About Williams Stanley & Co
At Williams Stanley, we’re partners in progress for the on-trade. We perfect the craft of full-service accounting and payroll for brilliant hospitality businesses across the UK and beyond. Our craft is rooted in precision, performance, and pride — blending data, technology, and expertise to make complexity clear, accessible, and actionable.
The Role
As Payroll Manager, you’ll lead the delivery of accurate, compliant, and timely payrolls for a diverse portfolio of hospitality clients. You’ll oversee a small team of payrollers, ensuring quality, consistency, and service excellence in every aspect of the bureau operation, with genuine scope to shape and grow the payroll function.
You’ll work closely with our client leads and internal accounting teams to continually evolve our payroll service, streamline processes, and enhance client experience through technology and best practice.
Key Responsibilities
• Lead the end-to-end payroll function, ensuring all weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly and monthly payrolls are processed accurately and on time.
• Manage and mentor a small team of Payroll Administrators, providing training, guidance, and performance feedback.
• Oversee and reconcile PAYE, NI, pensions, and statutory payments, ensuring full legislative compliance.
• Maintain and enhance relationships with client contacts — acting as a trusted adviser on payroll, tronc, and compliance matters.
• Work closely with accounting and operations teams to integrate payroll insights into wider financial reporting.
• Drive process improvement and automation across systems and integrations
• Ensure all internal controls and audit requirements are met
• Support with onboarding new clients and payroll migrations, ensuring a seamless transition and best in class service.
• Escalate and resolve complex queries and discrepancies efficiently.
• Drive SOPs, KPIs and SLAs
About You
You’re an experienced payroll professional with bureau or multi-site experience, ideally within accountancy or hospitality. You’ll bring:
• 5+ years’ payroll experience, with at least 2 in a supervisory or managerial role.
• Strong technical knowledge of UK payroll legislation, tronc schemes, and pensions.
• Excellent client communication and relationship management skills.
• Confidence working with large, complex payrolls and multiple deadlines.
• A continuous improvement mindset — eager to streamline, automate, and elevate.
• CIPP qualification or equivalent (preferred).