Beyond the salary
On a £30,000 salary, the employer also pays National Insurance at 15% above £5,000 (from April 2025), a workplace pension contribution, and 28 days of paid holiday during which no work is produced. That alone adds thousands.
Equipment, space and software
Then there's the laptop, the desk (office or home-working kit), software licences, and the ongoing overhead of having someone on the team. Individually small, collectively significant.
Recruitment and risk
Finding the person costs money — agency fees or your time — and a hire carries risk: if it doesn't work out, unwinding it is slow and costly. Fully loaded, a £30,000 hire costs a UK employer around £40,000 a year, before counting the management time.
The comparison
A dedicated offshore equivalent through Aspire is from £950 a month — about £11,400 a year — all-inclusive, with recruitment, HR, office and equipment handled. Seeing the true UK figure is what makes the offshore saving so stark.
The number to compare against
When weighing a UK hire against any alternative, use the fully-loaded figure, not the salary. A £30,000 salary becomes around £40,000 once you add employer NI (15% above £5,000 from April 2025), pension, 28 days' paid holiday, equipment, software and recruitment — before counting your management time. That £40,000 is the honest number to compare against a dedicated offshore hire's all-inclusive £11,400 or so a year.
Frequently asked questions
What does a UK employee really cost?
Around £40,000 fully loaded for a £30,000 salary, once employer NI, pension, holiday, equipment, software and recruitment are included — before management time.
What's included in employer NI now?
From April 2025, employer National Insurance is 15% on earnings above a £5,000 threshold — a meaningful addition to every UK hire's cost.
How does that compare to offshore?
A dedicated offshore equivalent is from around £11,400 a year, all-inclusive, with recruitment, HR, office and equipment handled — a 55-70% saving against the fully-loaded UK figure.