Payroll Associate

BDO UK; Reading; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 38,000; Full time

Job summary

BDO UK in Reading is seeking a Payroll Executive to join our Business Services Outsourcing team. You’ll take charge of managing a portfolio of client payrolls.

You’ll handle around 1,000 employees, ensuring accurate processing and compliance with payroll legislation, while supporting colleagues in a collaborative, agile environment.

BDO values learning and development, with learning programmes and digital platforms to enhance your skills, and opportunities to grow within a top UK firm.

Qualifications

• Payroll management and processing knowledge.
• Understanding of payroll legislation and compliance.
• Ability to multitask and prioritise payroll workload.

Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of client payrolls.
• Handle around 1,000 headcount across clients.
• Collaborate with team members to ensure accurate and timely payroll delivery.

Skills

Payroll management

CIPP (desirable)

Multitasking

Interpersonal skills

Legislation knowledge

Client liaison

MS Office

Tools

MS Office

Job description

Succeed By Shaping What Matters

We’re BDO, one of the UK’s largest accountancy and business advisory organisations, helping ambitious businesses, their owners and management teams navigate a changing world.

With circa 8,500 people across the UK and Ireland, backed by a global network spanning 169 countries, there’s lots of knowledge, experience and different thinking to draw on here. But what matters is what you bring to it; your ideas, perspectives - the things you care about getting right.

The team you’ll join

International Institutions and Donor Assurance (IIDA) team serves the needs of the international development and humanitarian community around the world. Principally, it helps donor agencies to oversee and implement their projects. Our assurance and Advisory work helps to ensure that grant funds deliver their intended benefits and social impact. Each year we travel to more than 170 countries to deliver almost 5,000 engagements for these funders, including UN agencies, the European Commission, philanthropic foundations and government agencies in the UK and overseas. Our work helps maintain confidence in donor-funded projects and the funding that humanitarian and development organisations rely on.

The role you’ll have

As a Payroll Executive you'll join our Business Services Outsourcing team (BSO). You’ll take charge of managing a portfolio of client payrolls, handling around 1,000 headcount.

You’ll be someone with

• Qualification with the CIPP in terms of either a Payroll Technician Certificate or Year 1 of the Foundation Degree in Payroll Management completed, or equivalent, is highly desirable


• A strong work ethic and willingness to assist other members of the team when required.


• Able to multi-task and to prioritise payroll workload


• Good interpersonal, communication and organisational skills


• Have a knowledge of changes to legislation which effect payroll


• Confident and competent in dealing with clients


• Have a working knowledge of MS Office

You’ll have people around you to learn from, ask questions and share thoughts with, alongside learning programmes to enhance your skillset and digital platforms to ease your work. All of this helps you succeed in achieving those big (and personal) dreams.

How You’ll Succeed

You’ll have plenty of ways to develop at BDO; you might build deeper expertise in what you already do, take on something new or simply get better at the things that matter to you.

How and where you work matters too. Our agile working framework is designed around our Better Together approach: bringing more in-person time with clients and teams, creating more opportunities to share ideas, build confidence and develop day-to-day.

Whatever success looks like to you, you won’t be shaping it alone. You’ll have people around you who want you to do well, and plenty of opportunities to make it all count.

That’s how we’ll all continue to succeed by shaping what matters.

At BDO, we want everyone to feel included, valued and able to succeed. We welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to improving access to opportunities – work we've been recognised for as Company of the Year at the 2026 British Diversity Awards. Because we know different experiences and perspectives make us stronger.