Payroll & Benefits Operations Director

If you're currently a Head of Payroll looking for that next big move, this Director of Payroll & Benefits Operations role is the perfect progression. You'll oversee accurate, timely payroll delivery for 60,000 colleagues across weekly, lunar, and monthly cycles, managing a £3bn annual payroll. You'll spend at least 50% of your time across UK payroll offices, staying close to your teams and the operation.

Leading a high-performing team of 40+, you'll drive a culture of accuracy, accountability, and service excellence. You'll partner with HR, Finance, Operations, and People Services to improve data integrity, reduce errors, and enhance the colleague experience. Working alongside our Director of Technical, Governance & Compliance, you'll continually strengthen processes and embed best practice across the function.

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of complex UK & Ireland payrolls for 60,000+ employees across all pay cycles, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and exceptional service-including shift premiums, union agreements, TUPE onboarding, and cyclical activities such as P11
  
  Ds, P60s, and share plan administration
• Manage, develop, and inspire a high-performing payroll and benefits team (including payroll professionals and business partners), driving a culture of precision, accountability, employee engagement, and continuous improvement
• Own payroll operations and issue resolution across all GXO sites, partnering closely with People Services, T&A, HR, Finance, Comp & Benefits, IT, and site leadership to maintain data integrity, streamline processes, and deliver a high-quality colleague experience
• Oversee payroll governance, reconciliation, sign-off, and reporting, ensuring accurate GL and finance interfaces, maintaining GDPR-compliant data handling, and providing sign-off support for outsourced payrolls when required
• Drive operational change and continuous improvement, leading system upgrades, transitions, automation initiatives, and business continuity efforts in partnership with the Director of Payroll Technical, Governance & Compliance

• Extensive experience in senior payroll leadership, accountable for large-scale, high-volume, multi-site and unionised payroll operations, including complex pay structures, TUPE transitions, and multi-billion-pound payrolls in fast-changing environments
• Deep technical expertise in UK payroll legislation, end-to-end processing (including PSA, P11D, and share plan administration), international assignee payroll coordination, and strong hands-on capability with SAP Payroll, Oracle, Success Factors EC, and Global View
• Proven ability to lead, develop, and empower high-performing teams, including payroll specialists, benefits teams, and payroll business partners, fostering a culture of accuracy, service excellence, and continuous improvement
• Strong stakeholder and vendor management skills, able to influence HR, Finance, IT, and global functions, manage third-party providers, define SLAs, track KPIs, and use data and insight to drive operational improvements and ensure compliance
• Highly organised, analytical, and resilient, skilled at navigating ambiguity, leading teams through change, maintaining rigorous governance and audit standards, and delivering pragmatic solutions with precision and accountability

We engineer faster, smarter, leaner supply chains.

GXO is a leading provider of cutting-edge supply chain solutions to the most successful companies in the world. We help our customers manage their goods most efficiently using our technology and services. Our greatest strength is our global team - energetic, innovative people of all experience levels and talents who make GXO a great place to work. GXO is an equal opportunity employer.

We celebrate, support and thrive on diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that diversity and inclusion in our business is critical to our success as a global company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. We are an Armed Forces friendly organisation and Disability Confident Leader as part of the Disability Confident Scheme (GIS) and actively welcome applications from people with disabilities.

We're looking to offer a highly competitive salary and benefits package which will be discussed at telephone interview. In addition, we offer and 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays). Your benefits package includes, a company sponsored pension scheme, a 24/7 online GP service, life assurance and a fully comprehensive employee assistance programme. You'll also have access to our My Benefits platform offering a variety of high street discounts, a cycle to work scheme, cashback cards, a saving scheme and much more!