logo inner

Payroll Bureau Manager

SonaLondon, United Kingdom | London OfficeRemote, Onsite

Overview


3 billion people across the world work in frontline jobs. Yet, despite rising costs and staff shortages, frontline organisations are still left to choose between paper, Excel, and WhatsApp, or decade-old workforce management solutions to take care of the most important part of their businesses - their people.Enter Sona: the next generation of AI-native, frontline workforce management. We’ve built an end-to-end platform covering Scheduling, HR, Payroll, and Communications that gives the largest frontline organisations everything they need to staff more intelligently and empower their teams.In under 4 years, we’ve already made a deep impact on the lives of over 100k frontline workers and the operation of their organisations, grown the team to 110+, and secured over $50M in funding from notable VC’s, including Felicis, Northzone, Gradient Ventures (Google), SpeedInvest, Antler, and Notion Capital, plus notable angels like Tom Blomfield (Monzo).It’s a hugely exciting time to be joining the team as we’re still small enough that you’ll have a significant impact on the company’s growth trajectory and culture, yet large enough to have a great structure, experienced leaders and world-class benefits in place.

More on working at Sona here.

About the role:


Sona is on a mission to make work easier for frontline teams and payroll is a huge part of that. We're growing fast, and now’s your chance to help shape the future of our outsourced payroll offering.We’re looking for someone who’s confident running payroll and wants to take the next step in their career. Maybe you’ve been working in a bureau or running in-house payrolls and are now ready to take on a bigger challenge, with more ownership and customer interaction. If you’re excited by the idea of working in a fast-moving startup, this could be the perfect role for you.You’ll be part of a small but mighty Payroll Bureau team, reporting into our Director of Payroll.

You'll play a key role in delivering a first-class service to our customers and helping us refine how we run outsourced payroll as we scale.

Responsibilities:


  • Running end-to-end payrolls for a growing portfolio of enterprise customers with complex payroll requirements (hourly pay rates, overtime, weekly, fortnightly or monthly payrolls).
  • Being the go-to person for your clients, owning those relationships and giving them confidence in our service
  • Spotting where we can improve and helping put those improvements into action
  • Supporting our sales team from time to time as a payroll expert, helping prospective customers understand how our bureau works
  • Collaborating with teams across Sona, from Implementation and Product to Customer Success and Support
  • Getting to grips with our HR and WFM platform and how it connects with payroll
  • Keeping an eye on KPIs, SLAs and compliance to make sure we’re delivering the best possible service
  • Staying on top of legislation, tools and trends that might impact our payroll service

Skills and Experience


You’ll need to bring…

  • Solid experience processing UK payrolls, ideally in a bureau or outsourced setting
  • Strong attention to detail and a love for getting things right, especially when working with numbers
  • Good Excel or Google Sheets skills (e.g. VLOOKUP, Pivot Tables, SUM, CONCATENATE)

  • Great communication skills, you’re confident talking to customers and building trust
  • A proactive, can-do attitude; you spot problems before they happen and enjoy finding ways to solve them
  • Proactive and solutions-driven, tackling challenges head-on with a positive attitude.
  • Commercially aware and eager to drive improvements, not just follow the status quo.
  • Ownership mindset; if it can be done today, don’t wait for tomorrow.

Benefits:


  • Salary:
  • Manager level £45,000 - £50,000
  • Team Lead level £60,000 - £70,000 (team lead level responsibilities)
  • Remote first (UK based). Travel to the London office or customers required ad-hoc, you can expect to travel at least once a month for team days, meet ups or to see customers.
  • Share options
  • 35 days annual leave (25 days standard plus 10 flexible public holiday days)
  • Extra day of leave for every year of service
  • Pension contributions matched up to 5%
  • Comprehensive health insurance
  • Enhanced parental leave & pay
  • Co-working space stipend for those based outside London
  • Bi-annual all expenses paid team retreats
  • The latest Macbook and equipment budget for your home office
  • Professional development budget
  • Unlimited free books

Note: this represents a typical benefits package for a UK-based, full-time employee. Exact details may vary based on location and employment type but we try to be as fair as possible to all of our team members. Please ask your contact in the Talent team to clarify the available benefits for you. Compensation Range: £45K - £70K

Life at Sona

Thrive Here & What We ValueEmphasis on empowering small, cross-functional teams to solve business problems as they see fit | Focus on building a product that fits user needs through collaboration with the Product team and users themselves | Belief in agentic coding and utilizing tools like Aider to increase leverage | Encouragement of professional development and unlimited free books | Comprehensive health insurance, enhanced parental leave & pay, co-working space stipend for those based outside London, bi-annual all expenses paid team retreats, and a latest Macbook and equipment budget for home office.</s> | Positive mission | Exceptional team of developers | Professional development budget | Share options | Pension contributions matched up to 5% | Day to day responsibilities include defining and managing core-feature roadmap, prioritising how we build towards long-term product vision while keeping customers happy and improving ability to acquire new ones.</s> | Fast-moving startup environment | Small but mighty Payroll Bureau team | Experienced leaders and world-class benefits in place | Extra day of leave for every year of service | Travel to the London office or customers required ad-hoc, you can expect to travel at least once a month for team days, meet ups or to see customers. | Small enough for significant impact on the company's growth trajectory and culture | Large enough to have a great structure, experienced leaders, and world-class benefits in place | Hybrid working from our London office (Fitzrovia) | Salary: £130-150k + double OTE (uncapped)</s> | Flexible salary based on seniority and experience background | Hybrid working: 2-3 days per week in the London office | The latest Macbook and equipment budget for your home office | Unlimited free books</s>
Your tracker settings

We use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences. We also use them to measure ad campaign effectiveness, target ads and analyze site traffic. To learn more about these methods, including how to disable them, view our Cookie Policy or Privacy Policy.

By tapping `Accept`, you consent to the use of these methods by us and third parties. You can always change your tracker preferences by visiting our Cookie Policy.

logo innerThatStartupJob
Discover the best startup and their job positions, all in one place.
Copyright © 2025