Head of Payroll

Job Title: Head of Payroll

Band: Pay Band 4
Salary: Up to £90,000 + TfL benefits 

Location: Stratford, London/ Hybrid

Hybrid working within this role enables a balance of 50 per cent of time split between the office and home over a 4-week period. Hybrid working arrangements can evolve subject to business requirements.

Join the Team Powering London

Who we are

Transport for London (TfL) keeps one of the world’s greatest cities moving. As one of the most respected and innovative integrated transport authorities globally, we play a vital role in connecting millions of people every day. With over 28,000 colleagues, our work shapes how London lives, works and grows.

Learn more about us at tfl.gov.uk.

About the role

This is a high-impact, high-profile opportunity to lead and shape the future of Employee Payments at TfL.

You’ll be responsible for delivering key elements of our end‑to‑end Employee Payments service — including payroll, expenses and overtime — ensuring every colleague is paid accurately, compliantly and on time. But this role is about much more than delivery.

You’ll drive continuous improvement across strategy, people, process and technology, ensuring our services evolve to meet the needs of a complex, modern organisation. You’ll also ensure robust governance, compliance with statutory obligations and high-quality internal and external reporting.

In addition to TfL, the team delivers payroll services to the Greater London Authority (GLA), Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC) — making this a genuinely influential role with a broad reach across London’s public sector.

The team

Employee Payments sits within TfL’s Business Services Directorate, which provides trusted people, procurement, property and finance services across the organisation.

This is a highly regarded, expert team:

• We run 13 payrolls
• Cover 29,000+ permanent and fixed-term employees across 4 different organisations
• Deliver payments worth over £150 million every four weeks

You’ll lead a team of 15 colleagues, with three experienced direct reports, all established payroll specialists.

Customer satisfaction is exceptionally high, and the team has a strong reputation for accuracy and reliability.

Looking ahead, we’re embarking on an exciting transformation — moving our payroll platform to SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll. This is a rare opportunity to shape system design, influence future ways of working and leave a lasting legacy across TfL improving out systems and processes for both the team and our customers.

About you

You’re a confident, credible leader who thrives in complexity.

You’ll bring:

• Proven experience leading large payroll and expenses operations in a complex organisation
• The ability to juggle multiple priorities and confidently manage senior stakeholders with competing demands
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative leadership style
• You have hands-on experience implementing payroll systems and redesigning processes to improve efficiency, quality and customer experience. Experience with SuccessFactors / SAP is a strong advantage. You’ll be CIPD or CIPS qualified, or working towards this.

Your technical expertise includes strong working knowledge of:

• PAYE, National Insurance and statutory payments (OSP, SSP, SMP, SPP, SAP)
• Company pension schemes
• P11D and PSA submissions
• Experience of payrolling benefits
• Experience working in a unionised and/or large, complex organisation will help you succeed, and while public sector experience is desirable, we welcome applications from all industries.

Why join us?

This role gives you the chance to:

• Lead a respected, high-performing team
• Influence payroll for tens of thousands of people across London
• Drive a major systems transformation
• Make a tangible difference to how TfL works — now and in the future

If you’re passionate about payroll excellence, continuous improvement and leading change at scale, we’d love to hear from you.

Equality, diversity and inclusion
We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to represent the city we serve, which will help us become a more innovative and efficient organisation. Our goal is to make our recruitment as inclusive as possible. We are a disability confident employer who guarantee an interview to any disabled candidate who meets all of the essential criteria. We also use anonymising software that removes identifying information from CVs and cover letters to make the process fair.

Application Process
Please apply using your CV and a covering letter. Word format preferred and please do not include any photographs or images due to our anonymising software.

The closing date for applications is Sunday 17th May 2026 @ 23:59

Assessment
The plan is a one or two stage interview. A presentation topic will be sent 5 days before the interview for you to prepare and deliver. Then a competency-based interview. A second interview is possible but will be confirmed at a later stage in the process.

The first assessment will take place the week commencing 8 June 2026 and will be held in our Stratford office.

Any questions?
Hopefully we have covered most things but if you would like to discuss the role or see the full JD then please contact Amrita Addy who is the Recruitment Consultant delivering this role :  amritaaddy@tfl.gov.uk