Top 7 Payroll Companies in the UK and London

The best payroll service providers submit accurate reports to HMRC while keeping your UK business compliant and your sensitive employee data safe.

According to our extensive independent research, Moorepay is the best payroll company in the UK. It gives you access to UK-based consultants, assuring you that you will be up to date with the UK payroll legislation and data laws, as well as customisable reporting, offering beneficial expertise and insights.

There are plenty of other payroll service solutions out there, however, each with different benefits that could fit your business needs better. Here are all the payroll companies that impressed us during our latest round of testing:

Top 7 UK Payroll Companies: Comparison

Each of our top-ranked payroll companies offers fully managed payroll services. For a quick overview of what other services each can provide, see the table below:

Prices correct as of September 2024

1. Moorepay – Best Overall Payroll Company in the UK

Moorepay quick facts

• Services available: Fully-managed payroll, DIY software, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office location: Greater Manchester
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

Why is Moorepay the best overall?

Moorepay earns the top spot in our ranking largely due to the high level of expertise you’ll get access to.

The company lets you talk to UK-based payroll specialists who can answer your queries and give you guidance on HR, payroll, and tax matters. This helpful feature offers incredible support to companies, especially small businesses and those without an accounting team.

We really like the holiday calculators you can use free of charge on Moorepay’s website. Within a matter of seconds, the calculators work out the number of holidays your part-time or zero-hour contract workers are entitled to. This is a super handy tool for businesses that might struggle to make sense of legislation and want to ensure employees are receiving their legally entitled holiday.

Moorepay’s onboarding process also impressed us. If you’re switching payroll companies and moving over to Moorepay, it will handle any legislative or policy changes that your business might need.

Like competitor MHR, Moorepay offers a native HR platform that fully integrates with its payroll system, but Moorepay’s HR interface is easier to grasp than MHR’s. This is why it features highly in our ranking of the best payroll solutions for small businesses.

How could Moorpay improve?

On the flip side, for all its easy onboarding, Moorepay doesn’t offer live training sessions – a crucial feature if you’d like your company to get to grips with the system fast. In comparison, ADP offers this.

What type of business is Moorepay best for?

Moorepay’s payroll services are best growing small businesses looking to outsource both payroll and HR, since Moorepay does both. It’s also got a lot of educational resources on hand, for businesses that want help understand payroll tax-commitments.

However, since Moorepay doesn’t provide services for paying employees outside of the UK, it’s not a good option for businesses who have gone, or are looking to go international. For that, Frontier is your go-to.

2. Payescape – Best for Best for Short Contracts

Payescape quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, HR software
• Contracts available: Rolling monthly
• UK office location: Ballymoney (NI)
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

Why is Payescape the best for short contracts?

Payescape’s main draw is that it offers rolling monthly contracts for its payroll services, meaning businesses aren’t locked in to its services with a long term contract.

All of Payescape client services teams are CIPP qualified, and it has ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications, so you can be sure your information is in safe hands.

However, Payescape’s offices are located in Ballymoney (NI), making it a little trickier for some UK and London businesses to meet the team handling their payroll process.

Luckily, Payescape makes itself very available for training and support. It has a three-ring phone answer policy, offers a customised onboarding training programme, and has a knowledge center with video tutorials and how-to guides.

How could Payescape improve?

All that being said, unlike Frontier, Payescape doesn’t manage payroll for international employees. Similarly, its reporting features aren’t as advanced as MHR’s which allows for greater customisation and detail retrieval from tasks like cost analysis.

What type of business is Payescape best for?

Paysescape’s rolling monthly contracts and robust support system make it a great option for small businesses that don’t want to be tied down but need a lot of payroll guidance.

3. MHR – Best for Reporting

MHR quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll,  DIY software, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office locations: Nottingham, Glasgow
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

Why is MHR the best for reporting?

MHR’s software system possesses significant data crunching capabilities, and since that’s what the company will be using to process your payroll, you’ll gets access to detailed reports. When we used its native iTrent program, we were able to run highly-detailed tasks, from pinpointing costs to analysing employee performance.

Like Moorepay, MHR also comes with an integrated HR platform, allowing you to save money on this front. It also has an incredibly high standard when it comes to data compliance, attested by its ISO:27001 accreditation.

For accounting teams that need to present their performance data to key stakeholders, MHR’s powerful visualisation tools allow you to present data in compelling graphs.

How could MHR improve?

However, like Frontier, MHR doesn’t have a London location, but it does have two UK-based offices: one in Nottingham, and another in Glasgow. If these locations are far from you, MHR is available via phone and chatbot, but not via email – a contact channel that ADP also lacks.

One big downside to MHR is that it doesn’t offer live training sessions to ease your onboarding process, unlike OneAdvanced and Payescape. This could pose an issue if you need your team to operate this software to its full potential. MHR also doesn’t offer its customers advice on how to stay compliant with payroll laws, something Moorepay, Payescape, and ADP all do. This could be a real issue if you’re not well-versed on the latest legislation.

What type of business is MHR best for?

MHR is best poised to help business owners and C-suite executives that really want to make the most out of the employee data at their disposal.

We wouldn’t recommend it to smaller businesses that need a support system, since MHR doesn’t provide live training, nor does it offer advice on compliance. For more support, Moorepay or OneAdvanced are great options.

You’re nearly halfway through our list of the seven best payroll service providers in the UK. Time to start comparing quotes?

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4. Frontier – Best for International Businesses

Frontier quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, DIY software, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office locations: Surrey, Warrington, Nottingham, Gloucester
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

Why is Frontier the best for international businesses?

Frontier’s ability to pay international employees makes it ideal to help businesses that operate in multiple countries organise their payroll. This isn’t a service offered by Moorepay or Payescape.

It has four UK locations: its headquarters are in Lightwater, there is a helpdesk in Warrington, plus offices in Nottingham and Gloucester. These headquarters span quite a bit of England, making Frontier easily reachable to a lot of English businesses.

Like ADP, Frontier has a mobile app, allowing employees and managers to easily check and edit their payroll data on the go. Timesheets can be submitted on the go through the app, and payslips can be sent.

Similarly to MHR, Frontier comes with an integrated HR platform, which is a money-saving feature considering you won’t have to purchase a separate system to handle these tasks.

How could Frontier improve?

However, Frontier’s lack of an open API is its Achilles’ heel, because it prevents you from integrating it with other platforms. Among the providers we tested, only OneAdvanced has a similar limitation. Frontier also doesn’t come with ready-made accounting software integrations, which means tracking labour expenses is difficult with Frontier. Overall, if third-party integrations are key to your business, ADP is a better choice.

Elsewhere, Frontier doesn’t provide guidance on how to stay compliant to business, which isn’t great to those in need of this extra information.

What type of business is Frontier best for?

Frontier is best for businesses that have employees located outside of the UK, whom they need to process payroll for. Its employee mobile also makes it easy for remote employees to stay up to date with their payroll data and access payslips.

However, Frontier’s lack of open API and ready-made integrations make it a no-go for businesses looking to integrate their payroll with other software.

5. OneAdvanced – Best for Training

OneAdvanced quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, DIY software, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office locations: London, Docklands, Birmingham, Newcastle, York, Mansfield, Knutsford, Ashford
• CIPP PAS-accredited: No

Why is OneAdvanced the best for training?

OneAdvanced offers comprehensive training sessions, great for professionals keen on learning the ins and outs of the system quickly.

Businesses can access training in a variety of formats, including live training sessions, video tutorials, and written guides, allowing users to pick this knowledge up at their own pace.

OneAdvanced is also CIPP accredited, which means it can offer expert advice on payroll compliance, which can be extremely valuable for those who are less experienced in payroll management. Plus, it offers educational information to help businesses understand taxes better.

If your business needs in-person support with your payroll, OneAdvanced has the highest number of UK offices among the companies we analysed. It has a London office within walking distance from City Airport, as well as eight others across the country.

You can tailor the software to the specific needs of your business. For example Advance can manage employees with complex salaries and bonuses, and it allows you to set up multiple different payroll interfaces.

How could OneAdvanced improve?

OneAdvanced doesn’t come with a mobile app, which is offered by Moorepay, and it also lacks an open API, which could prove to be problematic if your company hopes to integrate software you’re already using.

OneAdvanced does, however, pack a native suite of programs that’s likely to cover your needs when it comes to HR and accounting, but the lack of integrations means you’ll be forced to migrate your data from your current platforms to these new ones, which can be time-consuming.

What type of business is OneAdvanced best for?

OneAdvanced is a good option for small businesses that need a robust support system for payroll, thanks to its comprehensive training modules and guidance offerings that cover compliance laws and taxes.

However, its lack of open API means that, like Frontier, its not a good option for businesses looking to integrate payroll with other software. For a integration friendly payroll service provider, try TopSource.

6. ADP – Best for Security

ADP quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, DIY software, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office locations: Staines-upon-Thames, Cheadle
• CIPP PAS-accredited: No

Why is ADP the best for security?

ADP’s ISO 27001 certification attests its efficient data encrypting, and it hasn’t suffered any data breaches in the last two years.

The provider is flexible and you can choose the add-on features and services your business needs. It also offers guidance around payroll issues, services, legislation, and more. It also offers HR services, making it a good choice for businesses that want to consolidate both services with one provider.

Like MHR, it offers a mobile app. Conveniently, it can be used as a clock-in system, which helps employees with rotating shift patterns to ensure their hours are being recorded correctly, something OneAdvanced, Moorepay, and TopSource don’t offer.

How could ADP improve?

Like all providers on this page, ADP’s pricing isn’t transparent, which can be a problem if you run a small business and need to find out whether ADP fits your budget. For the most part, this is standard practice in this industry, but some competitors (such as Iris Staffology) do advertise their prices and are worth considering.

In terms of locations, ADP maintains two in the UK, both of which are on the outskirts of major cities: its headquarters is at Staines-upon-Thames (27km from London) and its northern office is in Cheadle (13km from Manchester).

What type of business is ADP best for?

ADP is a great option for growing businesses looking to get their HR and payroll services from one provider, since it offers a comprehensive suite of people management services. It’s a particularly good choice for businesses concerned about data security, since it has robust encryption and data protection tools in place.

It’s not a good option for businesses on a budget, however, since, even though ADP doesn’t share its cost publicly, user testimony tells us its services are on the expensive side. For an affordable option with short contract lengths, check out Payescape.

For more, see our review of ADP costs.

7. TopSource – Best for Native Integrations

TopSource quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, HR software
• Contracts available: Bespoke
• UK office location: Birmingham
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

Why is TopSource the best for native integrations?

TopSource’s native suite is quite comprehensive, packing HR, recruitment, and employee benefits platforms. The company also offers open API, allowing businesses with an IT team to integrate their native software with their payroll. It also has ready-made integrations for accounting software, such as Sage, Xero, and Quickbooks.

The only thing absent from TopSource’s native suite is employee development software – something ADP does offer.

TopSource provides worldwide services, but it can tackle UK-specific payroll procedures and its office is in Birmingham. And, since TopSource is a global company, it goes without saying that it can process payroll for international employees, unlike Moorepay, Payescape, and OneAdvanced.

You can contact TopSource via phone and email if Birmingham is too far from your venture, giving you direct access to CIPP-accredited experts for assistance.

The company also has ISO 27001 certification (like Moorepay) and suffered no data breaches in the last two years (unlike OneAdvanced).

How could TopSource improve?

On the downside, TopSource doesn’t allow for custom report building, which makes its reporting less flexible and customisable than MHR’s. Also, as with most providers we looked at, its pricing is bespoke, making it difficult to gauge whether this is the right provider for you. If you own a small business and are in a hurry to choose your next payroll provider, Iris Staffology and Payescape may be better choices, since the former advertises its prices, and the latter offers monthly contracts.

What type of business is TopSource good for?

TopSource is a good choice for businesses looking to access a variety of services and software from the same provider, from payroll to employee benefits management. As such, we’d recommend it to businesses with a fair number of employees, as they’ll benefit the most from these offerings.

Payroll As a Service vs Payroll Software: What’s the Difference?

Using a payroll service provider means you’re outsourcing your payroll to a third-party company, which can be responsible for part of your payroll (a part-managed service) or all of your payroll (a fully managed service). Typically, whether you’re using a partly-managed or fully-manage service, you’ll still be given access to some type of payroll software, so you can keep an eye on the process and stay up to date.

The payroll companies we reviewed on this page all offer payroll services, which means they manage payroll for you.

Using payroll software alone, on the other hand, means you manage your payroll for your business yourself. It’s an in-house solution, typically in the form of a simple software tool that automates processes like tax deductions and HMRC reporting.

The benefit of using software instead a service is that it gives you more control over your payroll, and, importantly, outsourcing payroll costs more than paying for software. However, for companies with a large number of employees the benefits of outsourcing payroll outweigh the extra cost. As a business grows in employees, payroll takes more time, and with so many heads to juggle, the risk for error is greater, so outsourcing payroll to professionals becomes a necessity.

If you’re a smaller company interested in managing payroll in-house with software, you can still look to the companies on this page, since many provide payroll software as well as payroll services, and are featured in our list of the top cloud-based payroll software.

We also strongly recommend looking into Rippling if you’re interested in payroll software. Starting at £7 per user, per month, its a great option if you’re looking for customisable features, bespoke reporting, and compliance assistance.

Important Payroll Dates Recap

Your documentation needs to be submitted correctly and right on time. With important payroll deadlines on the horizon, we’ve created a recap of the dates below:

Our Methodology: How Did We Find the Best Payroll Services?