Principal Payroll SME, UK & Ireland

Overview

As Senior Payroll SME at ADP, you will own Ireland and UK payroll accuracy and compliance, guiding clients and colleagues through complex rules. You’ll lead payroll setup, testing, and go-live for transitioning payrolls, while staying ahead of legislative changes. Your role combines advisory leadership with hands-on execution, enabling flawless payroll delivery across jurisdictions. You’ll collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive continuous improvement and share expertise to elevate the whole payroll function. This is a strategic, client-focused role at a global leader shaping payroll delivery at scale.

Pay / Benefits

• Team collaboration
• Challenging solutions
• Epic scale impact
• Curious learners
• Owner mindset
• Philanthropic Foundation involvement and giving back to the community

Responsibilities

• Act as the definitive subject matter expert for Ireland and UK payroll, ensuring accurate and timely delivery across the full payroll lifecycle
• Serve as the escalation point for complex payroll issues and provide clear advisory guidance to clients and internal teams
• Lead payroll implementation activities: setup, configuration, parallel runs, testing, data migration and go-live for new or transitioning payrolls
• Monitor and manage legislative changes from Revenue and HMRC, ensuring updates are reflected in processes and systems
• Drive continuous improvement through automation, accuracy, and efficiency using data and audit insights
• Collaborate across functions and mentor junior colleagues to strengthen payroll knowledge and resilience
• Produce clear payroll reporting and maintain robust process documentation, controls and audit trails

Key requirements

• UK payroll mastery: PAYE, NI, RTI, pension auto-enrolment, statutory payments, P45/P60/P11D, HMRC compliance and year-end
• Ireland payroll mastery: Revenue PAYE Modernisation, real-time reporting, PRSI, USC, ROS submissions, Irish year-end, pension auto-enrolment, MyFutureFund
• 8-10+ years of hands-on payroll experience, ideally in multi-client/bureau or large in-house settings
• Experience with payroll onboarding, configuration, parallel runs, testing, data migration, go-live and change management
• SME/advisory capability demonstrated as trusted advisor and escalation point for complex payroll issues
• Ability to explain complex payroll concepts plainly and build strong client/stakeholder relationships
• Analytical skills and proficiency with Excel; able to analyse payroll data, audits and reporting
• Strong process discipline and a continuous-improvement mindset; highly organized and detail-oriented
• Ability to work independently, manage priorities in a fast-paced environment, and collaborate cross-functionally
• Nice-to-have: payroll qualification (CIPP or IPASS), cross-border payroll exposure, payroll transformation project experience

• problem solving
• clear communication
• client-focused mindset
• Excel
• payroll data analysis
• audits and reporting

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