Hire Rust developersfor your team inLondon
A senior Rust hire in London costs about £125,691 a year once employer costs are in. Octogle engineers are vetted, contracted and working your hours for about £49,882 — 60% less, with a shortlist in 48 hours.
A senior Rust hire in London costs £125,691 a year. Octogle: £49,882.
That's the median advertised salary for backend engineers in London plus the employer costs you're legally required to pay — before benefits, equipment, office space or a 20% recruiter fee (£21,760 on a senior hire). Hiring locally typically takes 51 days; Octogle sends a shortlist in 48 hours.
| Level | London salary | Employer costs | Loaded cost / yr | Octogle / yr | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-level | £80,264 | £12,611 | £92,875 | £31,176 | £61,699 (66%) |
| Senior | £108,800 | £16,891 | £125,691 | £49,882 | £75,809 (60%) |
| Staff / lead | £122,500 | £18,946 | £141,446 | £68,587 | £72,859 (52%) |
Employer costs: Employer NI (15%) £15,570 · Pension (3% minimum) £1,321 (senior). Octogle is our published hourly rate × 173 hours a month, all-in. Salaries are median advertised base pay; see sources below.
Working hours that overlap London
Shared hours between a 09:00–17:30 day in London and an engineer's local working day, in winter.
Portugal
Poland
Egypt
Romania
Ukraine
Argentina
Brazil
Colombia
Pakistan
India
Mexico
PhilippinesIR35 and overseas engineers
IR35 (the off-payroll working rules) applies when a worker supplies services through their own intermediary, usually a personal service company, and would be an employee if engaged directly. A medium or large UK client must then issue a Status Determination Statement and the fee-payer operates PAYE. The rules only apply where the worker is within the UK tax or NIC net: a non-UK-resident engineer working entirely outside the UK generally has no UK liability, so IR35 does not bite, and the location of the intermediary is irrelevant. When an Employer of Record employs the engineer on its own local payroll there is no intermediary engagement for IR35 purposes; the EOR is the legal employer under the engineer's home-country law. The analysis changes if the engineer becomes UK resident or works in the UK.
General information, not legal advice. Octogle handles contracts and payroll for every placement.
The London market
- ITJobsWatch: 24,173 permanent IT vacancies were advertised in London in the 6 months to 14 Oct 2026 (10,658 a year earlier); median advertised IT salary £75,000, and 1,360 ads were for 'Software Engineer' roles.
- London's median advertised IT salary (£75,000) is 28% above the UK-wide median (£58,500) over the same 6 months (ITJobsWatch).
Pick the Rust problem. See who we would send.
Aditya DesaiStaff Engineer95/ 100
Dmytro BondarenkoSenior Engineer91/ 100
Meera PillaiPlatform Engineer87/ 10025,000 applied. 1,000 got in.
Five scored stages, all finished before a profile reaches you. Nobody skips a stage to hit a deadline.
From £15 an hour. That is the whole pricing page.
One hourly rate with our margin printed on every invoice, billed monthly. No placement fee and no notice period beyond two weeks.
£8,314/ monthEquivalent to £48 an hourThe engagement, as a spec sheet
How OctogleHire compares
Vetting
Resume screening only
Self-reported skills
5-stage technical vetting (1 in 25 pass rate)
Time to Hire
6–12 weeks
Weeks of filtering
48 hours to first match
Cost
$20K–$40K placement fees
Low rates, variable quality
40–60% less, no placement fee
Compliance
You manage it
You manage it
Fully managed (30+ countries)
Replacement
30–90 days (if any)
None
14–30 day replacement guarantee
Support
Account rep (9-5)
Ticket system
Dedicated account manager
“We in need of a handful of developers for our internal CRM build after speaking with multiple agencies and receiving some quotations we sat down with Yaseen from Octogle and we were pleasantly surprised to see what was available for us within their talent pool. we took on three developers saving upwards of circa £6000 per month and developing the software in record time exactly how we wanted it. Highly suggest anyone to use octogle hire if you’re looking for a cost-effective high-quality software development solution.”
Questions engineering leaders ask
The median advertised salary for a senior Rust engineer in London is about £108,800. With statutory employer costs (employer ni (15%), pension (3% minimum)) the loaded cost is about £125,691 a year, before benefits, equipment and a 20% recruiter fee.
An Octogle senior engineer costs about £49,882 a year at our published hourly rate — about 60% less than a loaded London hire — with no placement fee, a 14-day replacement guarantee and two weeks' notice.
Eastern Europe and Portugal share most or all of a London working day; India overlaps about 3 hours. Octogle matches engineers with at least 4–6 hours of overlap with your team.
IR35 (the off-payroll working rules) applies when a worker supplies services through their own intermediary, usually a personal service company, and would be an employee if engaged directly. A medium or large UK client must then issue a Status Determination Statement and the fee-payer operates PAYE. The rules only apply where the worker is within the UK tax or NIC net: a non-UK-resident engineer working entirely outside the UK generally has no UK liability, so IR35 does not bite, and the location of the intermediary is irrelevant.
Hiring a software engineer locally typically takes around 51 days. Octogle shares a scored shortlist of 3–5 vetted Rust engineers within 48 hours of your brief.
You'll receive 3–5 vetted candidate profiles within 48 hours of your demo call. Most companies go from first intro to signed contract in under 5 business days — compared to 6–12 weeks with traditional agencies.
Every developer passes a 5-stage process: application screening, stack-specific technical assessment, live system design interview, soft-skills evaluation, and reference checks. From over 25,000 applicants reviewed, only 1,000 have been accepted into our network.
OctogleHire engineers start at £15/hr (about $19), with senior engineers at about £24/hr. That is roughly 50–65% less than the loaded cost of an equivalent in-house hire in the UK, US or Australia — a senior UK hire costs about £48/hr once employer costs are included. There are no upfront fees or placement commissions; you pay one published hourly rate once your engineer starts.
Sources
- Indeed London: Software Engineer pay (base median, postings, past 36 mo, updated Oct 2026)
- Indeed London: Senior Software Engineer pay
- ITJobsWatch: Lead Software Engineer, London (6 months to 14 Oct 2026)
- Indeed London: Front End Developer pay
- Indeed London: Back End Developer pay
- Indeed London: iOS Developer pay
- Indeed London: Android Developer pay
- Indeed London: DevOps Engineer pay
- Indeed London: Data Engineer pay
- Indeed London: Machine Learning Engineer pay
- ITJobsWatch: Software Engineer, London
- GOV.UK: Understanding off-payroll working (IR35)
- HMRC ESM10025: Off-payroll working - territorial scope (worker within UK charge; intermediary residence irrelevant)
- HMRC ESM10026: Off-payroll working - client wholly overseas
Send the brief. Meet Rust engineers on Thursday.
Twenty minutes with an Octogle engineer, then three to five scored profiles inside 48 hours. Free to post, with a replacement guarantee on every placement.