Head of Payroll Interim NEW

Head of Payroll

Role type: Interim

Duration: 6 months

Sector: Higher Education

Location: London
Hourly rate: £45 – £50 per hour

Our client, a leading Higher Education institution in the South East, is seeking an experienced Head of Payroll to lead a large and complex payroll function through a period of continued development and change.

This is a senior payroll leadership role with responsibility for ensuring the accuracy, compliance, timeliness and continuous improvement of payroll across the organisation, including UK and overseas employees.

The Role

You will lead and develop a team of payroll specialists, ensuring a high-quality payroll service is delivered to employees while maintaining robust controls, processes and compliance standards.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Providing strategic and operational leadership to the payroll production team.
• Overseeing the full monthly payroll cycle, including validation and sign-off of gross-to-net payroll, statutory submissions, payroll costings, payments and year-end processes.
• Ensuring payroll deductions, pension processes and auto-enrolment requirements are accurately managed.
• Maintaining compliance with UK legislation and relevant overseas payroll requirements.
• Developing, documenting and continuously improving payroll procedures, controls and processes.
• Leading payroll exception reporting and investigating potential underpayments, overpayments and anomalies.
• Ensuring accurate and timely reconciliation of payroll and third-party payments.
• Liaising with HMRC, pension providers, auditors and other statutory and external bodies.
• Supporting payroll-related reward schemes and working with external providers.
• Producing management information, KPIs, statutory returns and other payroll reporting.
• Leading payroll-related projects, process improvements and change initiatives.
• Working closely with internal and external audit teams and implementing agreed recommendations.
• Ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements are robust and regularly reviewed.
• Developing the payroll team through effective leadership, performance management, training and succession planning.

Essential experience

We are looking for an experienced payroll professional who has operated successfully within a large, complex organisation, ideally within Higher Education or another similarly structured environment.

• A CIPP Foundation Degree or equivalent payroll qualification.
• Strong experience managing a complex end-to-end payroll function.
• Proven experience of leading and developing payroll teams.
• Strong knowledge of payroll legislation, statutory requirements and compliance.
• Experience managing monthly payroll cycle closure, statutory reporting and payments.
• Experience designing, implementing and continuously improving payroll processes and procedures.
• Experience working with integrated HR and payroll systems.
• Strong numerical and analytical skills, with exceptional attention to detail.
• The ability to interpret legislation and organisational policy and translate these into effective payroll processes.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience leading teams through organisational or process change.
• The confidence and composure to manage deadlines, complex issues and sensitive payroll