Payroll Officer

Are you an experienced Payroll professional looking to join a supportive and collaborative team? Do you have a strong grasp of payroll processing and a keen eye for detail? Are you confident working with large volumes of data in a busy environment? If so, this could be the ideal next step for you!

A well-established organisation is seeking a Payroll Assistant to support their busy payroll function on a permanent basis. You’ll play a key role in delivering a timely and accurate payroll service to a large workforce, working closely with colleagues to manage monthly processing and ensure compliance with all relevant procedures.

In this role, you will:

• Accurately process all payroll changes including starters, leavers, contractual changes, and pro-rata salary calculations, ensuring correct application of terms and timely updates to payroll records.
• Prepare, collate, and verify monthly payroll data from multiple sources, checking for accuracy, consistency, and compliance with internal policies and statutory requirements.
• Calculate salaries, adjustments, and statutory payments (such as SMP, SSP, and SPP), supporting the end-to-end monthly payroll run to ensure all employees are paid accurately and on time.
• Manage all pension-related processes, including auto-enrolments, opt-outs, and contribution changes, responding to staff queries and ensuring compliance with pension legislation.
• Assist with monthly payroll reconciliations and support the year-end process, ensuring accurate reporting, timely returns, and liaison with external stakeholders where necessary.

This is a hybrid role with flexibility around office attendance, and is offered with an excellent benefits package. This includes generous annual leave that increases with service, bank holidays, enhanced family and sick leave, matched pension contributions, and the opportunity to request flexible working from day one. Employees also benefit from eye care vouchers, flu jab support, a cycle-to-work scheme, and continued professional development through high-quality training and career progression opportunities.

The ideal candidate will:

• Have experience processing payroll for 700+ employees on a monthly basis.
• Be comfortable with complex calculations, including variable hours and term-time-only contracts.
• Possess a good understanding of auto-enrolment and basic payroll legislation.
• Have strong Excel skills (including formulas, pivot tables, and VLOOKUPs); experience with payroll systems such as iTrent is advantageous but not essential.
• Be confident communicating with internal teams and resolving payroll-related queries.
• Be qualified by experience, ideally with exposure to the charity or education sectors.

This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to a high-performing payroll team within a meaningful and mission-driven organisation. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis – early application is strongly encouraged!