Payroll Specialist

Location: Manchester Salary: Competitive + Excellent Benefits Our client is a leading international organisation with a large and complex UK workforce. As part of continued growth and investment within the payroll function, they are looking to appoint an experienced Payroll Specialist to join their established team. This is an excellent opportunity for a payroll professional who has extensive end-to-end payroll experience and enjoys working in a high-volume, fast-paced environment. The successful candidate will play a key role in ensuring payroll is delivered accurately and efficiently, while acting as a subject matter expert for payroll legislation, compliance and process improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Take ownership of the end-to-end payroll process for a large UK employee population, ensuring payroll is processed accurately and on time.
• Review, validate and reconcile payroll data, ensuring all employee changes, statutory payments and deductions are processed correctly.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex payroll queries, resolving issues in line with current UK payroll legislation.
• Work closely with HR, Finance and the outsourced payroll bureau to ensure the seamless delivery of monthly payroll.
• Complete payroll reconciliations, balance checks and post-payroll reporting, identifying and resolving discrepancies where required.
• Lead year-end payroll activities, including P60s, P11Ds (where applicable), payroll reconciliations and statutory reporting.
• Ensure payroll processes remain compliant with HMRC legislation, pensions, auto-enrolment and company policies.
• Support payroll audits, both internal and external, maintaining accurate documentation and payroll records.
• Identify opportunities to improve payroll processes, controls and efficiencies, supporting continuous improvement initiatives.
• Mentor and provide guidance to junior payroll team members where required.

About You

• Significant experience managing end-to-end payroll within a large, complex organisation.
• Proven experience processing payroll for a workforce of 1,000+ employees is essential.
• Previous experience working with an outsourced payroll bureau (such as SD Worx, ADP, Zellis, Moorepay or similar) is highly desirable.
• Strong working knowledge of UK payroll legislation, HMRC requirements, statutory payments, pensions and year-end payroll processes.
• Experience investigating and resolving complex payroll queries and reconciliations.
• Advanced Excel skills, including VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables and data analysis, are highly desirable.
• Exceptional attention to detail with the ability to manage multiple payroll deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong communication skills with the confidence to build relationships across HR, Finance and senior stakeholders.

What's on Offer

• Join a global organisation with a highly respected payroll function supporting a large UK workforce.
• Work within a collaborative, high-performing team where your expertise will be valued.
• Opportunity to contribute to payroll projects, process improvements and system enhancements.
• Competitive salary, excellent benefits and genuine opportunities for career progression.

Robert Walters Operations Limited is an employment business and employment agency and welcomes applications from all candidates