Is it cheaper to hire an offshore developer?

Usually yes, because the hourly rate reflects a different cost of living. The risk is not quality — it is contracting: who owns the accounts, what makes the personal-data transfer lawful, how payment is staged, and what you are left holding if they stop replying.

What is a DPA and do I need one?

A Data Processing Agreement is a contract setting out how a supplier handles personal data on your behalf: what they may do with it, what security they apply, who else can see it, and what happens on a breach. You need one whenever a supplier processes personal data for you.

How do I pay a developer in another country?

Bank transfer or a service like Wise, against a numbered invoice, split across milestones. For a first engagement with an unknown supplier, a marketplace with escrow is worth the fee — it buys a dispute process that does not otherwise exist across borders.

Hiring

Is it legal to hire a web developer outside the UK or EU?

Yes, with the right paperwork. If the developer will touch personal data — a contact form, an order database, a CRM export — you are making a restricted international transfer, which needs a lawful mechanism: EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

Answered by Anas Bin Masud 195 words 3 sections

When it applies and when it does not

Adequacy decisions remove the requirement entirely for some countries. Pakistan, India, the Philippines and many common outsourcing destinations have none, so the mechanism applies. If no personal data will be touched at all, say so in writing and the requirement falls away.

What to ask for, before scope

A Data Processing Agreement, provided rather than requested
The correct instrument — SCCs for EU data, IDTA for UK data. A supplier who does not know the difference has not done this
A named sub-processor list: the hosting, email and error-tracking services that will also see data
A transfer risk assessment, prepared rather than left to you

The cheapest way to reduce the problem

Make less of a transfer. Where a build can proceed against anonymised or sample data, it should, with production access requested only when genuinely required and revoked at handover.

The longer version

This answer is deliberately short. If you want the full treatment, Hiring an offshore developer: the questions that protect you covers it in about 4 minutes — free, ungated, written from client work.

Who answered this

Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan — fifteen live client sites, six of them stores taking real payments. These answers come from those projects rather than from a content brief. More about how I work, or ask me something directly.