Senior Payroll Practitioner

Salary:
Competitive Plus Benefits

Location:

Manchester Store Support Centre and Home, Manchester, M4 3AL

Contract type:
Permanent
Business area:
People
Closing date: 03 September 2026

Requisition :

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work–life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re the first to say we do HR differently here. For a start, we work as business partners and specialists. Whether that’s making sure nearly 150,000 colleagues are paid on time, or shaping a strategy that helps us attract the right people, put them in the right place, and unlock their potential.

This is a fast-moving business, and our policies and rewards evolve with it. That’s why we’re as flexible as we can be about where and when you work. We’re also flexible about your future. There’s always room to move up or across, if that’s what you want. We really value different perspectives, so there’s no one opinion, no single path, and yours matters.

Joining the Payroll Operations team at Sainsbury's offers the opportunity to play a crucial role in ensuring the accurate and timely production of payroll services across the organisation. As a Senior Payroll Practitioner, you will be part of a dynamic team dedicated to delivering high-quality service to colleagues throughout Sainsbury's, including retail, store support centres, and distribution. With a focus on professionalism and excellence, this role provides a platform for continuous learning and development, where you can contribute to maintaining compliance, building strong relationships, and making a real impact on the payroll operations of a multi-channel, multi-brand business.

What you'll do

As a Senior Payroll Practitioner at Sainsbury's, you will be an integral part of the Payroll Operations team, ensuring the accurate and timely production and administration of payroll services across the organisation. Your responsibilities will include validating and reviewing remote input to the payroll system, responding to error messages, preparing data uploads, inputting payroll-related data, undertaking pay corrections, and providing expert support to the AskHR team for effective handling of pay queries.

Additionally, you will be expected to maintain compliance with statutory requirements, company policies, and data protection regulations, while building strong relationships with HR Operations teams and constantly seeking ways to improve processes and service delivery. Your success in this role will be measured by the quality and timeliness of payroll data input, adherence to policies and procedures, maintenance of data confidentiality, and adherence to service level agreements to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Who you are

As a Senior Payroll Practitioner at Sainsbury's, you are a dedicated professional with a thorough understanding of payroll service delivery, statutory compliance, and company policies. With expertise in accurately processing payroll data and ensuring adherence to authorisation procedures, you excel in maintaining high standards of service delivery and customer satisfaction. Your ability to build strong relationships with HR Operations teams, drive process improvements, and uphold data confidentiality demonstrates your commitment to excellence in payroll administration and continuous improvement within a dynamic and collaborative environment.

Demonstrable experience of payroll administration and payroll processing, including inputting, validating or reviewing payroll data accurately and in line with processing deadlines.

Proven ability to identify, investigate and resolve payroll errors, warnings or incomplete data, escalating issues appropriately where required.

Working knowledge of statutory payroll requirements and deductions, such as tax codes, student loans, court orders, attachment of earnings or other regulatory payroll inputs.

Experience using payroll, HR or workforce management systems, alongside Excel or similar tools, to process uploads, data entry or payroll-related calculations.

Demonstrable understanding of payroll controls, authorisation processes and data protection requirements, including…