Phorest is a Dublin-headquartered software platform for hair and beauty salons, spas and aesthetic clinics, with around 450 staff worldwide. It is creating 25 new jobs over the next three years in a fully remote team covering software engineering, product management, customer support and testing — and every one of those roles can be done from anywhere in Northern Ireland. Invest NI is backing the move with £162,500, and the company chose Northern Ireland over Croatia, Portugal, North America and Estonia to do it.
That last detail is the one worth sitting with. This was not a company defaulting to the place it already had an office. It was a genuine contest between locations, decided on skills, technology ecosystem and connectivity rather than on where Phorest's own head office happens to sit. For any Northern Ireland business trying to grow a technical or specialist team of its own, that is exactly the market it is now competing in — and the financial side of winning that competition is more straightforward than it looks, once you know where to start.
What Invest NI actually announced
Invest NI's Dublin team first engaged with Phorest back in 2018, and this announcement is the result of that relationship building to an expansion decision. The 25 roles span software engineers at every level, including graduates, alongside product managers, customer specialists and test engineers, all delivered through a fully remote structure rather than a Belfast office. Anne Beggs, Chief Commercial Officer at Invest NI, said Phorest's decision "further strengthens our reputation as a leading location for software and digital services." Sylvie McDermott, Chief Operating Officer at Phorest, said Northern Ireland "impressed us with its highly skilled talent pool, strong technology ecosystem and excellent connectivity" when the company weighed it against Croatia, Portugal, North America and Estonia.
What the release does not say is just as telling: no salary bands for the 25 roles, no breakdown of how many land in year one against the full three-year window, and nothing on whether Phorest will run its own UK payroll for these hires or operate through an agency. Those are exactly the practical questions a Northern Ireland business asks itself the moment it decides to grow a remote team the same way.
The number worth sitting with: £10,500
Once someone is actually working from home in Northern Ireland, where the employer is headquartered stops mattering for payroll purposes — they are a UK-based employee, and employer National Insurance applies exactly as it would for a hire made down the road. For the 2026/27 tax year, employer Class 1 secondary National Insurance is charged at 15% on everything an employee earns above a £5,000 secondary threshold, with no upper limit. Most employers can then claim the Employment Allowance, which reduces that bill by up to £10,500 a year. That figure is fixed per business, not per employee, which changes how much it actually helps as a team grows.
Putting illustrative numbers on a growing remote team
Take an illustrative £38,000 average salary across a mixed team of engineers, product staff and support roles — entirely hypothetical, not Phorest's own figures, which Invest NI's announcement does not break down by role or pay band. Here is what the Employment Allowance is actually worth as that kind of team scales.
| Illustrative remote team, £38,000 average salary, 2026/27 rates | 1 hire | 5 hires | 10 hires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salaries | £38,000 | £190,000 | £380,000 |
| Employer NI before Employment Allowance (15% above £5,000) | £4,950 | £24,750 | £49,500 |
| Employment Allowance used (capped at £10,500) | £4,950 | £10,500 | £10,500 |
| Net employer NI payable | £0 | £14,250 | £39,000 |
| Total employment cost | £38,000 | £204,250 | £419,000 |
On the first hire, the Employment Allowance wipes out the entire employer NI bill — the true cost is just the salary. By five hires, the £10,500 cap is already used up, and £14,250 of employer NI lands as a real cost on top of £190,000 in salaries. By ten hires, net employer NI has grown to £39,000, and the allowance that felt generous on hire one now barely registers, because it never grows with the team. The lesson is not that growing a remote team is expensive — it is that the Employment Allowance is worth claiming correctly from day one, because its value is front-loaded onto exactly the hires a business is least prepared to budget for.
What it means for a Northern Ireland business specifically
If you are planning your own first few technical or remote hires, the Employment Allowance can cover the entire employer NI bill on those early appointments outright — real money that does not show up on a job advert and is easy to miss if nobody checks it has actually been switched on in your payroll software. One trap catches out founders specifically: a company whose sole director is its only employee above the secondary threshold cannot claim the allowance at all, so a one-person limited company making its first proper hire needs that hire in place, not just planned, before relying on the figure. If you are instead competing for the same specialist talent Phorest is now recruiting into Northern Ireland, the practical read is simpler still: candidates are weighing you against employers anywhere, and the employer NI arithmetic above is the same whether you are hiring your first remote engineer or your tenth.
What to do this week
If you are about to make your first or next hire, confirm the Employment Allowance is actually switched on — our payroll and pensions team can check eligibility and get it applied before the first payroll run rather than reclaimed afterwards. If this is a new PAYE scheme, HMRC's own guidance at gov.uk/register-employer sets out the registration process and the rule that it must happen before the first payday. If Invest NI support might apply to your own expansion, its support for business hub lists current funding by sector.
For how a different Invest NI jobs announcement's headline salary turned into a real employer cost, see our piece on what an Invest NI jobs announcement actually costs an employer, and for the basics of taking on your very first member of staff, payroll for your first hire.
What is still uncertain, and when we'll know
Invest NI's release does not give salary bands for the 25 roles, does not say how many will be filled in year one against the full three-year window, and does not state whether Phorest will run UK payroll itself or work through an agency or umbrella arrangement for its Northern Ireland hires. It also does not break down how the £162,500 of support is structured. The clearest way to track progress is Phorest's own careers page as the roles are advertised, and its accounts filed at Companies House in Ireland, which will eventually show the scale of the Northern Ireland team once it is built out.
Getting the Employment Allowance claimed correctly from your very first hire, not months after, is exactly what our payroll team is for.