Certainly.
The first time you import a skeletal rig you are asked if you want to use a skeletal set up already in UE4. If you leave it set to none then the rig is imported as the rig that player model will be using. You always land up with two separate components and the mesh contains the skin weighing.
The second character to be imported, that uses the same rig, you are given the same option but this time if you tell UE4 to use the rig you just imported then the rig is not imported and the mesh is weighted to the previous rig.
You can have “thousands” of player model meshes, which is a nothing hit as to performance, and use the identical resources through a single channel all of them using the one rig to rule them all.
It is by design an instanced system as every character will use the same animation pool as well controlled by a single animation blueprint.