For many UK businesses, the hardest part of a software project is not the idea or the budget. It is finding experienced engineers who can start this month, stay for the whole project and work in a way your team can actually manage. London salaries for senior developers are high, recruitment cycles are long, and a single contractor rarely covers front end, back end, cloud and testing on their own.
A dedicated developer arrangement solves part of that problem: you get named engineers who work only on your product, while a delivery partner handles employment, equipment, holiday cover and continuity. This guide explains how the model works for UK companies, what to check before you sign, and how to keep a remote team productive across the UK and Indian time zones.
Key takeaways
- A dedicated developer works full-time on your product, but is employed by the delivery partner rather than by you.
- Interview the actual people who will join your project, not a sales representative.
- Agree the working-hours overlap with the UK in writing; a four- to five-hour daily overlap with India is realistic.
- Review the contract under English law, the data-processing terms under UK GDPR and the international transfer mechanism with your own advisers.
- Measure delivery by working software every sprint, not by hours logged.
What “dedicated developer” means in practice
The phrase is used loosely in the market, so it is worth being precise. In a dedicated arrangement you are buying the full working time of specific engineers for an agreed period, usually a minimum of three months. They join your stand-ups, use your issue tracker and repositories, and take day-to-day direction from your product owner. The supplier remains their employer and is responsible for payroll, equipment, training, security vetting and replacing someone if they leave.
That is different from two other common models:
- Fixed-scope projects, where the supplier commits to delivering a defined result for an agreed price and manages the team internally.
- Freelance contractors, where you engage an individual directly, often through a personal service company, and carry more of the management and continuity risk yourself.
Dedicated teams suit products that will keep evolving: a SaaS platform, a customer portal that grows feature by feature, or an internal system that needs steady improvement rather than a one-off build.
When the model is a poor fit
If your requirement is small and well defined, such as a five-page marketing site or a single integration, a fixed-scope project is simpler and usually cheaper. Dedicated teams also need someone on your side who can prioritise work every week. Without a product owner, even excellent engineers drift.
How the hiring process works at Creensight UK
Creensight UK is the London office of Creensight Private Limited, and our developers are part of the company’s engineering team in India. The process we follow is deliberately transparent, because you are trusting people you have not met in person with your product.
- Requirement call. We discuss the product, the stack, the seniority you need and how your team works today.
- Shortlist of profiles. You receive CVs of engineers who are genuinely available, with their relevant project experience.
- Your own interviews. You interview the developers yourself, including a technical conversation or a short paid exercise if you prefer. If someone does not feel right, we propose another profile.
- Paperwork. Contract, statement of work, confidentiality terms and data-processing agreement are signed before access is granted.
- Onboarding. Accounts, repositories and environments are set up, and the developer joins your rituals from the first week.
We do not place engineers on site at client offices. The team works remotely from our secure environment and connects to your systems with the access you approve.
Contracts, IR35 and the legal points to check
This section is general information rather than legal or tax advice, but these are the questions UK clients most often raise.
IR35 and off-payroll working
The off-payroll working rules (often called IR35) are aimed at individuals who provide their services through their own intermediary, such as a personal service company. When you contract with a company that employs its developers and delivers services to you, the arrangement is normally a business-to-business supply rather than an individual engagement. The position still depends on the facts, so ask your accountant or tax adviser to confirm how the rules apply to your organisation, especially if you are a medium or large business that would otherwise make status determinations.
Governing law and intellectual property
Many UK clients prefer contracts governed by the law of England and Wales. Whatever law applies, make sure the contract states clearly that ownership of the code written for you transfers to you, when it transfers (for example, on payment of each invoice) and how open-source components are handled.
Data protection and international transfers
If developers will see personal data, for example customer records in a support database, you will need a data-processing agreement that meets UK GDPR requirements. Because the engineering team is in India, the agreement also needs a valid transfer mechanism, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, supported by a transfer risk assessment. Wherever possible, give developers anonymised or synthetic test data so that production personal data never leaves your environment.
The safest data is the data your developers never need to see. Design environments so engineers can build and test without access to live customer records.
Working across UK and Indian time zones
India Standard Time is four and a half hours ahead of the UK during British Summer Time and five and a half hours ahead in winter. That gap is an advantage when it is planned well: developers can complete work before your morning, and you get a solid block of shared hours in the afternoon Indian time.
| Period | Typical overlap (UK time) | What to use it for |
|---|---|---|
| British Summer Time | roughly 09:00 – 13:30 | Daily stand-up, backlog refinement, pairing on tricky issues |
| GMT (winter) | roughly 09:00 – 12:30 | Stand-up, sprint reviews, quick decisions |
| Outside the overlap | afternoon UK time | Asynchronous review: comments in tickets, recorded demos, written specifications |
Many teams also agree that one developer shifts their day later on release days or during critical incidents. Put these expectations in the statement of work so nobody relies on goodwill alone.
Managing a remote dedicated team well
Give the team a clear owner
Nominate one product owner who prioritises the backlog and answers questions within a day. Teams slow down far more from waiting for decisions than from writing code.
Track work where everyone can see it
Use one board in Jira, Linear, GitHub Projects or similar. Every task should have acceptance criteria, an owner and a status. At Creensight, progress, task completion and timelines are visible to clients at any time through our tracking system, which makes it easy to see what a week of work produced.
Review working software, not timesheets
Hold a short demo at the end of every sprint. If a feature cannot be demonstrated, it is not finished. This simple rule keeps conversations focused on outcomes.
Protect quality from the start
- Code review on every pull request, ideally including someone from your side for critical areas.
- Automated tests and a continuous integration pipeline that runs on every change.
- Separate development, staging and production environments with controlled access.
- Short written architecture notes so knowledge does not live in one person’s head.
Security and access: setting sensible boundaries
Bringing remote engineers into your systems is mostly a question of good access hygiene, the same discipline you would apply to any new starter. A few practical measures cover most of the risk:
- Named accounts only. Every developer gets their own login with multi-factor authentication; shared credentials are never used.
- Least privilege. Grant access to the repositories and environments each person needs, and review permissions monthly.
- No production access by default. Deployments run through the pipeline, and production data access is granted temporarily and logged when genuinely required.
- Clear offboarding. When someone leaves the project, their access is removed the same day and the change is recorded.
If your organisation holds Cyber Essentials certification or works to ISO 27001, share the relevant policies at the start so the team can follow them from day one rather than retrofitting controls later.
Costs and how to compare suppliers
Dedicated developers are normally priced as a monthly fee per engineer, varying with seniority and technology. Rather than comparing day rates alone, compare the total cost of getting a feature into production.
| Cost factor | In-house hire (London) | Dedicated developer via a partner |
|---|---|---|
| Recruitment | Agency fees and weeks or months of interviewing | Shortlist usually within days; no placement fee |
| Employment costs | Salary, employer’s National Insurance, pension, equipment, office | Included in the monthly fee |
| Cover for leave or departure | Your responsibility | Supplier provides continuity and replacement |
| Scaling up or down | Slow and often costly | Agreed notice period in the contract |
| Management time | Line management and appraisals | Product direction only; line management by supplier |
Ask every supplier for a written quote in pounds sterling, the minimum term, the notice period for reducing the team and what happens to the price after the first year.
Scaling the team and doing research first
Start with the smallest team that can make real progress, often one senior full-stack developer or a pair, and add specialists as the product grows: a QA engineer, a DevOps engineer, or a data or AI specialist for features such as document processing or forecasting. If you are unsure whether an idea is technically feasible, a short research and prototyping phase is a sensible first step before committing to a long engagement. You can read more about this in our custom software development and AI and machine learning services.
Tip: agree a 30-day review point in the first contract. If the fit is not right, both sides can adjust the team before the arrangement becomes expensive to change.
Frequently asked questions
Can I interview the developer before they join?
Yes. We share CVs and you can interview candidates yourself. We only proceed once you are comfortable with the person who will work on your product.
Will the developer work only on my project?
Yes. A dedicated developer works full-time on your product for the agreed period, and you can follow their tasks and progress in the shared tracker.
Can developers work from our London office?
No. Our engineers work remotely from Creensight’s secure environment and connect to your tools online. We are happy to arrange regular video calls and in-person workshops in London with the UK team where useful.
How quickly can we add more people?
Send us the skills you need and our business development team will propose suitable profiles. Adding an engineer usually takes days rather than the weeks a direct hire can take. More answers are on our FAQ page.
Talk to us about your team
If you are weighing up an in-house hire, a freelancer or a dedicated team, we are happy to talk through the options honestly, including when another model would suit you better. Contact Creensight UK with a short description of your product and the skills you need, and we will reply within one business day.