Payroll Transformation Specialist - 24 months Fixed-term employment

About Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a global consulting firm with entrepreneurial, action and results‑oriented professionals. We take a hands‑on approach to solving our clients' problems and assisting them in reaching their potential. Our culture celebrates independent thinkers and doers who positively impact our clients and shape our industry. The collaborative environment and engaging work—guided by A&M's core values of Integrity, Quality, Objectivity, Fun, Personal Reward, and Inclusive Diversity—are why our people love working at A&M.

Role Overview

The Payroll Transformation Specialist, based in London, will play a critical role in delivering payroll change initiatives across EMEA and complement the existing Payroll Operations team by focusing on project execution, systems enablement, and change delivery, ensuring solutions are practical, compliant, and successfully embedded into BAU operations. This role requires payroll expertise combined with strong systems and project delivery experience. The successful candidate will partner closely with HR, Finance, IT, and external vendors to lead and support payroll implementations, optimisations, and transformation projects, with a strong focus on ADP GlobalView / Celergo. This role is ideal for a payroll professional who enjoys working in complex environments, leading change, and improving payroll processes through technology and standardisation.

Responsibilities

• Act as the Payroll subject‑matter lead within transformation and implementation projects, working alongside the central Project Management Office and EMEA Payroll Team.
• Work closely with the Payroll Operations (BAU) teams, who retain ownership of day‑to‑day payroll delivery to ensure payroll requirements, country nuances, statutory obligations, and operational processes are fully understood, designed, tested, and embedded within project solutions.
• Represent payroll interests across project forums, ensuring payroll impacts are visible, understood, and addressed throughout the project lifecycle.
• Provide governance and challenge to ensure payroll solutions are operationally viable and sustainable post‑go‑live.
• Coordinate payroll team inputs into projects, ensuring timely and high‑quality delivery of payroll activities, including requirements validation, testing, and readiness.
• Ensure effective handover of new processes, systems, and changes into BAU payroll operations, including documentation, controls, and knowledge transfer.
• Ensure all payroll scenarios, exceptions, statutory calculations, and country‑specific nuances are thoroughly tested and signed off.
• Review payroll outputs, reconciliations, and reports to confirm accuracy, compliance, and operational feasibility prior to go‑live.
• Provide hands‑on payroll systems expertise across ADP GlobalView and ADP Celergo, ensuring payroll configuration and integrations meet business and statutory requirements.
• Validate payroll data flows, interfaces, and downstream impacts between Workday, payroll providers, and other systems.
• Support issue resolution related to payroll design, configuration, or data during and after implementations.
• Partner with external payroll vendors to ensure payroll design and delivery meets agreed standards and country requirements.
• Identify and elevate payroll risks, gaps, or readiness concerns early and pragmatically to support mitigation planning.
• Ensure payroll controls, audit requirements, and compliance considerations are built into new solutions.
• Contribute to standardisation, documentation, and continuous improvement of global payroll practices.

Qualifications

• Years of experience working in international / EMEA payroll, with hands‑on knowledge of payroll processing and country‑specific statutory requirements.
• Demonstrated experience supporting payroll transformation, system implementation, or change projects, acting as a payroll subject‑matter expert with ADP GlobalView / Celergo.
• Ability to translate payroll requirements into clear guidance for non‑payroll stakeholders and project teams.
• Strong experience validating payroll configurations, integrations, and data flows between HR, payroll, and finance systems.
• Experience coordinating payroll inputs and deliverables to ensure payroll teams meet project timelines and quality expectations.
• Proven ability to raise risks, challenge solutions constructively, and safeguard payroll outcomes.
• Confidence engaging with vendors (e.g. ADP) to validate solutions and resolve payroll‑related issues.
• Strong experience in stakeholder management within complex payroll and transformation environments, ensuring the right people are engaged at the right time.
• Ability to keep key stakeholders informed through clear, timely, and structured communication, escalating risks or gaps appropriately.
• Proven ability to operate within and uphold RACI frameworks, clearly understanding and reinforcing accountability across Payroll, HR, Finance, IT, vendors, and project teams.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is Alvarez & Marsal’s practice to provide and promote equal opportunity in employment, compensation, and other terms and conditions of employment without discrimination because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, sex or gender, gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, family medical history, genetic information or other protected medical condition, political affiliation, or any other characteristic protected by and in accordance with applicable laws.