A cloud accounting software company used by small businesses and accountants. Its UK head office is in Milton Keynes, with offices in London and Manchester.
Xero makes online accounting software for small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers. It covers accounting, invoicing, payroll and payments, and it describes itself as a global small business platform. Instead of paper ledgers or spreadsheets, a business owner logs in from a phone or computer to see money in and out, send invoices and get paid. In the UK it says its software is recognised by HMRC and compliant with Making Tax Digital, the system that requires digital record-keeping and online tax reporting.
Xero was founded on 6 July 2006 in Wellington, New Zealand, by Rod Drury and Hamish Edwards, and was first called Accounting 2.0, according to Wikipedia. It listed on the New Zealand stock market in 2007 and the Australian one in 2012, and Wikipedia gives its headquarters as Wellington. It says Xero had about 4,610 employees in 2025 and offices in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. Xero's own website says it has been "changing the game globally since 2006", with about 5 million customers in more than 180 countries, which are company figures. Its UK careers page says its UK headquarters is in Milton Keynes, with other UK offices in London (near Liverpool Street) and Manchester.
Its headline purpose is "We help small businesses thrive worldwide". Its early careers page lists four values: Go Bold, Go Fast, Go Further and Go Together.
Xero's main product is its cloud accounting platform, with bank feeds, invoicing, expense claims, quotes, payroll and project tracking. It has an App Store with over 1,000 connected apps, and an AI finance assistant called JAX. For accountants and bookkeepers it offers Xero Partner Hub, Xero Ledger, Xero Tax, Xero Workpapers and Syft Analytics, and it says 250,000 accountants and bookkeepers are in its Partner Programme. Because many UK accountancy firms and bookkeepers use Xero, it is worth knowing about whichever accounting route you choose.
For young people, Xero's early careers page lists a 12-month graduate programme for engineering, security, analysis and data science, with Manchester the only UK location listed. Graduates are permanent, full-time employees from day one, have a team lead and a buddy, get power-skills training called GradLab and a learning budget, and the page says a permanent position is guaranteed at the end. Applicants should have under a year of professional experience; the process includes an online reasoning test, a technical test for technical roles, a recorded video interview and a virtual grad day, and CVs are used only to check eligibility. Its internships (data and engineering) are listed in Toronto, Melbourne and Wellington, not the UK. Xero describes offices as open-plan, friendly and inclusive with a casual dress code, which is the company's own description. Check the careers site for current UK vacancies; UK pay and entry details were not on the page.
Website: www.xero.com/uk
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