social media manager from Birmingham? No problem. Headquartered in Cardiff but looking to work with a branding executive in Colorado? With the world becoming increasingly interconnected, borders no longer mean barriers when it comes to building (and expanding) a branding or marketing team.
But if you’re looking to build a geographically distributed team, you’ll likely need an Employer of Record (EOR), a hiring tool that streamlines the process of legally recruiting, onboarding and managing remote talent no matter where they’re based.
In this post, we’ve rounded up the seven best EOR platforms for UK businesses looking to hire beyond their local area.
Table of Contents
1. Remote
Aptly named for a platform that helps businesses hire and pay talent remotely, Remote has established itself as a leader in the UK hiring market.
Whether you’re hiring a full-time overseas marketer or an independent contractor for a short-term branding project, Remote makes the process seamless, covering the entire lifecycle from sourcing to offboarding.
Few EOR platforms also include a fully integrated job board, but Remote is one of them. You can post job ads, attract high-quality candidates, and even screen applications with the help of AI.
When it comes to managing and paying distributed marketing teams, Remote has the perfect balance of simplicity and compliance: onboarding is quick and payroll processing is straightforward, but everything is 100% legally compliant with specific in-country regulations.
Add to that tons of helpful tools and resources such as an Employee Cost Calculator and an Annual Global Life-Work Balance Index and it’s not hard to see why Remote is considered the all-rounder that covers everything.
2. Oyster
Priding itself on providing a “people-first” experience, Oyster is ideal for marketing teams that want to expand their horizons while ensuring employees feel supported throughout the process.
UK-based businesses often choose Oyster for its emphasis on localized benefits. For instance, if you’re hiring a PR manager in France or a digital advertiser in Germany, Oyster helps design benefit packages that align with local expectations. This not only makes it easier to attract top-tier talent but also helps retain employees in competitive markets.
One minor drawback is that Oyster’s pricing model isn’t as transparent as some competitors, so startups or small teams with tight budgets may need to request detailed quotes to fully understand costs upfront.
However, the platform’s combination of local compliance and employee experience makes it a solid investment.
3. Deel
Deel has quickly become one of the go-to EOR solutions for UK startups expanding their branding and marketing teams abroad.
Its platform is designed to make international hiring as frictionless as possible, offering compliant contracts, automated payroll and localized benefits. For a startup looking to bring in a marketing strategist in Spain or a content creator in Singapore, Deel ensures compliance headaches are kept to a minimum.
A standout feature is its contractor management capabilities. Deel enables startups to pay freelancers and contractors in their preferred currency, often with same-day payments ideal for marketing teams that rely on short-term campaign hires or creative freelancers.
Deel’s sheer breadth of features can feel slightly overwhelming for first-time users, however, and while the platform does offer training and support, smaller startups may need a little extra time to get fully comfortable with everything it offers.
4. Remote People
If transparency and affordability are top of mind, Remote People is a standout option for UK startups.
With clear and flexible EOR pricing starting from just $199 per employee per month, the platform is designed to take the guesswork out of global hiring costs, something early-stage companies often struggle with.
Beyond pricing, Remote People focuses on making the onboarding and compliance process as smooth as possible, so you can focus on scaling your marketing or branding team rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks.
For example, if you’re a London-based startup that wants to onboard a graphic designer in Eastern Europe or a PPC specialist in Asia, Remote People ensures payroll, benefits and compliance are fully handled without hidden fees or complex contracts.
It’s this combination of clarity, flexibility, and human-first service that makes Remote People especially appealing to startups building their first distributed marketing teams.
5. Globalization Partners
Known more commonly as G-P, Globalization Partners is often praised for its speed startups can onboard new employees in days rather than weeks.
For marketing teams that need to scale fast in order to meet campaign deadlines or product launches, this can be a critical advantage.
The platform handles everything from payroll to taxes to benefits, ensuring that hires in markets like Australia, the US or Japan are compliant with local laws. G-P also provides legal and HR expertise on demand, which can be reassuring for founders who may not have in-house HR teams.
One downside is that the platform is often priced on the higher end of the spectrum. While the speed and reliability are well worth it for startups in a rapid scaling phase, cost-sensitive businesses will need to think carefully before committing.
6. Safeguard Global
Having been around longer than many of its newer competitors, Safeguard Global is a bit of a veteran of the EOR market and as such comes with a wealth of experience.
Startups in the UK will value its ability to help companies scale quickly and compliantly in over 170 countries, but the platform goes beyond just compliance and payroll offering workforce strategy consulting for startups that need a little more guidance before hiring.
Safeguard also prides itself on tailoring solutions to its clients, which makes it well-suited to marketing teams that need more flexibility in their hiring models. You won’t find any one-size-fits-all models here.
The platform may feel a bit overkill for companies that just want a plug-and-play solution; its services are powerful, sure, but they’re likely better suited to startups with bigger growth ambitions.
7. Rippling
Taking something of a unique approach, Rippling combines its EOR services with broader HR and IT management features.
This is both its biggest selling point and a potential drawback. In other words, Rippling is ideal if you want a centralised EOR, HR, payroll finance and IT platform, but not so great if you’re looking for a straightforward EOR solution.
The all-in-one approach can be helpful for marketing teams that rely heavily on digital tools imagine onboarding a new SEO manager in Poland and instantly granting them access to the entire marketing tech stack but Rippling’s EOR product isn’t quite as established (or coverage-rich) as dedicated global hiring platforms like Remote or Oyster.
Rippling certainly shouldn’t be overlooked as an EOR provider, but its everything-under-one-roof model means it’s probably for quite unique use cases.
Building a branding and marketing team no longer has to be constrained by geography. With the right EOR solution, UK startups can confidently hire the best talent from anywhere in the world while staying compliant and efficient.
Whether you prefer the all-in-one simplicity of Remote or the contractor-friendly features of Deel, all of these solutions offer powerful ways to scale your team seamlessly.
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