Dedicated team vs in-house developers: the cost compared

Key takeaways

A dedicated development team vs in-house developers is a trade between speed to start and long-term control. A £50,000 UK developer costs about £61,000 a year with tools, or £35 per worked hour, plus months of recruitment. A dedicated offshore developer costs an indicative £20–£40 per hour and can often start within weeks.

• In-house developers: about £61,000 a year each, or £35 per worked hour.
• Dedicated team: an indicative £20–£40 per developer hour offshore.
• In-house developers: best for a long-term core product.
• Dedicated team: faster to start and easier to resize.

What is a dedicated development team?

A dedicated development team is a group of developers employed by a provider who work only on your product, long term, usually under your product owner's direction. Unlike a project agency, the team is not shared across clients. Unlike in-house hiring, the provider handles recruitment, employment, equipment and replacement.

• In-house vs outsourcing: which model is more cost-effective?
• In-house vs outsourced software development costs

What does an in-house developer cost?

A developer on £50,000 costs about £58,063 a year in employment costs using 2026/27 rates, about £33.37 per worked hour. With about £3,000 of equipment and tools, that is about £61,000 a year, or £35 per worked hour, before recruitment fees and the months a role can take to fill.

• What it costs to recruit an employee in the UK

What does a dedicated team cost?

Managed offshore dedicated developers commonly cost an indicative £20–£40 per hour depending on seniority, with equipment, workspace and replacement included. Three full-time developers cost roughly £104,000–£209,000 a year, against about £183,000 for three UK hires. The saving is largest for mid-level roles.

What does the dedicated model need from you?

A product owner who sets priorities and accepts work, a clear backlog, and a regular rhythm of planning, demos and reviews. Without these, a dedicated team drifts just as an in-house team would. Time-zone overlap for daily contact matters; Sri Lanka's working day overlaps the UK morning.

• How to manage an offshore team well
• Outsourcing to Sri Lanka from the UK

When should you hire in-house instead?

When the software is your product and you need the team for many years, when developers must work on site with hardware or customers, or when regulatory requirements restrict where code and data can be handled. Many businesses start with a dedicated team and hire in-house leads over time.

• Build-operate-transfer: outsource now, own the team later

How do you protect code and IP?

Keep the code repository, cloud accounts and domains in your name, assign intellectual property to your business in the contract, and give developers only the access they need. If developers handle personal data, a UK GDPR processor contract and a transfer safeguard are needed.

• GDPR and offshore outsourcing

How do you judge a dedicated team in its first three months?

Look at working software, not hours logged. By the end of month one, the team should be shipping small changes; by month three, delivering features at a steady pace with few defects. Review demos every sprint, track how often work is returned for fixes, and ask your product owner whether communication is working.

• Working software demonstrated every sprint.
• Defects found after release, per sprint.
• Estimates against actual delivery.
• Product owner time spent clarifying work.

• In-house vs outsourced QA testing

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in UK SMEs building internal platforms: a UK product lead directs a small dedicated offshore team, with daily stand-ups in the UK morning. The business gets a working team in weeks rather than months, and keeps product decisions in-house.

• See client work
• About Global Bridge Labs

Dedicated team checklist

Use these steps to decide.

• Decide how long you need the team.
• Cost in-house hires with recruitment time.
• Get dedicated team rates by seniority.
• Name an in-house product owner.
• Agree daily overlap hours.
• Put code, accounts and IP in your name.

Next step

Tell us your roadmap and team size. We will compare a dedicated team and in-house hiring in a 30-minute call.