Top 7 Payroll Companies in the UK and London 2023

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With HRMC requiring your expenses and benefits report as well as your P11D submissions annually, you'd be wise to use a system that will help ensure these documents are ready in time.

Any of the providers on this list can help with essential payroll processes but, for our money, Moorepay is the best payroll company in the UK. It offers users expert advice and custom reporting, which are just a few of the features that made it stand out in our independent research. Businesses with small (or no) accounting teams, in particular, will benefit greatly from having access to Moorepay's consultants.

To help you choose the most suited to your business, we analysed our top picks and compared them in categories such as reporting, integrations, and support facilities.

You can read our provider reviews below, or head straight to our payroll cost comparison tool to request quotes for the top UK providers in just two minutes –  this is the quicker (and also free) option.

What is a payroll service provider?

Using a payroll service provider means you're outsourcing your payroll to a third-party company. A payroll service provider can be responsible for part of or all of your business's payroll. To save on costs, you might choose to outsource some of the trickier parts while opting to keep some processes in-house.

Payroll providers can be used to carry out a number of functions, including:

• Calculating monthly pay
• Deducting tax
• Filing with HMRC
• Paying employees
• Keeping accurate records

Failing to report payroll information with HMRC on time could lead to a monthly penalty of £100-£400. So, despite the costs associated with a payroll provider, you might actually end up spending less money.

Payroll providers help ensure your employees are paid on time, which is important as paying them late can affect your business's reputation, as well as your ability to hire and retain talent.

The 7 Best Payroll Companies in London and the UK

To start, here's an at-a-glance view of our top seven UK payroll service providers, what they offer, and what they cost.

Prices correct as of September 2023

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

What our experts think of Moorepay:

Moorepay lands the top spot in our ranking largely due to its calling card: expert advice. The provider allows you to access 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 those that don't have a large or experienced 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.

Unlike Payescape and Advanced, Moorepay lacks a London office; Moorepay's headquarters are located in Swinton, in the Greater Manchester area.

Moorepay's onboarding process impressed our researchers: 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 MHR, Moorepay offers a native HR platform that fully integrates with its payroll one but, unlike that competitor, it offers live training sessions and has an interface that's easier to grasp. This led to Moorepay featuring highly in our ranking of the best payroll solutions for small businesses.

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 hold of the system fast. In comparison, ADP offers this.

2. Payescape – Best for transparent pricing

Payescape quick facts

• Services available: Fully managed payroll, HR software
• Contracts available: Weekly and monthly
• UK office location: London
• CIPP PAS-accredited: Yes

What our experts think of Payescape:

Shortlisted at the CIPP Annual Excellence Awards 2022 (befitting the CIPP-accredited advice it offers), Payescape boasts two key assets that are hard to come by in the payroll industry: transparent pricing and a London-based office.

Payescape's advertised pricing is a major plus, since competitors like MHR or ADP don't advertise theirs. During our deep-dive research into payroll companies, we discovered it to be fairly common practice in this field that providers would not advertise their pricing. Having this information upfront will benefit businesses keen on getting their payroll software promptly.

As for the office, Payescape has a North London location, with easy access via Underground and Thameslink stations, which means London-based businesses can easily count on the company for in-person support. Considering that, unlike TopSource, Payescape only offers a fully managed service, the ability to meet the team handling your payroll process offers much-needed peace of mind to business owners.

However, our researchers did find issues with some of the provider's data standards. For starters, it's the only payroll company we researched that doesn't store its data in the UK (its servers are in the US). Because of this, it's subject to a different data protection jurisdiction and legislation (GDPR, for instance, isn't applicable there). Payescape is also the only provider we looked into that lacks the ISO 27001 accreditation, meaning it could work harder on its data security compliance.

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

What our experts think of MHR:

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. Our researchers were impressed by its data crunching when using its native iTrent program to run highly-detailed tasks, from pinpointing costs to analysing employee performance.

Like Moorepay, it already 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 (something Payescape doesn't have).

For accounting teams that need to present their performance data to key stakeholders, MHR's powerful visualisation tools allow your data to be organised in compelling graphs. For its sheer scope, we'd especially recommend MHR to larger organisations, as they'll benefit from the provider's analytic prowess.

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.

Crucially, for a system this resourceful, MHR doesn't offer live training sessions to ease your onboarding process. This puts it on par with TopSource, but behind Advanced and Payescape, which do offer live training. This could pose an issue if you need your team to operate this software to its full extent as soon as possible.

You're just over halfway through our list of the 7 best payroll services providers in the UK. Time to start comparing quotes?

Simply hit one of the buttons below to start our quick questionnaire. It only takes 30 seconds to complete and, by telling us more about your business’ specific requirements, we can help ensure you receive the best personalised managed payroll services rates and recommendations.

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

What our experts think of Frontier:

Frontier's ability to pay international employees makes it ideal to help businesses that operate in multiple countries organise their payroll. Like Moorepay, it doesn't have a London office, but it does have four UK locations: its headquarters are in Lightwater, there is a helpdesk in Warrington, plus offices in Nottingham and Gloucester.

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

Similarly to MHR, Frontier already comes with an integrated HR platform, which is a money-saving feature considering you won't have to employ a different system to handle these processes.

However, Frontier's lack of an open API is the Achilles' heel of the provider because it prevents you from integrating it with other platforms. Among the providers we tested, it shares this trait with Advanced. Our researchers also highlighted the fact that it 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.

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

5. Advanced – Best for training

Advanced 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

What our experts think of Advanced:

Advanced's offering puts a lot of agency in the hands of accounting teams. Its training sessions are great for professionals keen on learning the ins and outs of the system quickly, but it also packs material that allows them to pick this knowledge up at their own pace.

Also, because it works both as a software and as an outsourced payroll service, it's best suited to serve businesses that want more agency over their payroll process than they'd get with Payescape, which only offers a fully managed service.

If your business needs in-person support with your payroll, great news: Advanced 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, setting up payroll for multiple sites, and employees with complex salaries and bonuses. Its reporting, while powerful, isn't as comprehensive as MHR's – but Advanced beats this competitor by offering live training, which MHR doesn't.

However, the provider doesn't come with a mobile app (Moorepay offers this). Also, like Frontier, its lack of an open API is a problem if your company hopes to integrate software you're already using. While the provider packs a native suite of programs that's likely to cover your needs when it comes to HR and accounting, this will force you to migrate your data from your current platforms to these new ones, which can be time-consuming.

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

What our experts think of ADP:

ADP's ISO 27001 certification attests its efficient data encrypting. On that front, it beats Payescape by having that certification and trumps Advanced by not suffering any data breaches in the last two years.

ADP maintains two locations 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).

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.

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.

However, its 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 Payescape and Iris Staffology) do advertise their prices, and are worth considering.

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

What our experts think of TopSource:

TopSource offers worldwide services, but it can tackle UK-specific payroll procedures and its office is in Birmingham. Unlike Advanced, it lacks a London office. However, it can be contacted via phone and email if Birmingham is too far from your venture. The providers allows you to contact CIPP-accredited experts for assistance.

TopSource's native suite is quite comprehensive, packing HR, recruitment, and employee benefits platforms. The only reservation our researchers have for it is that there is no employee development software – something ADP does offer.

We were pleased with TopSource's security in our testing: the provider has ISO 27001 certification (like Moorepay) and suffered no data breaches in the last two years (unlike Advanced). On the features side, TopSource was let down by the fact that it 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 into, 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 because they advertise their prices.

Our methodology: How did we find the best payroll services?

Five researchers carried out in-depth research into payroll services according to a comparison framework designed by our research team leader. For each provider we've asked these questions:

• What accreditations and industry recognition do they have?
• How easily can your employees engage with and access the payroll process?
• How compliant are they with data security and privacy?
• Are they a scalable service that includes other HR functions should you grow to need them?

We've factored all these questions into our rating system and come out with a ranking of the best payroll services.

Why should I invest in a payroll provider?

Running a business takes a lot of time, effort, and resource. Outsourcing your payroll saves you time and money and means you can rely on expert information to ensure your payroll is accurate.

Changes in law and regulations are difficult to keep on top of so outsourcing this responsibility to experts will keep your business remains compliant.

Outsourcing will help you avoid monetary penalties which can be around £100-£400 per month. Plus, you'll be on your employees good side by paying them on time.

Important payroll dates recap

With important payroll deadlines on the horizon, you have to ensure your documentation is submitted correctly and timeously. Payroll systems can certainly help you keep on top of them but, in any case, being aware of them certainly doesn't hurt. To help you out, below is a brief recap of the most important payroll dates:

Next steps

According to our deep-dive research, Moorepay is the best payroll company in the UK. Consultant-backed advice and custom reporting are among the features that made it top our independent research into the payroll market.

If you're still unsure and are on the hunt for a payroll platform, you can use our free comparison tool to find providers suited to your business. Through it, you'll be matched with trusted providers and they'll then contact you with bespoke, obligation-free quotes.