Staff augmentation
Senior engineers who join your stand-ups and work in your tools.
Best when
You have a roadmap and need more capacity or a specific skill.
A software engineering team for UK companies
elitics works for companies in the United Kingdom from Prishtina, Kosovo, one hour ahead of London. You share eight hours of a 09:00–18:00 day, our invoices carry no UK VAT under the reverse charge, IP is assigned to you in writing, and UK GDPR transfers are covered by the IDTA or the UK Addendum.
- shared hours on a 09:00–18:00 day, all year
- 8 h
- UK VAT on our invoices; you apply the reverse charge
- 0%
- or the UK Addendum to the EU SCCs for transfers
- IDTA
- s.90 written assignment of copyright in the code
- CDPA
Eight shared hours, every working day
Prishtina is one hour ahead of London. The UK and Kosovo change their clocks on the same dates, so the gap stays one hour all year and a 09:00–18:00 day shares eight hours.
Prishtina team dayYour working dayShared hours
- London09:00–17:00 your time8 h Shared: 09:00–17:00 your time
- Manchester09:00–17:00 your time8 h Shared: 09:00–17:00 your time
- Edinburgh09:00–17:00 your time8 h Shared: 09:00–17:00 your time
Hours on the scale are Prishtina time. Working days are 9 hours long, including a break.
Our team’s day starts at 08:00 London time, which gives your morning stand-up a team that has already been working for an hour. Kosovo public holidays differ from UK bank holidays: Independence Day (17 February), Constitution Day (9 April) and the two Eid holidays are working days in the UK. Plan cover for these days in the first sprint.
Contracts and intellectual property
Most UK clients contract under the law of England and Wales. The point to get right is who owns the code.
- Copyright needs a written assignment
- Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, code written by a supplier’s staff belongs to the supplier unless it is assigned, and an assignment must be in writing and signed (s.90(3)). Our IP assignment is signed before work starts, so the code is yours from the first commit.
- Time and materials or fixed price
- Team extension and squads are billed for time worked on month-to-month terms with transparent time tracking. Fixed-price projects define scope, milestones and acceptance tests, and each payment follows an accepted milestone.
- Governing law
- The governing law and jurisdiction are set in the master services agreement. Raise it early if your procurement team requires English law.
- Confidentiality
- An NDA is signed before any technical detail is shared, and all code lives in your repositories.
VAT and invoicing
Our invoices to UK businesses carry no UK VAT. Services bought from overseas suppliers are generally taxed in the UK through the reverse charge.
- Reverse charge
- For most business services bought from an overseas supplier, the place of supply is the UK and you account for the VAT on your own return. If you can recover input tax in full, you reclaim it on the same return, so the net cost is usually nil.
- Invoices in euros
- Rates and invoices are in euros, the currency of Kosovo. Your cost in sterling follows the exchange rate; a fixed-price project fixes the total in euros up front.
- What we need from you
- Your company name, registered address and VAT registration number for the invoices.
UK GDPR and international transfers
Kosovo is not covered by UK adequacy regulations. Access to personal data from Prishtina is a restricted transfer and needs an appropriate safeguard.
- IDTA or UK Addendum
- Transfers are covered by the International Data Transfer Agreement or by the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, both issued by the ICO and in force since 21 March 2022, together with a transfer risk assessment.
- Data processing terms
- We sign processor terms under Article 28 UK GDPR that set out what we process, on whose instructions, and with which security measures.
- EU and UK data together
- If you also process EU personal data, the EU clauses with the UK Addendum can cover both regimes in one document.
- Data stays in your region
- Production systems can stay in your UK cloud region. Engineers work through your accounts and access controls, and test environments use anonymised or synthetic data where possible.
What it costs
Team extension from €45–65 per engineer-hour, dedicated squads from €15,000 per month, and fixed-price MVPs from €15,000. You receive a written proposal and estimate within 24 hours of the first call.
Dedicated squad
A cross-functional team (product, engineering, QA, DevOps) that owns a product or feature.
Best when
You want a product built or rebuilt without growing headcount.
Build-Operate-Transfer
Your own development center in Kosovo, set up and run by us.
Best when
You plan a long-term engineering presence in Europe.
How an engagement starts
- 01
First call
You talk to our engineering lead about the product, your team and your deadlines.
- 02
Proposal within 24 hours
A written proposal with the model, the team, the timeline and the price.
- 03
Contracts signed together
Master services agreement, NDA, IP assignment, processor terms and the IDTA or UK Addendum.
- 04
Work starts
Individual engineers start within about 48 hours of you approving their profiles. Squads start on the date agreed in the proposal.
Guides for this decision
- Staff Augmentation vs Dedicated Team: How to ChooseStaff augmentation or a dedicated team? Compare who directs the work, who carries delivery risk, how costs behave and the signs you picked the wrong model.
- How to Vet a Software Development Company: ChecklistA checklist for vetting a software development company: verify claims, meet the engineers, run a paid trial, and check contracts, security and overlap.
- Fixed Price vs Time and Materials ContractsFixed price or time and materials for software development? Where the risk sits, the change-request trap, hybrid contracts and what to write into each one.
Tax and legal sections reviewed by our legal counsel on 4 November 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Common questions
Do we pay UK VAT on elitics invoices?
Not to us. Our invoices carry no UK VAT. You account for it under the reverse charge on your own return and, if you can recover input tax in full, reclaim it on the same return.
Who owns the code your engineers write?
You do. UK copyright law gives code to the supplier unless it is assigned in writing, so we sign an IP assignment before work starts and all code lives in your repositories.
How do we cover UK GDPR for a team in Kosovo?
Kosovo is not covered by UK adequacy regulations, so we sign processor terms and the IDTA or the UK Addendum to the EU clauses, and you document a transfer risk assessment.
How many hours does the team share with London?
Eight hours of a 09:00–18:00 day. Prishtina is one hour ahead of London all year, because both change their clocks on the same dates.
Let’s build what comes next.
Tell us what you need to build or scale. You will get a proposal and estimate within 24 hours.