Payroll Bureau Lead

Sona (getsona.com); United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 60,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Sona is seeking a Senior Payroll Professional to join their expanding team in UK frontline workforce management. The role involves owning enterprise payrolls, mentoring junior staff, and designing process improvements, offering a significant opportunity for professional growth in a fast-paced, tech-driven environment.

Benefits

Share options

35 days annual leave

Pension contributions matched up to 5%

Comprehensive health insurance

Unlimited free books

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in complex payroll processing.
• Proven ability to lead or mentor in a team context.
• Strong understanding of UK payroll legislation.

Responsibilities

• Own and run enterprise-level client payrolls end-to-end.
• Design and implement process improvements.
• Stay abreast of legislative changes.

Skills

Communication

Relationship Building

Leadership

Commercial Mindset

Advanced Excel/Google Sheets

Understanding of UK Payroll Legislation

Adaptability to Tech-Driven Environment

Education

CIPP qualification or working towards it

Job description

Overview:

3 billion people across the world work in frontline jobs. Yet, despite rising costs and staff shortages, frontline organisations are still left to choose between paper, Excel, and WhatsApp, or decade-old workforce management solutions to take care of the most important part of their businesses - their people.

Enter Sona: the next generation of AI-native, frontline workforce management. We’ve built an end-to-end platform covering Scheduling, HR, Payroll, and Communications that gives the largest frontline organisations everything they need to staff more intelligently and empower their teams.

In under 4 years, we’ve already made a deep impact on the lives of over 100k frontline workers and the operation of their organisations, grown the team to 110+, and secured over $50M in funding from notable VC’s, including Felicis, Northzone, Gradient Ventures (Google), SpeedInvest, Antler, and Notion Capital, plus notable angels like Tom Blomfield (Monzo).

It’s a hugely exciting time to be joining the team as we’re still small enough that you’ll have a significant impact on the company’s growth trajectory and culture, yet large enough to have a great structure, experienced leaders and world-class benefits in place. More on working at Sona here.

About the role:

Sona is one of the fastest-growing startups in frontline workforce technology, and payroll is a critical part of our customer promise. We’re expanding our Payroll Bureau function and are looking for a senior payroll professional who wants to be part of something exciting and who isn’t afraid to roll up their sleeves.

This is a unique opportunity for someone who enjoys the balance of hands-on delivery and strategic thinking, with the potential to lead a team as we grow. You’ll join as a key member of the payroll leadership team, helping us shape and scale our outsourced bureau offering.

You’ll report directly to our Director of Payroll and work closely with teams across the business, from Implementation and Product to Sales and Support. Your focus will be on delivering exceptional service to our clients while building the structure, systems and processes that allow us to scale.

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

Skills and Experience Required:

We’re looking for someone who brings depth of experience but is energised by building. Someone who can lead and inspire, but is also happy jumping into the detail when needed.

You’ll likely have:

• 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)

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

• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, tech-driven environment, and an openness to using and learning new systems

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

Note: this represents a typical benefits package for a UK-based, full-time employee. Exact details may vary based on location and employment type but we try to be as fair as possible to all of our team members. Please ask your contact in the Talent team to clarify the available benefits for you.