Job Description
Payroll Team Leader
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Location: Epsom, Surrey
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Office-based through probation, moving to hybrid after successful completion
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Full-time
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We are looking for an experienced Payroll Team Leader to lead the accurate, compliant and timely delivery of a UK in-house payroll service within a large engineering and infrastructure organisation.
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This role is ideal for someone who has built their career in calm, controlled payroll operations and is ready to bring that discipline into a structured, multinational environment.
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You will sit at the intersection of hands-on payroll delivery and real team leadership, owning the day-to-day payroll operation, maintaining strong governance and controls, supporting legislative and benefit changes, and providing clear reporting to senior HR stakeholders.
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The Role
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As Payroll Team Leader, you will lead the end-to-end UK payroll cycle, ensuring employees are paid accurately and on time while supporting the payroll team with workload control, priorities, deadlines and escalations.
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You will also play a key role in payroll governance, National Minimum Wage compliance, benefits processing, reconciliations, reporting and continuous improvement.
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✅ Key Responsibilities
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• Lead the end-to-end delivery of the UK in-house payroll cycle
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• Manage the payroll team’s daily workload, priorities and deadlines
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• Provide guidance, coaching and escalation support to payroll colleagues
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• Own payroll validation, reconciliations, exception checks, approvals and audit controls
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• Ensure compliance with UK payroll legislation, HMRC requirements, PAYE, National Insurance, statutory payments and company policy
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• Monitor National Minimum Wage compliance, especially around salary sacrifice and flexible benefit deductions
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• Process and oversee the payroll treatment of flexible benefits
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• Partner with Reward, Benefits, HR Operations, HR Business Partners, Finance, pensions and systems teams
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• Produce payroll service reporting covering accuracy, timeliness, exceptions, service levels, incidents, risks and improvement actions
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• Act as the escalation point for complex payroll queries
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• Maintain strong process documentation, controls and audit trails
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• Support year-end and statutory payroll activity
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• Identify opportunities to improve payroll efficiency, controls and data quality
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What we are looking for
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• Proven hands-on experience delivering end-to-end UK payroll
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• Experience in an in-house or similarly complex payroll environment
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• Strong knowledge of UK payroll legislation, including PAYE, NI, statutory payments, RTI and National Minimum Wage principles
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• Experience leading or managing payroll colleagues
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• Strong workload control, coaching and escalation handling experience
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• Experience with payroll-related benefits, salary sacrifice or flexible benefit schemes
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• Confident stakeholder management and payroll performance reporting skills
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• Strong attention to detail, numerical ability and deadline discipline
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• Good Excel skills and confidence working across payroll systems, HRIS platforms and employee data
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⭐ Strong Differentiators
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• CIPP qualification or recognised payroll training
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• Governance, audit and controls experience, including SOX or similar compliance environments
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• Experience across pensions payroll, including DB, DC and auto-enrolment
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• Ability to translate payroll complexity into clear reporting for Finance, HR and senior leadership
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• Experience with process improvement, payroll migrations or fixing fragile payroll operations
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• Familiarity with Workday, Oracle, SAP, Dayforce, ADP, Zellis or similar systems
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Why this role
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• Stable, well-established organisation with a structured HR operating model
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• Real ownership of a meaningful part of the payroll cycle
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• Direct visibility to senior stakeholders
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• Opportunity to bring calm, controlled leadership into a business that values governance and payroll accuracy
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For a confidential conversation, please get in touch to discuss the opportunity in more detail.
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