For larger companies

A share scheme helps companies attract, retain, and motivate top talent – especially in competitive or specialist roles.

For larger organisations, they also create alignment at every level of the business. While senior leaders are incentivised through long-term value creation, all-employee share schemes can extend that ownership mindset across the wider workforce, helping to build a more engaged, high-performing culture.

In practice, this leads to stronger retention, improved productivity, and better alignment between individual contribution and company success.

Many UK share schemes are also tax-efficient, making them a cost-effective incentive tool. 

The most suitable employee share scheme depends on your company size, structure, and eligibility.

Common options for larger UK businesses include:

• Enterprise Management Incentives (EMIs),

• Company Share Option Plans (CSOPs),

• Growth shares, unapproved share options, employee stock option plans (ESOP), phantom shares, and you can issue plain ordinary shares too.

Many enterprise companies use a combination of these to incentivise different groups of employees.

There’s no fixed rule, but average employee equity pools are c.18%.

The right amount depends on your growth plans, hiring strategy, and how broadly you want to distribute equity incentives.

For enterprise businesses, it’s important to balance meaningful rewards with dilution and existing shareholder expectations.

Absolutely! Switching is easy with our tailored migration service.

You’ll have a dedicated account manager, plus access to scheduled video and phone support when needed. We also provide admin training to help your team run schemes day-to-day.

In the platform itself, all workflows offer guidance at every step, and you or the team can always reach out to support.

Vestd integrates directly with Companies House, creating a seamless, two-way sync between your cap table and official records.

For enterprise businesses, this means:

• Real-time cap table accuracy across multiple stakeholders.

• Automated filings, including confirmation statements and share allotments (e.g. SH01).
• Centralised management of PSC and shareholder information.

As for HMRC, Vestd supports end-to-end scheme compliance. You can submit ERS reports directly through the platform and request new or updated EMI/CSOP valuations. Our team will then prepare and send it to HMRC to get their approval.

Vesting schedules are fully configurable within Vestd’s scheme designer, giving you the flexibility to align incentives with your business structure.

You can define:

• Vesting duration and cliff periods.

• Time-based and performance-based conditions.

• Custom rules for different employee groups or seniority levels.

For larger organisations, this makes it easy to standardise frameworks while still tailoring incentives for key hires or leadership teams.

It depends (again).

Many UK share schemes offer significant tax advantages for companies, particularly when structured correctly.

For example: 

• EMI and CSOPs can provide a Corporation Tax deduction on gains realised by employees

• Growth shares are typically structured so that future gains are subject to Capital Gains Tax rather than Income Tax
• The taxation of unapproved options is more nuanced. Learn more.

As always, tax treatment depends on meeting specific criteria, so it’s important to seek professional advice where needed.

Vestd offers flexible pricing designed to scale with your business.

Whether you’re managing a single scheme or multiple plans across different teams or offices, you can choose to pay monthly or annually.