Payroll and Benefits Manager

As our Payroll and Benefits Manager, you will lead a team of three, including two Payroll Controllers and a Benefits and Pensions Advisor, ensuring an excellent service is delivered across payroll, pensions, and employee benefits administration for our 1,700 employees.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who enjoys continuous improvement, stakeholder engagement, and leading a high-performing team in a fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee the end-to-end payroll process, ensuring all employees are paid accurately and on time

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of three to deliver a high-quality payroll and benefits service

• Act as the subject matter expert for payroll, pensions, benefits, and reward-related queries

• Ensure employee records and payroll data are accurately maintained within payroll systems

• Manage the processing and reporting of variable payments including overtime, expenses, and allowances

• Support the administration and ongoing management of employee benefits

• Work closely with Aviva to support pension scheme management, including starters, leavers, updates, and ongoing scheme administration

• Respond to pension-related queries and provide support and guidance to employees

• Build strong relationships with stakeholders across the organisation to ensure payroll deadlines and submission dates are consistently met

• Identify opportunities to improve processes and drive efficiencies across payroll, pensions, and benefits activity

• Ensure excellent customer service standards are maintained and payroll and benefits queries are resolved effectively

• Maintain compliance with payroll, pension, and legislative requirements

• Support the annual company bonus cycle and annual wage review process

About You

We are looking for someone who is highly organised, detail-oriented, and passionate about delivering an exceptional payroll and benefits service. You will be a confident and collaborative leader with excellent communication skills and the ability to build effective working relationships across the organisation. Experience of ADP iHCM payroll system would be highly beneficial, although is not essential.

Our ideal candidate will also have:

• Proven payroll management experience within a complex organisation

• Experience managing employee benefits administration

• Knowledge of pension scheme administration and pension query management

• Experience working with pension providers, ideally Aviva

• Strong leadership and people management skills

• Excellent Excel and data management skills

• Strong attention to detail and problem-solving capability

• The ability to manage multiple priorities and meet strict deadlines

• A proactive approach with a continuous improvement mindset

• A CIPP qualification or equivalent experience
  
  Benefits:

• Competitive salary dependant on skills and experience

• Learning and development opportunities, including mentoring and a range of formal courses and open learning resources.

• Entry into the company annual bonus scheme.

• Annual leave from 23-27 rising with length of service, and the option to purchase up to 5 extra days.

• A ‘Celebration Day’ in addition to public holidays that people can use to celebrate a religious festival or other occasion that is important to them.

• A generous 'double match pension scheme' that doubles the contributions you make (company contribution capped at 12%)

• We offer a range of family benefits including enhanced Maternity, Adoption, Paternity, Shared Parental Leave, Fertility Support Leave and up to 5 full or 10 half days of paid Carers Leave.

• Menopause policy and Reasonable Adjustment policy to help everyone perform at their best.

• Access to our Wellbeing Centre with support for looking after your physical and mental health.

• Discounts at a Range of Retail Outlets and on Dental and Medical Insurance through our Tap4Perks scheme.

• Up to 4 Affinity days a year to volunteer in the community.

• Life Assurance.

Disability Confident

As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to offering interviews to disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria and opt in on the application form. Ask the Talent Acquisition lead for the full job description to see all the criteria. If we have a very high volume of applicants and we’re not able to offer interviews to all, we’ll take a fair and proportionate number of disabled candidates through.

Affinity Water recognises the benefits of greater diversity in our workforce to better reflect the communities we serve. We are committed to building a more inclusive culture where every member of our workforce can thrive.

You can find out what it’s like to work at Affinity Water through our career site https://www.affinitywatercareers.co.uk/ where our colleagues share their career development stories and you can get a feel for our company culture.