Delegate vs outsource: which should you choose?

Key takeaways

Delegate vs outsource comes down to capacity and skill. Delegate when someone inside the business has the time and ability, and the task needs internal knowledge. Outsource when nobody has spare capacity, the task needs a specialist, or it needs cover beyond one person. Delegating to an already full team just moves the hidden cost.

• Delegate: internal capacity exists and context matters.
• Outsource: no spare capacity, specialist skill or cover needed.
• In-house time costs from £16.27 an hour; managed offshore £9–£18.
• Test both against the same written task description.

What is the difference between delegating and outsourcing?

Delegating is assigning a task to someone inside your organisation. Outsourcing is contracting an external provider to do it. Both move work off your desk. Delegation uses capacity you already pay for; outsourcing buys capacity you do not have.

• The hidden costs of doing everything in-house
• How to delegate as a business owner

What does each cost?

Delegation is not free. Under 2026/27 GOV.UK rates an employee on the National Living Wage costs about £16.27 per worked hour and one on £30,000 about £19.81. If their time is already full, the delegated task displaces something else. As indicative market ranges, managed offshore support costs UK businesses around £9–£18 per hour and onshore £20–£35, usually including supervision and cover.

• In-house vs outsourcing: which model is more cost-effective?

When should you delegate?

Delegate when the conditions inside the business are right.

• A colleague has real spare capacity.
• The task needs knowledge of your customers or systems.
• It develops the person in a direction they want.
• The volume is small and steady.

When should you outsource?

Outsource when delegation would overload someone or leave the task exposed.

• Everyone internal is at capacity.
• The task needs a skill nobody has.
• It needs cover for holidays, sickness or extended hours.
• Volume varies and you do not want fixed cost.
• It is routine, measurable and can be written down.

• Which tasks a small business should outsource
• What should you outsource first?

When is neither the answer?

Neither is the answer when the task should not exist. Before moving any work, ask whether it can be stopped, simplified or automated. Moving an unnecessary task to someone else, inside or outside, keeps the cost and adds a handover.

• A stop doing list for your business

How do the two compare side by side?

The differences are practical.

• Cost: delegation uses salaried time; outsourcing is a fee for hours or output.
• Capacity: delegation is limited to spare hours; outsourcing scales up and down.
• Cover: delegation depends on one person; a managed team includes cover.
• Context: an employee knows the business; a provider needs it written down.
• Control: you direct an employee daily; you manage a provider by standards.
• Speed to start: delegation is immediate; outsourcing needs a short setup.

• When to outsource and when to hire

What does a worked example look like?

Take 8 hours a week of invoice processing. Delegated to an administrator on £30,000 with spare capacity, the extra cost is nil and the loaded value of the time is about £7,300 a year. If the administrator is already full, the true cost is either overtime, something else left undone, or part of a new hire. Outsourced at an indicative £12–£15 an hour, the same work costs about £4,400 to £5,500 a year with cover included.

The question that decides it is whether the spare capacity really exists.

Can you use both for the same process?

Yes. A common split keeps the customer-facing or judgement steps with an employee and moves the routine volume to a provider. An account manager owns the client relationship while a managed team prepares the paperwork. The employee becomes the point of contact and quality check for the outside team, which is a better use of their knowledge than doing the processing.

What mistakes do owners make?

The usual mistakes are delegating to the most willing person instead of the one with time, outsourcing a task that has never been written down, and treating either route as permanent. Review the split once a year. What made sense at ten staff may not at twenty.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in small offices: the owner delegates invoice chasing to the administrator, who is already at capacity. Chasing happens when there is time, which is rarely. The task has moved desks and the debtor days have not changed.

Across our client work, back-office cost per task has fallen by 42% once the process was written down and run by a managed team.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Delegate or outsource checklist

Run each task through these questions.

• Should this task exist at all?
• Who inside has the time and the skill?
• Does it need internal knowledge?
• Does it need cover or variable capacity?
• What does each route cost per hour, fully loaded?
• Can it be piloted for 60 days?

• The hidden cost audit: score your business in an hour
• Run an outsourcing pilot before you commit

Next step

Send us a list of tasks you want off your desk. We will mark each as stop, delegate or outsource in a 30-minute call.