Payroll Manager in City of London

PrimeFlight ground handling, Cargo and ULD business is headquartered in London and currently has operations across the UK, Holland, Italy and Germany. The UK business currently has 7 different legal entities with multiple different external payroll providers, payroll systems and ways of working. Payroll is currently fully outsourced, and this Payroll Manager role will play a critical role in managing the external payroll providers to ensure compliance, and improve payroll processing accuracy but will also be instrumental in insourcing payroll across the UK in 2026 and developing a fully insourced payroll department in the UK whilst continuing to manage the outsourced European payroll providers.

The Payroll Manager will have experience of running multiple complex payrolls across the UK and Europe, within a fully insourced, managed services and fully outsourced model across regional jurisdictions. This role will suit someone with strong leadership experience in payroll who is confident in managing both strategic and operational responsibilities.

You will be responsible for:

• Managing an efficient and effective end-to-end payroll service in relation to the lifecycle of an employee, including creation/checking of new employees, variations to contract, payments, deductions and terminations.
• Processing starters, leavers, contractual changes, variable pay elements (overtime, bonuses, commissions), and statutory payments.
• Managing and producing multiple monthly payrolls for the different group legal entities in the UK, with different terms and conditions and assisting in obligations to outside agencies.
• Managing and supporting the processing of time sheets/weekly hours submissions, P45s, Attachment of Earnings and any other additional financial amendments to the payroll records.
• Managing and processing all changes due to sickness and parental leave.
• Managing the reconciliation and verification of various reports before the payroll is updated and closed to ensure that employees are paid correctly.
• Auditing Time & Attendance data and monthly payroll submission sheets submitted by the operational business to ensure that hours, overtime, absence are being processed and captured correctly.
• Becoming a superuser for the Time & Attendance system in relation to the data outputs/reports required for payroll processing in terms of overtime, absence, holidays.
• Improving payroll accuracy by actively reducing the level of late payroll submissions and post termination payments to leavers.
• Leading and managing payroll transformation programs including process improvement projects, to optimize the efficiency and accuracy of the payroll.
• Managing bank transfers for employee payments, depending on the business.
• Acting as the main point of contact for Station/Operational Managers to improve the level of consistency, understanding and compliance to payroll deadlines, and understanding of payroll processing implications.
• Liaising with staff and management on payroll related queries and acting as a senior point of contact for complex payroll queries from employees and internal teams.
• Managing full compliance with all statutory payments, deadlines and administrative submissions.
• Managing statutory year-end processes: P60s, P45s, P11Ds (UK), and other ROI filings and pension year end administration in accordance with all relevant legislation deadlines.
• Ensuring that NMW checks are completed monthly.
• Actively managing the calculation and payment of Average Holiday pay.
• Accountable for the provision of data for Gender Pay Gap reporting.
• Managing the payroll system with up-to-date legislative changes and software updates, ensuring that consistency and integrity of data is maintained.
• Managing and supporting the implementation of any new payroll systems that may be introduced to ensure a seamless service.
• Reviewing current payroll processes and making proposals to management for improvements.
• Working closely and cooperating with the HR department to continuously improve processes and information flows and support integration projects between HRIS, T&A and Payroll.
• Ensuring pension schemes are compliant and producing clear scheme rules including confirmation of pensionable pay elements, auto-enrolment and re-enrolment dates, impact of salary sacrifice in relation to minimum wage, absence periods etc.
• Managing and leading the pension scheme administration, ensuring all contributions and paperwork are completed for multiple pension providers.
• Maintaining expertise and knowledge, including payroll, pensions and HR processes in order to provide support and advice, ensuring compliance with statutory obligations, legislation, regulations and current business processes and procedures.
• Managing the preparation and providing salary information in the appropriate format to HMRC.
• Ensuring compliance with various legislative guidelines for HMRC, Pension Regulators and DWP and ensuring that all HMRC submissions are made, payroll reconciliations carried out and all legislative timescales are adhered to.
• Providing cost forecast, monthly GL and variance reports to Finance and the operational business in a timely and accurate manner enabling the finance team to produce management accounts with company set deadlines.
• Managing and ensuring all reconciliations of the payroll balance sheet accounts are completed and resolving any variances.
• Analysing and reporting on payroll data.
• Supporting and assisting in providing data for TUPE transfers, potential contract tenders or other M&A projects.
• Creating and/or maintaining standard operating procedures (SOPs), Payroll Processing Manual, payroll process maps, forms and templates in relation to end to end payroll processing.
• Leading in the development of PrimeFlight Payroll Policies, Procedures and Processes.
• Hiring and training new payroll team members.
• Effective management of any staff assigned to the department to ensure all payroll-related objectives are met in a timely manner.
• Leading, developing and assisting with performance management of team members to ensure the efficient delivery of service.
• Mentoring and training the less experienced team members.
• Leading on all payroll related projects.

Your profile:

• Proven experience of managing multiple manual payrolls across the UK and working with outsourced European payroll providers, supporting a complex organization of at least 1,000 people.
• Ideally some experience of global or multi-country payroll management.
• Experience of building a payroll team and department from scratch, and ideally experience of payroll insourcing.
• Excellent current, technical payroll legislation, pensions, and benefits.
• Experience with large-volume payroll systems.
• Ability to mentor and develop a team.
• Excellent systems and numerical skills.
• Intermediate Excel skillset including Pivot Tables & VLOOKUPS.
• Excellent organizational and analytical skills.
• Proven leadership and team development capabilities.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Hands-on / can-do approach and ability to work in fast paced work environment.