Payroll, people and the business behind them
For agencies and businesses
Recruitment agency owners, finance directors and operations managers, typically five to fifty staff — and end clients with a contract workforce and no internal hiring function. What they buy from us: payroll in every method, funding and factoring, back office, and people found for them. They arrive through one problem — a payroll arrangement they are unsure about, contractors they cannot pay in Europe, an invoice sixty days out, a back office eating consultant time — and usually leave having solved three.
Free to agencies and contractors; our partners pay us.
What we arrange for agencies
The problems a contract workforce creates are connected, so we arrange the answers together. We keep partner panels by sector, which means the payroll provider, funder or agency we introduce already works in your trade rather than learning on you. Every payroll route is assessed, from outsourced PAYE and a managed bureau to PAYE umbrella and CIS, and none is argued against. We hold Irish and European routes for the placements a UK provider cannot pay. Funding is sourced across the whole market rather than one lender's shop window, and the back office can be arranged alongside it so the same data does the job once. It costs the agency nothing; the partner pays us, and we will tell you plainly when your current arrangement is fine.
- Recruitment & contractor sourcing — vetted agencies by sector and region, or the hiring run for you.
- Lead generation — AI agents that find and qualify the clients you want.
- Payroll — every method — every route assessed, from outsourced PAYE and bureau to PAYE umbrella and CIS.
- Ireland & Europe — Irish PAYE, and European managed payroll and Employer of Record.
- Funding & factoring — invoice finance and wider funding, compared across the whole market.
- Back office — timesheets, invoicing, credit control and compliance run for you.
- Free tools — a payroll route finder, the April 2026 evidence checklist, a funding-gap checker and an Ireland cost calculator, with results on the page and no form first.
How a partnership works
01
Tell us the book
Sectors, volumes, where people are placed, how quickly clients pay and what you want to stop doing.
02
We assess and compare
Every route that genuinely fits goes on the table, with cost, administration and liability set out alike.
03
We introduce and step back
Two or three partners from a panel we have already checked. The partner pays us; you never do.
Routes for you
You run a business
Help my business grow
Funding, factoring, a payroll route that works, workers found, the back office taken off your desk — or all of it. Start here if you know something needs fixing but not which thing.
Start the conversationYou've got people to pay
Pay my people
Outsourced PAYE, managed bureau, CIS, healthcare routes, or an Irish route for EU placements. You send the money once; we do the rest.
See every payroll routeCashflow is the problem
Fund and run it
Invoice finance so the wage run is covered while clients take their sixty days, plus timesheets, invoicing and credit control if you want the back office off your desk.
See funding & back officeYou need people
Find me people
Contractors on site, on the ward or on the project. We introduce vetted agencies by sector and region, or run the hiring for you if you'd rather not build a function.
See how we place people
The Current Market
Agencies · Compliance
PAYE responsibility in the labour supply chain from April 2026: what agencies need to evidence
From 6 April 2026 the agency holding the contract with the end client is jointly and severally liable with an umbrella for its PAYE and National Insurance. What to hold on file, what to put in contracts, and how to evidence it on any payroll route.
April 2026PAYE umbrellaAgenciesOutsourced PAYE7-minute readAgencies · Payroll
Every payroll option, assessed and matched: choosing payroll routes for a contract book
Provider-employed PAYE, outsourced PAYE, managed bureau, CIS or direct PAYE. How to choose payroll routes for a contract book by sector, volume and client requirement, and what a compliant provider panel looks like.
Outsourced PAYEPayroll bureauPAYE umbrellaAgencies8-minute readAgencies · Ireland & Europe
Placing contractors in Ireland: PAYE, limited company, sole trader and Employer of Record
Placed a contractor in Dublin and discovered UK payroll will not do the job. Irish employed PAYE, Irish limited company, sole trader management and Employer of Record, with the 2026 rates and Revenue obligations.
IrelandAgenciesLimited companySole trader7-minute readAgencies · Funding & factoring
Invoice finance and factoring for recruitment agencies: funding a contract book that is growing faster than it is paid
Your contractors are paid weekly and your clients pay in sixty days. How invoice finance and factoring bridge that gap, what advance rates and concentration limits mean in practice, and what the facility actually costs.
Invoice financeAgenciesBack office7-minute read
What people say after the introduction
We partnered through Freelancer Supermarket and filled roles faster while staying compliant. The payroll introduction alone saved us weeks of onboarding.
OD Ops director
Healthcare agency
Professional, transparent and reliable. They told us what would not work as readily as what would.
PL Project lead
Construction firm
Introductions usually follow within a day or two.
The things people ask before they ring
Nothing. We are paid by the partners we introduce you to, not by you. That is also why we will tell you when we do not have a good answer — there is no fee riding on you saying yes.
No. We are an independent advisory that introduces you to the right agency for your sector, and arranges the business services behind it. Where a business has no hiring function at all, we can run the recruitment for them.
Yes, and it is one of the things we are asked for most. UK payroll companies generally cannot pay a contractor working in the EU. We hold an Irish route built for exactly that, alongside European payroll and Employer of Record.
Compliance record, transparent pricing, sector experience and how they actually behave when something goes wrong. If a partner stops meeting that standard we stop introducing them.
One question separates them: whose PAYE reference does the money run under. Under outsourced PAYE it runs under the provider's, the provider is the legal employer and the workers come off your books entirely. Under a payroll bureau it runs under yours, you remain the employer of record and the bureau operates the payroll on your behalf. Everything else — reporting, payslips, pensions, reconciliation — follows from that one fact.
The umbrella still operates PAYE. Since 6 April 2026, the recruitment agency holding the contract with the end client is jointly and severally liable with it for the PAYE and National Insurance due, or the end client where it contracts with the umbrella directly or through a connected or overseas agency. If the umbrella does not pay, HMRC can come to you for all of it.
Fifteen minutes will tell you where you stand
Whether you're a contractor after your next job, an agency placing across Europe, or a business that needs people found, paid and funded — start with a conversation. It costs nothing and we'll tell you honestly if we can't help. No form to fill in first.
info@freelancer-supermarket.co.uk