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Salary: GBP 35,000 - 45,000 / annual
Sona is an AI-native workforce management platform serving frontline organizations (restaurants, hospitals, schools, airlines, emergency services) across the UK and US. The company has raised over $100M and serves 100+ enterprise customers, with offices in London, New York, Austin, and Lisbon.
You'll join Sona's payroll bureau as a Payroll Specialist, taking hands-on ownership of UK payroll processing for a growing portfolio of customers. The bureau is scaling from ~15,000 to ~22,000 payslips monthly by Q4, driven by new customer go-lives in hospitality and care sectors.
Day-to-day responsibilities include managing a portfolio of standard and mid-complexity clients across multiple pay frequencies. You'll process statutory payments, pension auto-enrolment, HMRC filings, and payroll journal reconciliations. You'll handle client queries through the support desk with fast turnaround times, with quality checks performed by a Senior Payroll Specialist before client delivery.
Key responsibilities: end-to-end UK payroll processing for multiple clients; managing payroll support desk queries within SLA; processing statutory payments, court orders, holiday pay, and NMW checks; handling workplace pension auto-enrolment and reconciliations; uploading and reconciling payments via BACS, Faster Payments, and SEPA; managing HMRC filings (FPS, EPS) and year-end processing; building client relationships and attending meetings when needed; flagging product bugs to Engineering; identifying process improvements; supporting junior team members.
This is not a conventional bureau role. Sona is a startup where the payroll team is still building processes and tools, offering genuine opportunity to shape how operations work and grow as the bureau scales. After probation, the company supports CIPP study through the apprenticeship levy.
Requirements: 2+ years hands-on experience processing multiple UK payrolls independently; bureau or outsourced payroll environment experience preferred; strong working knowledge of UK payroll and tax compliance; ability to manage busy support ticket queues with strong organizational and communication skills; proficiency in Excel (VLOOKUPs, pivot tables, concatenation) and Google Suite; methodical accuracy under volume; proactive issue flagging. Bonuses: CIPP or equivalent qualification, Irish payroll exposure, or AI tool confidence.
