Senior Payroll Manager in Belfast

Description

We're looking for an experienced Senior Payroll Manager to lead the delivery of accurate, compliant payroll services across the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Managing five payrolls for over 700 employees, you'll ensure an excellent employee experience while driving continuous improvement, governance, and payroll best practice.

You'll be an experienced payroll professional with strong technical knowledge, excellent attention to detail, and a customer-focused approach.

Confident working with payroll systems and data, you'll build strong relationships, solve problems, and identify opportunities to improve processes and deliver outstanding service.

Responsibilities

• Payroll Leadership & Operations
• Lead the delivery of five payrolls
• Ensure all payrolls are processed accurately, on time, and in full compliance with UK and ROI legislation, including
• Manage payroll operations for over 700 employees, ensuring robust controls, audit readiness, and consistent service quality.
• Oversee complex payroll matters including manual calculations, cross border tax considerations, and multi frequency payrolls.
• Ensure accurate production and distribution of payroll documentation
• Maintain payroll data integrity, ensuring all starters, leavers, transfers, and contractual changes are processed correctly across UK and ROI jurisdictions.
• Governance, Compliance & Controls
• Maintain expert knowledge of UK and ROI payroll legislation, taxation, employment law, and pension requirements, ensuring timely implementation of regulatory changes.
• Lead on compliance activities, ensuring robust internal controls, documentation, and risk management.
• Managing payroll records and systems
• Partner with Finance to support reconciliations, budgeting, accounting, and cross functional governance.
• Pensions & Benefits Administration
• Manage the transactions, contribution uploads, and reporting for five pension schemes
• Oversee enrolment, re enrolment, contribution uploads, scheme reporting, and liaison with pension providers where necessary, with HR support
• Ensure accurate pension deductions, employer contributions, and statutory communications.
• Systems, Technology & Continuous Improvement
• Act as payroll systems lead, supporting enhancements, optimisation, and deployment of new functionality
• Identify opportunities to improve payroll processes, automation, reporting, and operational efficiency.
• Leverage data and analytics to inform decision making and drive process improvements.
• Champion the use of technology—including AI enabled tools—to streamline payroll operations.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Customer Experience
• Serve as the senior point of contact for payroll queries across UK and ROI, providing expert guidance to employees and senior stakeholders.
• Build strong relationships with internal stakeholders, educating colleagues on payroll processes and promoting transparency.
• Liasing with Group Payroll team for support, ensuring changes and processes are aligned
• Team Leadership & Development
• Lead, coach, and develop payroll team members, fostering a collaborative, high performance culture.
• Support onboarding and development of new team members, sharing technical expertise and best practice.
• Promote a resilient, supportive team environment capable of navigating competing priorities and fast paced change.

Qualifications

• Significant experience managing end to end UK and ROI payroll operations in a complex, high volume environment.
• Deep technical knowledge of UK and ROI payroll legislation, PAYE, NI, PRSI, USC, BIK, statutory payments, workplace pensions, and automatic enrolment.
• Experience managing multi frequency payrolls and large employee populations (650+).
• Strong understanding of pension scheme administration and reporting.
• Experience with integrated HR & payroll systems and advanced Excel capability.
• Strong analytical, problem solving, and organisational skills with exceptional attention to detail.
• Proven ability to manage competing demands, deliver under pressure, and maintain high accuracy.
• Excellent communication skills with a customer focused, professional approach.
• Experience leading or mentoring payroll teams.
• A “roll up your sleeves” mindset with strong ownership and accountability.
• Collaborative, supportive, and able to build trust across teams.
• Resilient, adaptable, and comfortable in fast paced environments
• Proactive in identifying improvements and driving positive change
• Committed to delivering an exceptional employee experience.