Nearshore Software Development UK and Ireland: Your Options

At a glance

Provider: WeDevelop, a software company from Romania
Clients: Romania, the EU, the UK and North America
Languages: English and Romanian
Invoicing: EUR, GBP or RON
Pricing: Quoted after scoping, from your brief
Contact: office@wedevelop.ro

01Is this for you

When a UK or Irish buyer should consider Romania

English is rarely the obstacle for a British team working abroad. The questions are usually about law, money and hours, and it works best for buyers like these.

London or Dublin rates and recruitment times make a senior hire hard to justify for a piece of work that may end.
You are an agency that has won work and needs Magento, Next.js or DevOps capacity under your own brand.
You want more shared hours than an offshore team in Asia can give you.
You need a contract under English, Scottish or Irish law rather than a foreign one.
You would rather avoid the admin of engaging individual contractors one at a time.

02What changes

What a British or Irish buyer should check

Since Brexit, a UK company and an Irish company buying the same service are in different legal positions. Here are the differences, in general terms.

Two hours' difference

Nine o'clock in London or Dublin is eleven in Romania. Your morning stand-up falls well inside our day, while very early starts on your side are the easiest to arrange.

UK data rules

Your own processing falls under UK GDPR, and ours falls under EU GDPR. Data moves on the basis of separate adequacy decisions in each direction, so ask your DPO to confirm the current position.

UK VAT

For VAT, the UK is outside the EU, and a UK business buying services from abroad generally accounts for the tax itself under the UK reverse charge.

Ireland is simpler

An Irish company is inside the EU. GDPR applies to both sides with no transfer question, B2B invoices normally fall under the EU reverse charge, and invoicing can be in EUR.

Contract and IP

The framework agreement can follow your own jurisdiction, and we can work from your paper. All IP is assigned to you in writing from the first commit.

Currency

We invoice monthly in GBP or EUR, so a UK buyer can keep the engagement in pounds and leave exchange-rate risk out of the budget.

03Which option

UK contractor, Romanian nearshore or an offshore team

This is the decision most British teams are actually making. Each option can be right, depending on the work.

Option	Fits when	Trade-off
UK employee	The role is permanent, central to the product and benefits from being in your office.	Slow to hire and costly to carry, and reversing the decision takes time and money.
UK or Irish contractor	You need one person for a defined spell, and you have the admin in place to engage them.	Availability is uneven, there is no one behind them when they leave, and engagement status needs care.
Nearshore in Romania	You want senior capacity most of your working day, with replacement and handover covered by a company.	Remote by default, a different calendar of public holidays, and a data flow your DPO will want to look at.
Offshore in Asia	The scope is well specified, the volume is high and handing work over between time zones is acceptable.	Very little live overlap with UK hours, so feedback takes longer and specifications must carry more weight.

If your engineers must hold UK security clearance or work on site, nearshore is the wrong tool for that role. The same applies if a public-sector contract restricts where the work can be done, so check those terms before you speak to anyone.

04Cost

What decides the cost for a UK or Irish buyer

We quote per role after a short call and do not publish rates. These are the points worth budgeting for as a UK or Irish company.

Factor	Why it matters
Seniority and stack	A senior Adobe Commerce engineer costs differently from a QA specialist, wherever you buy.
What you compare against	Add employer's National Insurance, pension, recruitment fees and equipment to a UK salary before comparing.
Team shape	One embedded engineer relies on your lead, while a dedicated team includes its own tech lead and QA.
Legal review	Working from your own contract and reviewing data flows takes legal time on your side, once, at the start.
Travel	Kick-offs and quarterly reviews in person are possible, and worth agreeing up front on longer engagements.

There is no recruitment fee or buy-out clause, and the notice period is 30 days. That matters for a UK finance team, because the commitment is a monthly invoice rather than a salary line with redundancy behind it.

05How to start

How a UK or Irish engagement gets going

01day 1

Short call

Half an hour at a time that suits your morning, on the work, the stack and who would lead the engineers.

02days 2–5

Meet the engineers

You see CVs and code samples for specific people and interview them. Nobody is swapped in later.

03week 2

Contract and data review

Framework agreement, NDA, IP assignment and a data processing agreement, with your DPO checking the data flow.

04weeks 2–3

Into your sprint

Access to your repository and tools, then a first month that serves as a trial for both sides.

06For concrete profiles

What to tell us at the start

We can come back with profiles and a start date from a short message that covers these points.

Whether the contracting company is British or Irish, since the VAT and data positions differ.
The stack, the number of engineers and the seniority you are after.
The law you want on the contract, and whether your legal team has its own template.
Whether UK personal data will be visible to the engineers at all, or whether they can work without it.
Your core hours, and the meetings the engineers must attend.

07Questions

What UK and Irish companies ask about nearshoring

How much does a Romanian developer cost for a UK company?

We quote per role after a short call, because the price depends on seniority, stack and allocation. To compare fairly, put the monthly quote next to a UK salary plus National Insurance, pension, recruitment fees and equipment, and remember there is only 30 days' notice to end it.

What are the working hours compared with London?

Romania is two hours ahead of London and Dublin all year, because both move their clocks on the same dates. A nine o'clock stand-up in London is at eleven in Romania, and you can settle the exact core hours in the contract.

Can you handle UK personal data after Brexit?

Yes, though your DPO should confirm the basis. UK rules allow transfers to the EEA, and the EU has an adequacy decision covering the UK for data coming back, but those are separate decisions that can change. We sign a data processing agreement and can work in your environment.

Does IR35 apply if we use a Romanian company?

It is usually a smaller concern, because off-payroll rules target individuals working through their own intermediary rather than services from a company abroad that supplies its own engineers. Ask your tax adviser about your own setup, as this is general information and not advice.

Can the contract be under English law?

Yes, the framework agreement can follow your own jurisdiction, and we are happy to work from your paper if your legal team prefers. Terms include monthly invoicing, 30 days' notice, full IP assignment, a mutual NDA and a non-solicitation clause in both directions.

Do you invoice in pounds and how does VAT work?

Yes, we invoice UK clients in GBP, and EUR or RON are also available. A UK business buying from an EU supplier generally self-accounts for VAT under the UK reverse charge, while an Irish business follows the EU rules. Your accountant should confirm the treatment for your company.

Do you have clients in the UK?

Yes, UK agencies use us for overflow work under white-label terms, and the UK is a regular part of our client base. Our public portfolio does not list a UK project, because white-label work stays unnamed, so ask us to walk you through relevant code instead.

Nearshore software development for the UK and Ireland, from inside the EU