The Emerging Multinational Benefits Guide

The emerging multinational benefits guide

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More businesses are expanding internationally than ever before

Maybe you opened an office in Singapore. Hired a developer in Portugal. Built a supply chain across three time zones. The moment you had employees in more than one country, you became a multinational. And your benefits strategy needs to keep up.

The Emerging Multinational Benefits Guide

Built around the questions every emerging multinational eventually has to answer. Written for HR, Reward and Benefits leaders who need to get this right.

Download the guide

234,000 UK businesses now work across borders

This isn’t just a big-business story. Most companies expanding abroad have 250 employees or fewer — international by necessity, not design, and often without the HR infrastructure to match. Replicated across economies, that’s millions of small and mid-sized businesses managing people across borders. Each one facing the same challenge: different countries, different rules.

Original research into how businesses are crossing borders

Data sourced from Beauhurst Insights

  • 115,000

    internationally-owned companies are active in the UK. 58% increase in internationally-owned businesses now active in the UK (2016-2025)

  • 234,000

    UK-based companies now operate across 128 countries. 18% increase in the number of UK companies going multinational (2016-2025)

  • 50%

    do not have a competitive global or multinational benefits strategy in place. (REBA, 2023)

  • 61%

    of employees are more likely to stay with an employer that offers a good healthcare package. (Howden Global Employee Health Report, 2026)

All calculations are based on bespoke modelling developed by analysts at Beauhurst Insights for Howden Employee Benefits’ Emerging Multinational Guide, with research undertaken in May 2026. Calculations show both the number of externally headquartered businesses expanding into the UK (inbound) and UK-headquartered businesses extending operations internationally (outbound).

Anne Terry Headshot
As companies expand, they often let local offices arrange benefits independently, use global policies that aren’t locally admitted, or apply home-country thinking to very different regulatory environments. This creates hidden compliance risk, which only surfaces when something goes wrong.
Anne Terry Headshot
Anne Terry, Multinational Client Practice, Howden Employee Benefits
Managing Director

For businesses that grew across borders faster than anyone planned

You might not call yourself a multinational. But your benefits need to catch up with how fast you’ve grown.

  • You grew internationally before your benefits strategy could — and now there’s no single view of what you offer, what it costs, or whether it’s compliant.
  • You’re too complex for a local broker, but not yet a priority for the biggest global consultancies.
  • You want a clearer picture across your markets, and a strategy that works as hard as you do.
     
World map connected by arrows

You can already feel your benefits need more structure

The guide walks through five areas to get right before the complexity becomes unmanageable.

  1. Get your strategy aligned to your business
  2. Get smarter about cost control
  3. Get governance and compliance sorted early
  4. Get your data working for you
  5. Get the employee experience right
     
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Ready to talk it through?

Whether you’re setting up benefits in your first overseas market or bringing structure to a programme that’s grown across several countries, we can help you get clarity, control costs, and build a benefits strategy that works as hard as you do. Fill out the form and we’ll be in touch.

Speak to our multinational team

Get the Emerging Multinational Benefits Guide

Built around the questions every emerging multinational eventually has to answer. Written for HR, Reward and Benefits leaders who need to get this right.