If you are a CTO planning a 2026 roadmap, "what does a React developer actually cost?" is the wrong question. The right one is total annualised cost per productive engineer, including employment overhead, ramp time, and attrition risk. That number looks very different in India than in the UK — often by a factor of three to four — and the delta decides whether your Series A runway lasts 12 months or 24.
TL;DR: A senior React developer in London costs a UK employer roughly £110k–£145k fully loaded. The same seniority hired through a Delhi-based partner like Krapton typically lands at £38k–£58k fully loaded, with a 48-hour time-to-start versus 8–14 weeks in the UK market. Quality is a function of vetting, not geography.
How to read "blended hourly rate" honestly
Rate cards quoted online are almost always misleading because they collapse three different engagements into one number. A 2026-realistic comparison has to separate these:
- UK permanent hire: base salary + NI at 13.8% + pension + benefits + apparatus + recruiter fees (typically 15–20% of first-year base).
- UK contractor inside IR35: day rate × billable days + PAYE deductions carried by the fee-payer; often a wash versus permanent because the contractor loads their rate to cover lost take-home.
- India dedicated team via a B2B contract: a single monthly invoice from Krapton Technologies Pvt Ltd; no UK employment relationship, no IR35 exposure, everything already included.
For apples-to-apples comparison, always convert to fully loaded annual cost per engineer.
Senior React developer — 2026 realistic ranges
Based on offers seen across our clients in the last twelve months, adjusting for 2026 inflation:
- London permanent senior React: £85k–£110k base + ~30% loading = £110k–£145k all-in.
- London contractor senior React (inside IR35): £500–£650 per day × ~220 billable days = £110k–£143k.
- Remote EU senior React: €75k–€95k base + ~20% loading = £80k–£105k.
- India senior React (dedicated via Krapton): $22–$34 per hour × ~2,000 hours = £38k–£58k all-in.
- India mid-level React (dedicated via Krapton): £26k–£38k all-in.
These are real figures we see today — the gap is big enough that even accounting for 6 hours timezone overlap, security review, and contract legal, the India route wins on cost and time-to-value for most roadmap shapes.
The time-to-hire delta CTOs forget to price in
In 2026, median time-to-hire for a senior React role in London is 8–14 weeks end-to-end: sourcing, interview loop, offer, notice period. That is 2–3.5 months of lost roadmap per role, and doubles if the candidate ghosts at offer stage. Our blended time-to-start for a senior React engineer through Krapton is 48 hours because we keep a bench of pre-vetted engineers and you interview from a shortlist.
At a £300k Series A burn rate, a 10-week delay to start is £57k of runway burned before a single line of code ships. When you add that to the annual cost comparison, the real delta is much larger than the headline rate card.
Quality — the part the rate card does not capture
Quality in React work is about shipping production-grade apps, not leetcode. The signal we screen for — and you should screen for too, regardless of where the engineer sits — is:
- Evidence of 3+ shipped production apps with traffic, not side projects.
- Real debugging of hydration, Suspense and streaming — not just familiarity with App Router syntax.
- Understanding of Core Web Vitals, bundle budgets, and edge runtime trade-offs.
- Unit + integration test coverage in their own repos, not just "yes I write tests".
- One live reference from a previous CTO who will take a 15-minute call.
Geography is a noise variable here. A well-vetted senior in Delhi outperforms a poorly-vetted contractor in Shoreditch on every dimension that matters to roadmap velocity.
IR35, compliance, and the B2B route
UK-based clients worried about IR35 exposure get a clean route through a B2B Services Agreement with Krapton Technologies Pvt Ltd. You pay a single Indian-entity invoice for a deliverable or a dedicated-resource month; HMRC has no basis to recategorise the relationship because there is no UK worker and no UK employer. We've documented the full playbook in our consulting walkthrough and our engineering blog.
When the UK hire is still the right call
Not always offshore. Hire in London when: the work requires daily in-person customer interviews, you have regulated on-site access, or your board insists on a named UK-tax-resident engineer. For everything else — product engineering, SaaS, mobile, data — the India route is cheaper, faster, and, with the right vetting, equal on quality.
FAQ
Is hiring React developers in India cheaper than the UK in 2026?
Yes, roughly 50–70% cheaper at equivalent seniority on a fully loaded annual basis, factoring in employment overhead, NI, pension, recruiter fees and time-to-start delays.
What's a realistic hourly rate for a senior React developer in India?
$22–$34 per hour through a reputable dedicated-team provider. Freelance marketplaces list lower rates but quality is uneven and retention is the problem, not the hour-one rate.
Does IR35 apply to Indian React developers working for UK companies?
Generally no if you engage via a B2B contract with the Indian entity rather than a personal service company. Always validate with your tax counsel against the exact engagement structure.
How fast can we onboard a React developer from India?
With a pre-vetted bench, 48 hours from signed SoW to first standup. Cold sourcing takes 5–10 business days.
Next step
If your 2026 roadmap has more React work than your London hiring pipeline can deliver, the fastest de-risk is a 30-minute discovery call. We'll walk you through our current bench, rate card, and a staged rollout plan. Hire senior React developers from Krapton or browse our developer directory to start.
