Senior Manager - Client Payroll Services

Role overview

The Senior Manager provides technical leadership, assurance and governance across Client Payroll Services. A highly technical payroll specialist the role is accountable for ensuring payroll quality, managing material payroll risk and building the standards, controls and capability needed for a scalable payroll service. The Senior Manager acts as ultimate escalation point for high risk issues and works across payroll delivery, and wider teams to protect client outcomes and support service maturity.  Consulting with colleagues to strengthen and develop the offering, support market initiatives, and provide clients with access to wider cross firm introductions.

Core responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and assurance across higher risk payrolls, including modified, shadow, expatriate and other complex payroll arrangements.
• Own and strengthen payroll standards, controls, quality frameworks and escalation thresholds across the service.
• Act as final escalation point for material payroll risk, complex client issues and matters requiring senior judgement.
• Working alongside other Senior Managers to maintain and develop key documentation, audit controls and quality delivery.
• Lead assurance over key strategic accounts, high risk client groups and complex pay elements before final client sign off where required.
• Working alongside other Senior Managers to support the team both onshore and offshore to ensure SLAs, KPIs, quality measures and service reviews are meaningful and consistently applied.
• Support strategic growth, service positioning and cross-service line collaboration where payroll is a route into wider People Taxes, employment tax, global mobility or operational improvement work.
• Working alongside other Senior Managers to provide leadership during periods of delivery pressure, ensuring BAU stability is protected while longer term service improvement remains on track.

Essential skills and experience

• Significant payroll leadership experience across complex UK payroll environments.
• Deep technical knowledge of PAYE, NIC, pensions, payroll controls and payroll governance.
• Ideally experienced with modified, shadow, expatriate or global mobility payrolls.
• Experience operating in a client payroll bureau, managed service or complex multi-client delivery environment.
• Proven ability to manage senior stakeholders, complex escalations and high risk client matters.
• Strong understanding of payroll quality frameworks, controls, assurance and audit evidence.
• Experience leading operational improvement, service standardisation or change activity within payroll.
• Ability to coach Managers and wider teams, build capability and create clear role expectations.
• CIPP qualification preferred.

Additional attributes

• Confident senior leader with strong judgement, calm decision making and commercial awareness.
• Able to balance delivery stability with service improvement, growth and risk management.
• Pragmatic and evidence-led, with strong attention to detail and the ability to simplify complex issues.
• Strong commitment to developing people, improving consistency and building a resilient service model.

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