UK technology companies can hire software developers in India without opening a local entity by using an Employer of Record (EOR), which employs engineers on your behalf, or a development partner that provides a dedicated team. You choose the people and direct the work; the partner handles Indian employment law, payroll and benefits. The main decisions are which model fits, how you assess candidates, and how you protect your IP and data.
This guide walks through those decisions in order. For the detail of each model, it links to our deeper pages rather than repeating them.
Why do UK tech companies hire developers in India?
The reasons we hear most often are practical:
- Hiring speed. Senior roles in UK tech hubs can stay open for months. India’s engineering market is large, so roles with specific skills (a certain framework, cloud platform or data stack) are usually easier to fill.
- Depth of skills. Backend, frontend, mobile, cloud, DevOps, data and QA engineers are all widely available, and English is the working language of the industry.
- Growth of the talent pool. GitHub’s Octoverse 2024 report projected that India will overtake the United States as the largest developer community on GitHub by 2028.
- Longer working day. With a few hours’ overlap, work can move forward while the UK team is offline.
None of these works automatically. Teams that succeed treat engineers in India as part of the team, not as a cheaper resource to hand tickets to. Most of this guide is about how to do that.
Which hiring model should you choose?
Start here, because the model decides who employs the engineers, who manages them and what you are responsible for.
| Model | Who employs the engineers | Who manages the work | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employer of Record | The EOR, on your behalf | You | You want your own named engineers, fully part of your team, without an Indian company |
| Dedicated team from a development partner | The partner | Shared: you set priorities, the partner handles day-to-day team management | You want a team quickly and some delivery support alongside it |
| Project outsourcing | The partner | The partner, against an agreed scope | The work is well defined and you want an outcome, not a team |
| Your own Indian entity | Your subsidiary | You | You plan a large, long-term presence and can take on local compliance |
| Direct contractors | Nobody (self-employed) | You | Short, specialist pieces of work only |
A few rules of thumb:
- If the engineers will work on your core product for years, an EOR keeps them closest to your team. See our Employer of Record service in India, our dedicated EOR Services UK portal, and our step-by-step EOR guide for how it works in practice.
- If you need several engineers working together soon, and would value help running them, an offshore development team is often quicker to set up.
- If you have a defined project rather than an ongoing need, software outsourcing may suit better. Our comparison of EOR, outsourcing and staff augmentation goes deeper.
- If you expect a large team for the long term, compare the running costs and obligations of an EOR against your own Indian entity. Many companies start with an EOR and set up an entity later.
Be careful with direct contractors. Engaging someone full-time, under your direction, as a “freelancer” can be treated as employment in India, with back-dated obligations. It can also create a taxable presence (a permanent establishment) for your company in India if they act on your behalf. For anything beyond a short, specialist engagement, use an EOR or a partner.
How do you find and assess developers in India?
Whichever model you choose, you should still decide who joins your team. A good process:
- Write the role for the work, not the CV. List what the engineer will build in their first three months, the stack, and how they will work with the UK team. “Senior React developer” attracts everyone; “builds and owns our customer dashboard in React and TypeScript, working with our Leeds-based product team” attracts the right people.
- Decide who sources candidates. Your EOR or partner can source and shortlist, you can advertise directly, or both. Either way, agree up front who screens and how.
- Test real skills. A short practical task, close to the work they would do, tells you more than a CV or a quiz. Keep it to a few hours and review it with the candidate. Platforms such as our own SparkTalent let candidates work in a real repository, with proctoring for remote assessments.
- Interview for collaboration as well as code. Ask how they handled an unclear requirement, a disagreement in code review, or a production incident. Distributed teams depend on people who ask questions and write things down.
- Meet the team. A final conversation with the engineers they will work with day to day helps both sides decide.
- Plan around notice periods. Experienced engineers in India often have to serve one to three months’ notice. Make offers early and keep in touch during the notice period.
What should you settle before the first day?
Three things are much harder to fix later.
Intellectual property
Under India’s Copyright Act, 1957, the employer is normally the first owner of work created in the course of employment, and under an EOR the legal employer is the EOR. Make sure the EOR or partner agreement assigns all intellectual property to your company, and that each engineer’s contract supports it. Ask your lawyer to check the assignment covers code, designs, documentation and inventions.
Data protection
If engineers in India will access personal data held by your UK business, that access is a restricted transfer under the UK GDPR. The UK has not made adequacy regulations for India, so you will normally need the International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, plus a transfer risk assessment. In practice, also:
- give engineers access to production data only when their role needs it
- use anonymised or synthetic data in development and testing where you can
- keep access logged and removable in one place
India’s own Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 may also apply to data your partner processes in India. A good EOR or development partner will already be working through it.
Tax and employment law
Indian employment is now governed by the four labour codes, which came into force in November 2025, alongside state rules. This is the EOR’s or partner’s responsibility, but ask them to explain how salary, provident fund, gratuity, leave and notice will work, so there are no surprises for you or the engineer. The UK off-payroll working rules (IR35) are a UK tax regime; for engineers who live and work in India they usually aren’t the main question, but take advice if anyone on the team is UK resident or works from the UK.
How do you onboard and work with a team in India?
Most problems with offshore teams are communication problems, not skills problems. What works:
- Agree the overlap. India Standard Time is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of the UK in winter and 4 hours 30 minutes ahead during British Summer Time. If the India team starts a little later in the day, three to four shared hours is usually enough for stand-ups, pairing, reviews and questions.
- Get day one right. Laptop, accounts, repository access and a working local setup ready before the start date. A clear first task that ships within the first week or two builds confidence on both sides.
- Write things down. Specifications, decisions and handovers in a shared place mean nobody depends on who was in the meeting. It helps everyone, not only the engineers in India.
- Use the same process for everyone. Same tickets, same code review, same definition of done. Separate processes create a two-tier team.
- Plan for holidays on both sides. India has national holidays plus state festival holidays, which differ from UK bank holidays. Put both calendars in your planning tool.
- Meet in person when you can. Even an occasional visit, in either direction, builds trust that video calls struggle to.
What are the common mistakes?
- Choosing on day rate alone. The cheapest option often costs more in rework and management time.
- Treating the team as a ticket queue. Engineers who understand the product and the customer make better decisions. Include them in planning and demos.
- Skipping the IP and data paperwork. It is easy to fix at the start and difficult later.
- Hiring too many people at once. Start with one or two engineers, get the working rhythm right, then grow.
- Hiring contractors as if they were employees. It creates legal and tax risk for both sides; use an EOR or a partner instead.
- No named owner in the UK. Someone in the UK team should own the relationship, unblock questions and make sure the new engineers are set up to succeed.
Where to start
Decide which model fits first, then the rest follows: who sources candidates, how you assess them, and whose paperwork covers IP and data. If you are weighing the options, our guide to hiring developers in India compares every route for UK companies, and you can model loaded employment costs on EOR Services UK. Our team is also on hand to talk it through with you.
Frequently asked questions
Can a UK company hire developers in India without setting up a company there?
Yes. The usual routes are an Employer of Record, which employs the engineer on your behalf, or a development partner that provides a dedicated team. Both let you work with engineers in India without registering an Indian entity. Contracting individuals directly is possible but carries misclassification and tax risks.
How long does it take to hire a developer in India?
Finding and assessing candidates usually takes a few weeks. The bigger factor is notice periods: experienced engineers in India often have to serve one to three months with their current employer. Plan start dates around that.
How do UK and India working hours overlap?
India Standard Time is five and a half hours ahead of the UK in winter and four and a half hours ahead during British Summer Time. A team in India that starts a little later in the day typically shares three to four working hours with the UK, which is enough for stand-ups, reviews and questions.
Who owns the code written by engineers hired through an EOR?
Under India's Copyright Act, 1957 the employer is normally the first owner of work created in the course of employment, and with an EOR the legal employer is the EOR. Make sure the EOR agreement assigns all intellectual property to your company, and that each engineer's employment contract supports that.
