Payroll Bureau Lead

Summary

Join Sona, a rapidly growing startup in frontline workforce technology, as a Senior Payroll Professional. You will play a key role in our expanding Payroll Bureau, handling end-to-end payroll processes for enterprise-level clients. This position requires extensive experience in complex payroll processing within a bureau or outsourced environment, strong leadership and mentoring skills, and excellent communication. You will be responsible for managing client portfolios, defining team structure, acting as a payroll subject matter expert, and implementing process improvements. The ideal candidate possesses a commercial mindset, advanced Excel skills, and a strong understanding of UK payroll legislation. This role offers a unique opportunity to contribute significantly to the company's growth while enjoying a comprehensive benefits package.

Requirements

• Extensive experience processing complex payrolls in a bureau/outsourced environment, ideally working with enterprise-level clients
• Proven ability to lead or mentor others, whether informally or in a team lead capacity
• Confidence acting as the main point of contact for customers, with excellent communication and relationship-building skills
• A commercial mindset, you understand the business impact of great service and efficient operations
• Advanced Excel/Google Sheets skills (e.g. VLOOKUP, Pivot Tables, CONCATENATE)
• Strong understanding of UK payroll legislation (CIPP qualified or working towards is a plus)
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, tech-driven environment, and an openness to using and learning new systems

Responsibilities

• Own and run enterprise-level client payrolls end-to-end, acting as the trusted lead point of contact
• Take ownership of a client portfolio and manage delivery, SLAs and KPIs with excellence
• Support the growth of the bureau by helping to define team structure and mentoring junior team members
• Act as the payroll subject matter expert in commercial discussions and late-stage sales conversations
• Design and implement process improvements to drive efficiency and enhance service quality
• Help define and evolve our operational playbook—how we deliver bureau payroll at scale
• Stay ahead of legislative changes and compliance obligations, making sure our clients are always protected

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with ROI payroll is nice to have, but not essential

Benefits

• ��60,000 - £70,000
• Remote first. UK based. Occasional travel to the London office or customer sites may be required
• Share options
• 35 days annual leave (25 days standard plus 10 flexible public holiday days)
• Extra day of leave for every year of service
• Pension contributions matched up to 5%
• Comprehensive health insurance
• Enhanced parental leave & pay
• Co-working space stipend for those based outside London
• Bi-annual all expenses paid team retreats
• The latest Macbook and equipment budget for your home office
• Professional development budget
• Unlimited free books