Payroll Time and Attendance Specialist

Job: Payroll Time and Attendance Specialist

Type: Hybrid with some travel to our HO in Northampton

Hours: Full Time / 37.50 hours / Monday to Friday / Permanent

Closing Date: 7th October 2026 - or until filled. All applicants need to attach an up to date cv to be considered for this opportunity.

Purpose of Role:

This role is responsible for supporting in delivery of accurate, timely, and compliant end-to-end payroll processing, while acting as a key operational owner within the payroll function. This role combines hands on payroll processing with T&A processing and reporting, ownership of assigned controls, process improvement, identifying risks, and collaboration to ensure an excellent employee experience.

Key Accountabilities:

End to end payroll processing, including collating and processing payroll inputs, calculations, statutory payments, and other payroll related payments and deductions.

Exception management on the UKG payroll system, including manager queries and reporting.

Contribute to maintaining training guides and e-learning initiatives for T&A system, providing suggestions for required training based on queries, recurring issues and identifying trends.

Support line managers in processing and maintaining absence records, including annual leave, sickness, maternity/paternity leave and other time-off requests.

Investigate and correct T&A discrepancies, including missed punches, overtime, shift patterns, schedules and working-pattern issues.

Participate in testing of T&A system changes, upgrades and new functionality, including user acceptance testing (UAT) and validation of accurate T&A-to-payroll results.

Monitor absence records and identify discrepancies between T&A, HR/ payroll records, supporting investigation and resolution of identified issues.

Reconciliation of T&A hours and time off data following monthly integration, including totals checking, investigation of errors and manual corrections where required.

First line payroll checking, including peer to peer checking, input validation and variance.

Maintenance of input trackers for payroll inputs and manual amendments, including payroll checking and evidence folder.

Proactively identify and resolve payroll issues before payroll submission.

Escalate risks appropriately while maintaining accountability for resolution using agreed tools, including Risk logs, and take responsibility for continuous improvement within assigned scope, including risk log actions.

Partner with HR, Finance, and external providers as needed to ensure seamless payroll delivery.

Act as a key point of contact for payroll queries from internal stakeholders and own the employee experience, ensuring payroll queries are resolved accurately, professionally, and within agreed SLA’s.

Identify inefficiencies in payroll processes and recommend improvements, support Payroll Operations Lead with suggestions for automation and system enhancement initiatives.

Lead on assigned payroll procedure documentation creation and ongoing reviews

What We Can Offer You:

• Our benefits include, but are not limited to;
• Flexible working and holiday entitlements
• Discounted childcare
• Quarterly Employee Appreciation Weeks
• Annual gala award evening
• Fantastic range of discounts on high street retailers, grocery stores, cinema tickets, holidays and more
• Wide range of wellbeing resources, supporting our teams for the ups and downs of daily life

Why Bright Horizons?

Our support functions enable our nurseries to deliver the best possible care and education to over 10,000 children across the UK. Through this support, our nurseries can deliver excellence – with 98% of our 270+ portfolio being rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted.

We’re on a mission to change the future for children, families, and the people we work with, and are committed to progressive working values like flexibility, work-life balance, and wellbeing.

Essential Experience:

Strong understanding of end-to-end payroll processing, including audit, NMW checks (UK payroll essential).

Experience using payroll and T&A systems (Workday preferred).

High attention to detail and strong numerical accuracy.

Strong written and verbal communication and stakeholder management skills.

Experience contributing to process improvement initiatives.

Experience in process design and risk management

Desirable Experience:

Additional experience that would be beneficial but not essential. Nice to have skills or background or experience that could support fast development in the role.

Qualifications:

Formal qualifications required or preferred for the role, you can mark these as essential or desirable.

Personal Attributes:

Demonstrates ownership and accountability in all tasks.

Proactive in identifying and solving problems, raising as appropriate.

Collaborative and supportive across teams, working closely with other department as one team, to reach shared goals.

Committed to accuracy, compliance, and continuous improvement. Focused on delivering a high-quality employee experience.

Bright Horizons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. This post is subject to safer recruitment practice and pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS check, which will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed. We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all ages and backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants.

Proud to be a Great Place to Work for 20 years. Apply today!

We look forward to receiving your application.

Bright Horizons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. This post is subject to safer recruitment practice and pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS check, which will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed.

We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all ages and backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants.

Proud to be a Great Place to Work for 20 years. Apply today!

We look forward to receiving your application!

About Us

At Bright Horizons, our culture is built on our commitment to Keeping Everyone Safe and providing world-class care and education, delivered by a world-class workforce. We believe our people’s potential is endless and with this in mind, we aspire to create an environment where our colleagues can thrive and accomplish the things they thought impossible.

Bright Horizons has been recognised as a Great Place to Work by our employees and the Great Place to Work Institute for the last 13 years. We care passionately about what we do, and our HEART values and principles help us support one another in the work that we do each day. These are quite literally at the HEART of our organisation’s ethos and culture as it helps us to provide a working environment that supports professionalism, growth and diversity.
We are passionate about our people’s ongoing learning and development. Our learning and leading with HEART framework supports each Bright Horizons colleague on the first steps of their leadership journey, whether that includes our 'World-Class Welcome' induction or our extensive ongoing training programme. Either way we want you to feel valued and invested in!

Celebrating in the accomplishments of our people is an essential part of our culture. We believe in the power of “thank you” and throughout the year, in ways big and small, formal and informal, we show our appreciation for employees at all levels. We have many ways to acknowledge and celebrate our people, including our very popular “employee appreciation month”. This is a chance for everyone to share their gratitude to one another, across the whole company. Whether it is a “thank you” placed on our website, a chocolate pizza, team lunch or an ice cream van visit, it is our way of showing each other we care and appreciate everything we do. Each year, we have our annual 'Awards of Excellence' events; whether you are an award winner or cheering on a fellow team member, these formal award occasions are opportunities to come together and celebrate one another.

By creating this account you acknowledge that Bright Horizons will collect, store and process any of your personal data provided in respect of your application and employment in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice.

https://www.brighthorizons.co.uk/statutory-information/privacy-notice-employees.