Senior Payroll Analyst - EMEA

ed, high-growth environment. The role combines hands-on payroll expertise, control governance, and people leadership.

This is a full-time position based in London, Madrid, or Dubai.

Responsibilities:

1. Payroll Delivery Oversight (Execution Excellence)

• Oversee end-to-end payroll delivery for assigned countries (UK plus selected EMEA markets)
• Ensure four-eye review is consistently applied at all payroll processing stages
• Perform deep-dive reviews during high-risk cycles (annual bonus, RSU, mid-year adjustments)
• Act as escalation point for complex payroll cases
• Partner closely with external payroll vendors

2. Control and Risk Governance

• Maintain and enhance payroll control frameworks (checklists, M2M templates, variance thresholds)
• Introduce structured exception reporting (e.g. bonus to leavers, unusual quarterly spikes)
• Ensure documentation and audit readiness
• Support root cause analysis for payroll incidents
• Drive preventive control improvements, not just reactive fixes

3. People Leadership and Capability Building

• Provide day-to-day supervision and coaching to Payroll Analysts
• Review and uplift analysts' input preparation quality
• Identify skill gaps and implement refresher training (systems, reporting, statutory logic)
• Support workload balancing across clusters
• Build reviewer capability across smaller entities (avoid single-point dependency)

4. Project and Transformation Support

• Support payroll system implementations (e.g., ADP transition, APAAS, DMP integration)
• Participate in UAT and process redesign
• Ensure new system processes embed robust control gates
• Translate operational lessons into scalable process improvements

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• At least 5 years payroll experience
• Experience overseeing multi-country payroll (EMEA)
• Strong understanding of UK PAYE, statutory payments, pensions, gross-to-net mechanics and payroll vendor management
• Demonstrated experience performing detailed payroll reviews
• Experience coaching or supervising payroll team members

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience during system transitions (e.g. ADP implementation)
• Experience in high-growth or complex matrix organisations
• Exposure to bonus cycles, RSU processing, expatriate payroll
• Familiarity with audit processes