Payroll Manager (12 Month FTC)

Our Media is a leading special-interest content business, based in the buzzing, creative city of Bristol. We're home to market-leading brands in craft, cycling, science and nature, homes and music. We help our audiences pursue their passions through highly trusted, original content – in print, video and online. Our much-loved brands include BBC Science Focus, BBC Wildlife Magazine, YourHome, Gathered.how, BikeRadar and Cycling Plus. We also have an award-winning content agency that works with major charities, brands and membership organisations to help them tell their stories and engage audiences better – in print, video, and online.

The Payroll Manager is responsible for leading the end-to-end payroll function, ensuring all employees are paid accurately and on time while maintaining full compliance with UK payroll legislation and internal controls. This role oversees payroll processes, supports continuous improvement, manages payroll data integrity, and acts as a trusted partner to Finance, People teams, and employees on all payroll-related matters.

Responsibilities

• Lead the accurate and timely processing of a monthly UK payroll (approx. 1200 employees across 5 different payrolls), including salaries, variable pay, deductions, statutory payments, year end and ad hoc project tasks.
• Ensure compliance with HMRC requirements, PAYE, National Insurance, Real Time Information submissions, pension auto-enrolment, annual reporting tasks and other relevant payroll legislation.
• Own payroll controls, reconciliations, and audit readiness, identifying and resolving discrepancies promptly and effectively.
• Maintain and improve payroll processes, procedures, and documentation to increase efficiency, accuracy, and resilience.
• Manage the relationship with payroll system providers and external stakeholders where applicable, ensuring service quality and continuous optimisation.
• Partner closely with Finance and People teams to ensure employee data, contractual changes, benefits, and deductions are reflected correctly in payroll.
• Provide clear, confident, professional support for employee payroll queries, resolving issues sensitively and in a timely manner.
• Produce payroll reports, analysis, and insights to support finance reporting, budgeting, and decision-making.
• Monitor legislative changes and best practice, translating them into practical process updates and team guidance.
• Manage and guide small payroll team, fostering a high-performing and customer-focused payroll service.
• Any other ad-hoc duties as reasonably required.

A bit about you

• Strong technical knowledge of UK payroll legislation, including PAYE, National Insurance, statutory payments, year-end processes, RTI, and pensions auto-enrolment.
• Proven experience in a payroll management role.
• Exceptional attention to detail and a high level of accuracy, with strong analytical and proactive problem-solving skills.
• Experience of payroll reconciliations, controls, audits, and process improvement.
• Confident using payroll systems and Microsoft Excel to manage data, reporting, and analysis.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain payroll matters clearly and professionally at all levels.
• Able to manage multiple priorities, meet deadlines, and always maintain confidentiality when handling sensitive employee information.
• Strong leadership and management skills.
• A recognised payroll qualification or relevant payroll experience.
• Experience using CIPHR/Accord payroll system.
• Experience working in the media industry.

Other information

We respect and value differences. We believe that when people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives work together, we can create the most value for our people, readers, customers, and society. If you are excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with everything listed in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway, as you may still be a good fit for this or other roles. We’re striving to create a more diverse and inclusive environment and to ensure our content is representative of all our audiences. We have established six internal D&I network groups to help our people feel supported and included, and to provide an open environment for people to network, mentor and exchange ideas, solutions, and experiences. If there is anything we can do to make our recruitment process more accessible for you, please do let us know at recruitment@ourmedia.co.uk.

Flexible and hybrid working

We know we create great things and have fun when we come together in person and collaborate. We also know that working from home brings great benefits in terms of being able to focus on our work, and manage our personal lives around our roles. With this in mind, we have established a hybrid working pattern, with 60% of the working week spent in the office. Our people also benefit from a flexi time policy, and a flexi location policy which gives everyone the opportunity to work from another location for two weeks during the year. We are open to discussion about flexible working requests for any flexibility needs not covered by these policies.

Company benefits include

• Pension contribution matched to 5%
• Season ticket loan
• Hybrid working pattern, flexi start/finish time
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, plus Christmas closure, plus your birthday off
• Option to buy/sell up to 5 days holiday a year
• Enhanced parental leave policies
• Social committee, regular in-house learning events
• 4x life assurance

Our values

• Always curious
• Be the best we can be