Payroll Manager

Cook Trading Limited; Sittingbourne; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Birthday leave

Staff profit share

Wellbeing program

30% staff discount

CookieJar discounts and food perks

Team meals and away days

B-Corp culture

Job summary

Cook Trading Limited in Sittingbourne is seeking a Payroll Specialist to join the People team. You will process payroll accurately, manage pension auto-enrolment, and ensure HMRC and regulatory filings are met, while supporting year-end and salary sacrifice schemes.

You will collaborate with Finance and external providers, generating reports and maintaining controls to deliver a first-class payroll experience for our team.

Qualifications

• Strong UK payroll knowledge including HMRC requirements, statutory payments and payroll reporting.
• Experience using payroll systems, ideally PeopleXD or similar HR/payroll software, with audit-ready processes.

Responsibilities

• Process, review and check all aspects of payroll accurately and on time.
• Own pension auto-enrolment administration and ongoing management.
• Maintain payroll compliance with HMRC, payroll tax and regulatory filing requirements.
• Collaborate with Finance to post payroll journals and process personal expenses.
• Prepare reports, metrics and statistics to strengthen payroll controls.

Skills

UK payroll knowledge

Payroll processing

Regulatory compliance

Stakeholder collaboration

Tools

PeopleXD

Job description

Location– Sittingbourne – Hybrid

Salary - £50,000

Hours– Monday – Friday 8.30am – 5pm (would consider 4 day week with Fridays off salary would be pro rata)

Purpose

As part of the wider People team you put people first and are critical to the delivery of the COOK strategic plan. Enabling people to be the best they can be, the People Team continually strive to make COOK the best place to work in Britain.

You’ll be reporting to the Head of Payroll & People Systems.

What you’ll be doing

• Process, review and check all aspects of payroll accurately and on time, including statutory payments and deductions such as SMP, SPP, SSP and AEOs, while ensuring payroll reports are checked, exceptions investigated and team member queries resolved with care.
• Own pension auto-enrolment administration and ongoing management, ensuring employer duties are met and pension processes remain accurate, compliant and well controlled.
• Maintain payroll compliance by ensuring HMRC, payroll tax and regulatory filing requirements are met, including salary sacrifice schemes, payroll year end, and payrolling benefits.
• Work with Finance to own payroll period end, including posting payroll journals, and process, check and pay personal expenses incurred by team members.
• Support effective payroll management by preparing relevant reports, metrics and statistics, strengthening payroll controls and responding to any other reasonable payroll-related request.

Learning & Development

• Stay up to date with payroll regulations, benefits changes, labour law and payroll tax requirements.
• Work with the Head of Payroll to review, implement and communicate new releases within PeopleXD.
• Contribute to the ongoing design and improvement of payroll processes, procedures and approaches to strengthen consistency, accuracy and compliance.

Team Collaboration

• Work closely with the Payroll Co-ordinators, Head of Payroll, People team and Finance team to deliver smooth, accurate payroll activity.
• Build excellent relationships with stakeholders across COOK, providing responsive support and a first-class payroll experience for team members.
• Assist in the management of relationships with external Payroll and Time & Attendance providers.

Contribution to COOK’s Mission

• Take pride in your work, knowing it contributes to a company that values quality, ethics, and community.

Knowledge you’ll draw on

• Strong UK payroll knowledge, including HMRC requirements, statutory payments, deductions, payroll reporting, pension auto-enrolment, salary sacrifice, P11Ds, payrolling benefits and payroll year-end processes.
• Experience using payroll systems, ideally PeopleXD or similar HR/payroll software, including applying system updates and working with payroll controls, reconciliations, journals, data accuracy and audit-ready processes.
• Awareness of employment legislation, benefits changes and data protection considerations relevant to payroll, with the ability to translate payroll knowledge into clear guidance for team members, managers and stakeholders.

If you tick most of these boxes but not all—don’t stress. We’re all about potential.

Excellent Benefits including

• Paid leave on your birthdays, moving house, become grandparent or your child starts school for the first time
• Staff profit share
• Wellbeing program
• 30% staff discount
• Access to CookieJar Smart Spending discounts and free food perks.
• Team meals , events & away days
• Be part of a B-Corp-certified business that values sustainability, people, and the community. And many more .

What Cook is About

We’re a proudly independent, family-owned B Corp, which basically means we care. A lot. About our food. About our people. And about doing the right thing—even when it’s not the easy thing.

Our vision for COOK has always been that we are a place where EVERYONE is welcome. We want everyone to feel like they belong at COOK. We all have different roles, different abilities and different personalities. By collaborating we can do remarkable things.