Payroll Specialist

Thought Machine; Greater London; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension plan (match up to 5%)

Life insurance - three times annual薪

Maternity leave

Paternity leave

Shared parental leave

Holiday allowance

Flexible working hours

Cycle-to-work

Electric car scheme

Season ticket loan

Learning resources

Sports clubs

Tech culture

Job summary

Thought Machine is seeking a Payroll Specialist to manage global payroll across UK, APAC, EMEA and the Americas. You will partner with finance and HR, work with external providers, and help scale payroll processes as the business grows.

The role requires attention to detail, excellent communication, and the ability to deliver accurate reporting within strict timelines. Knowledge of Workday is a plus, and a proactive mindset to drive best practices is essential.

Qualifications

• Experience in payroll across multiple countries.
• Attention to detail and accuracy.
• Strong time management and organisational skills.
• Excellent communication with HR, Finance and Employees.

Responsibilities

• Support global payroll processes and controls with external providers.
• Timely execution of payroll deliverables, payments and statutory reporting.
• Engaged in payroll implementations and process optimisation in partnership with HR.
• Work with the accounting team to ensure payroll spend is accounted for correctly.

Skills

Payroll processing

Attention to detail

Time management

Excel

Communication skills

Multi-country payroll

Tools

Workday

Payroll software

Job description

Thought Machine's mission is bold – to properly and permanently rid the world's banks of legacy technology. To achieve this, we have developed the foundations of modern banking through core and payments technology which run natively in the cloud. What we are attempting is hard and means we need great people working together to build great technology.

We have grown rapidly in the past few years – growing our team to more than 550 individuals across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and our newly established Engineering Hub in Lisbon. We have raised more than £500m in funding and our investors include Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, Intesa Sanpaolo, Temasek, Nyca Partners, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more.

We have created a culture that enables our team to produce the best work in the industry while ensuring we have fun along the way. We're regularly cited as having a fantastic workplace culture and have been recognised by Sifted magazine as having one of the highest Glassdoor ratings for a UK fintech company and the industry's most generous employee share package. Named one of the world's most innovative fintechs by Global Finance Magazine, we were also recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's fastest-growing companies for two consecutive years—and a UK Best Employer for 2026.

Reporting to the Payroll Lead, the Payroll Specialist will support the company’s payroll affairs globally, covering the UK, APAC, EMEA and North/South America entities. The company has also recently launched the Thought Machine Lisbon Engineering Hub with an engineering team of 30 to start with, adding more responsibilities to the payroll team. This newly created role will work with finance and non-finance teams with support from external payroll advisors to drive the highest standards of payroll. This role will play an integral part in scaling the payroll processes and procedures of a fast‑growing business. This is an opportunity to make an impact as a payroll professional who thrives on delivering on projects and being responsible for providing best‑in‑class payroll process, reporting and compliance through the group companies.

DUTIES

• Support global payroll process and controls with support from external payroll
• providers
• Timely execution of payroll deliverables, payments and statutory reporting for
• all seven countries while ensuring compliance with local payroll legislation in
• different countries
• Engaged in payroll implementations in the future and leading any process optimisation as necessary in partnership with HR
• Work with the accounting team to ensure that payroll related spend is accounted for correctly and timely
• Support or lead ad hoc projects as the team and business expands
• internationally
• Responding to payroll related queries and supporting user accounts, resetting passwords
• Ensuring benefits are aligned with employees and providers and no leakage
• Adhering to strict timelines for cut off and payroll scheduling
• General administration of portals, user accounts, resetting passwords

Requirements

Essential:

• Experience in payroll processing across various countries
• Attention to detail and accuracy key
• Strong time management and organisational skills
• Strong excel skills required
• Good understanding of controls and payroll best practices
• Proactive and providing solutions to challenges that come up
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate payroll matters to
• HR, Finance and Employees

Desirable:

• Proven experience working within a group environment
• Industry experience (fast-growing technology company is a plus)
• Payroll systems implementation is a plus
• Workday system experience for HR or Finance would help

Desirable

• Proven experience working within a group environment
• Industry experience (fast-growing technology company is a plus)
• Payroll systems implementation is a plus
• Workday system experience for HR or Finance would help

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary and commission
• Pension plan (match up to 5%)
• Life insurance - three times annual salary
• Competitive maternity (six months fully paid) and paternity leave (four weeks fully paid)
• Shared parental leave (matched to our maternity leave for the same point in time)
• 25 days holiday and bank holidays
• Flexible working hours
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Electric car scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Access to outstanding learning materials and courses
• Sports and hobby clubs, subsidised by Thought Machine
• All the latest tech you need
• Start the day properly with fresh fruit and cereals
• Huge range of healthy (and not-so-healthy) snacks, smoothies and drinks
• A talented and experienced team as your colleagues
• An environment where we encourage learning and progress
• Two charity days a year
• Weekly food pop-up

We actively hire candidates who demonstrate technical excellence in their field and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, providing everyone with equal access to professional development. You are encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't accurately match the job description. We also encourage applications from those with different abilities, including candidates with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia.