Should you automate a task or hire someone to do it?
Automate when the work is repetitive, rule-based and stable, because a one-off fixed fee keeps paying back against a recurring salary. Hire when the work needs judgement, relationships or varies week to week.
That is the framing this whole guide works from, and it is worth stating plainly before any numbers: this is not a case for automating everything. It is a way to work out, for one specific task, which side of that line it sits on. See our AI automation services for what a build actually involves, and our full price list for every band.
Why has the cost of hiring gone up in 2026?
Employment on-costs rose in 2026, so the annual bill for a hire is meaningfully higher than the headline salary alone — which is why the automate-or-hire question is worth re-running now even for owners who settled it a year or two ago.
Three components sit on top of gross pay: employer National Insurance at 15% on earnings above the secondary threshold of £5,000 a year, which is frozen to 2030–31 (GOV.UK, 2026/27); the National Living Wage floor, which rises to £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026 (GOV.UK); and the auto-enrolment minimum 3% employer pension contribution (GOV.UK).
This is presented as pressure worth understanding, not a reason to panic. Rising on-costs simply mean the maths is worth doing properly rather than assumed. Our post on the admin cost problem sets out a similar method for costing the work itself, before you decide whether to hire or automate it.
What does a hire actually cost per year?
A hire costs more than the salary. You add employer National Insurance, pension contributions and other on-costs, then recruitment and equipment on top.
The build-up looks like this: gross salary <!-- CONFIRM: your own figure -->, plus employer NI at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year, plus pension at 3% (the auto-enrolment minimum), plus software, equipment and space <!-- CONFIRM: your own figures -->, plus one-off recruitment costs <!-- CONFIRM: your own figures -->.
Two things are worth noting about this total. First, it recurs every single year, not once. Second, it tends to rise with pay reviews, so a hire made today is very unlikely to cost the same in three years’ time.
Automating vs hiring: the maths side by side
The honest comparison is a recurring annual cost against a one-off fee plus a modest ongoing cost. The statutory on-costs below are the 2026/27 GOV.UK figures; your own salary and business-specific inputs still need filling in before this is a real comparison for your business.
| Line item | Hire (recurring, per year) | Automation (NeuralGen) |
|---|---|---|
| Up-front cost | Recruitment <!-- CONFIRM --> (one-off) |
Audit £1,500 (refunded if we can’t find 10+ hrs/week saved) + sprint £4,000–£8,000 fixed |
| Gross salary | <!-- CONFIRM --> per year |
— |
| Employer National Insurance | At 15% on earnings above £5,000/year (GOV.UK, 2026/27) | — |
| Pension (auto-enrolment) | At 3%, the auto-enrolment minimum (GOV.UK) | — |
| Equipment, software, space | <!-- CONFIRM --> per year |
— |
| Ongoing running cost | Salary reviews and on-costs recur and rise | Your own tool subscriptions (Claude, Make, n8n) + optional care plan from £300/month |
| Shape of the cost | Recurring every year | One-off build, then modest ongoing |
The automation figures in this table are fixed and taken from our published prices. The statutory on-costs use the 2026/27 GOV.UK rates; the salary and equipment figures are yours to fill in. This is a framework for your own numbers, not a guarantee of savings.
How do I run these numbers for my own business?
Work it out in six steps, so the comparison is genuinely yours rather than a generic claim borrowed from elsewhere.
- Write down the task and the hours a week it takes today — measure it, do not guess.
- Cost a hire: gross salary
<!-- CONFIRM: your own figure -->, then add employer NI at 15% on earnings above £5,000/year, pension at 3% (the auto-enrolment minimum), and equipment, software and space<!-- CONFIRM: your own figures -->, to get the true annual cost. - Cost the automation: audit £1,500 (refunded if we can’t find 10+ hrs/week saved) plus a fixed sprint of £4,000–£8,000, plus your own tool subscriptions and an optional care plan from £300/month.
- Add the automation’s first-year total: sprint cost plus twelve months of tool and care cost.
- Compare year one, then year two onward — the one-off cost drops away while the salary keeps recurring.
- Divide the automation’s first-year cost by the monthly cost it removes, to get a rough payback period in months.
See our full price list for every service and band referenced above.
What is the payback period on automating a task?
Payback is the automation’s first-year cost divided by the monthly cost it removes — often measured in months for a genuinely repetitive task, after which the saving is recurring.
Every figure here should be treated as a range or <!-- CONFIRM --> rather than a fact. No specific payback period is stated because it depends entirely on your own salaries and hours. The audit exists precisely to replace that guesswork with a real hours-saved estimate — and it is £1,500, refunded in full if we can’t find at least ten hours a week to save. Our post on AI automation cost covers the pricing side of this in more depth.
When does hiring still win?
Hiring wins whenever the work needs human judgement, relationships or handling exceptions: client conversations, negotiation, care, creative decisions, or anything that changes shape week to week.
Automation handles the repetitive, rule-based core of a role well. A person handles everything that varies. Often the right answer is both at once: automate the routine parts of a job so the person you hire spends their time on the work only a person can actually do.
We will tell you plainly when hiring is the better investment for a given task, rather than sell an automation that will not pay back. That is a deliberate part of how we price and scope work.
How do I get a real answer for my situation?
Start with the audit. It maps your processes, estimates the hours a specific automation would save, and gives you a fixed sprint price inside the £4,000–£8,000 band — so you can run this comparison on real numbers rather than assumptions.
The £1,500 audit is refunded in full if we can’t find at least ten hours a week of savings. That is the only guarantee on offer, and it is stated exactly as published.
See our full price list for every band and service.