Philippines vs UK Developer Costs (2026)

TL;DR: A London senior software engineer costs an employer about £109,800 a year: a £95,000 median advertised salary plus National Insurance and pension. A Philippine developer with 5 to 9 years' experience costs about £16,000 a year, including statutory benefits and a $599-a-month employer of record fee. On local pay data, that is about 85% less.

Advertised pay for senior software engineers in the UK fell by 16.67% in a year, from a £90,000 median to £75,000. The employer's bill fell by less.

Since April 2025, employer National Insurance has been 15% on pay above £5,000 a year, up from 13.8% above £9,100.

Developer Salaries: UK vs the Philippines

UK software developer jobs advertise a median of £65,000 to £85,000 a year, depending on the title, and London adds £15,000 to £30,000 on top.

These are IT Jobs Watch medians for permanent roles advertised in the six months to 21 September 2026.

Philippine pay is quoted by experience rather than job title. Payscale's 2026 data for software engineers runs from ₱310,361 a year in the first year to ₱977,738 at 10 to 19 years.

At the European Central Bank reference rate for 21 September 2026, £1 buys ₱84.11.

The pairing of experience bands with job titles is ours, and the UK graduate figure rests on a thin sample. Pay also varies a lot inside the Philippines.

JobStreet puts the national software engineer average at ₱45,000 to ₱55,000 a month, but ₱100,000 in Mandaluyong and ₱75,000 in Taguig.

What a UK Developer Costs the Employer

A UK employer pays about 15.6% to 16% on top of a developer's salary before any benefits it chooses to offer. Two charges make up almost all of it, both set in the 2026 to 2027 employer rates:

• Employer National Insurance: 15% of pay above £5,000 a year. Eligible employers can claim up to £10,500 a year back through the Employment Allowance.
• Workplace pension: at least 3% of qualifying earnings, the band between £6,240 and £50,270. The employer minimum is £1,321 a year for anyone paid above that band.
• Apprenticeship Levy: 0.5% of the whole pay bill, only for employers whose pay bill tops £3 million.

On a £75,000 senior salary, that comes to £86,821 a year. A London senior on £95,000 costs £109,821. On top of that, every UK worker is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, 28 days for a five-day week.

What a Philippine Developer Costs the Employer

The largest cost on top of a Philippine salary is not a tax. It is the 13th-month payment, one twelfth of the year's basic pay, due by 24 December under the labour department's statutory benefits handbook.

The social insurance contributions follow, and all three are capped:

• SSS: the employer pays 10% of the monthly salary credit, which stops at ₱35,000, per Grant Thornton's summary of the 2025 rates. That caps it at ₱3,500 a month, plus ₱30 for employee compensation cover.
• PhilHealth: a 5% premium on income up to ₱100,000 a month, split equally, so the employer pays 2.5%.
• Pag-IBIG: 2% of a fund salary capped at ₱10,000, so ₱200 a month.

For a developer on ₱763,872 a year, those four lines add ₱127,513, or 16.7%. Because SSS stops at ₱35,000 a month, the share falls as pay rises: at ₱977,738 it is 15.4%.

We walk through the payroll side in more detail in our Philippines payroll, benefits and tax guide.

UK working hours add one more cost. Manila is 7 hours ahead of London in summer and 8 in winter, and the Philippines has no daylight saving.

A 9am to 5pm London day runs from 4pm to midnight in Manila in summer and 5pm to 1am in winter. Every hour worked between 10pm and 6am earns a 10% night-shift differential, which on those shifts adds 2.5% to 3.75% to daily pay.

Total Annual Cost of One Developer

A UK company that does not have a Philippine entity hires through an employer of record, which employs the developer locally and bills the company monthly.

Adding that fee, a developer with 5 to 9 years' experience costs about £15,964 a year, against £109,821 for a London senior.

The Philippine totals use Deel's $599 monthly list price, which is £5,366 a year at £1 to $1.3395. That fee is a third of the Philippine total, so the provider you pick moves the answer more than the salary does.

These totals use local pay data, and local pay is a floor. Developers who work for foreign companies usually earn well above the national average, which is why teams hiring through us typically save 50-70% against a UK hire rather than 85%.

The cost to hire in the Philippines page breaks down rates by role, and the UK cost to hire page gives the other side.

Cost at Every Level

The gap is widest at the top of the ladder in pounds and narrowest in percentage terms at the bottom. A UK graduate costs about £33,283 a year with National Insurance and pension.

A Philippine developer in their first year costs £9,857 including the same $599 employer of record fee, because that flat fee weighs most on the smallest salary.

UK figures are the UK-wide advertised medians plus employer National Insurance and minimum pension. Philippine figures are Payscale salaries plus 13th-month pay, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG.

All conversions are our calculations at the 21 September 2026 reference rate.

The exchange rate matters as much as any statutory charge. A year earlier, on 22 September 2025, £1 bought ₱76.78 at the ECB reference rate. The same ₱891,385 senior package then cost £11,609, against £10,598 now.

A UK company paying in pesos carries that swing, in either direction, unless its contract fixes the rate.

Recruitment and Visa Costs in the UK

Recruitment agencies typically quote 15% to 25% of first-year salary for a UK developer, and more for senior or niche roles. On a £95,000 London hire, that is £14,250 to £23,750 before the developer starts.

There is no independent survey of these fees, so treat the range as the agencies' own.

Hiring from abroad adds Home Office charges. A sponsored developer must be paid at least the going rate for the occupation, £54,700 for programmers, above the £41,700 general threshold.

The Immigration Skills Charge rose 32% in December 2025.

The employer must pay the certificate and the Skills Charge, £4,485 for a three-year visa at a large sponsor. The visa fee and health surcharge fall on the worker unless the employer covers them, which adds £3,924 over three years.

Where Developer Pay Is Heading in 2026

Advertised UK developer pay is falling for most titles. Senior and standard software engineer medians dropped by 16.67% and 12.5% over the year, and only the plain Software Developer title rose.

Hiring intent is weak too. The CIPD's Summer 2026 Labour Market Outlook put its net employment balance at +9, near a record low, with employers expecting a median 3% pay rise.

CompTIA counts 2,148,205 people in UK tech jobs in 2025 and projects 1.02% growth in 2026.

The Philippine side keeps growing. The IT and business process industry employed 1.9 million people in 2025 and earned over $40 billion in export revenue, according to IBPAP, which targets 1.97 million workers in 2026.

The Philippines ranks 28th on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, second in Asia after Malaysia. For the wider market, see our guide to engineering talent in the Philippines.

The Philippines vs Australia comparison runs the same numbers for a Sydney team.

Hiring a Filipino Developer from the UK

We match UK teams with vetted developers from the Philippines, usually within 24 hours, at 50-70% lower payroll than a UK hire. We can employ them for you through our Philippines employer of record, so you need no local entity.

There is no cost until you hire. Tell us who you need.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I pay UK National Insurance on a developer in the Philippines?

Not when they are employed in the Philippines through a local employer of record. That employer pays SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG instead, and bills you for them with the salary.

Will a Filipino developer work UK hours?

Many do, usually on an afternoon-to-midnight shift in Manila. Budget for the 10% night differential on hours after 10pm, or agree a shift that overlaps your morning and ends before it.

What exchange rate does this comparison use?

The European Central Bank reference rates for 21 September 2026: £1 to ₱84.11 and £1 to $1.3395. A 10% swing in the peso changes the Philippine totals by about the same amount.