Payroll Manager (Maternity Cover)

Department/Team: Finance

Responsible to: Financial Controller

Contract: Maternity Cover

Location: Hybrid 3 days in the office

Hours: Full time, 40 hours per week

The Old Vic offers the ability to work these flexibly under the guidelines in our New Ways of Working policy. Additional hours may be necessary in order to fulfil the requirements of the post.

Salary: £43,000 - £45,000 per annum

Role Summary

The purpose of the post is to provide payroll service across the three theatre companies, on an accurate, complete and timely basis. The Payroll Manager will lead the payroll service, planning and communication changes and requirements.

Your Team

The Payroll Manager sits in Finance and will work closely with both the Finance and People teams as well as all line managers, communicating any relevant payroll information, key dates and processes.

Areas of responsibility

The Payroll Manager will be responsible for:

Payroll

· Managing the in-house payroll function across three companies, ensuring that payments are prepared, reviewed and authorised in time for the BACS payments each week/month.

· Maintaining the accuracy of the data on the payroll management systems, including starters and leavers, and employee records (P60, P45, P11D, etc.)

· Managing the relationship with the pension providers, ensuring that we meet our statutory duty on pension payments.

· Ensuring consistency across all platforms.

· Managing the communication, receipt of evidence and processing of expenses via the top-up card system.

· Preparation of all monthly and weekly journals for all companies.

· Preparation of the monthly and weekly recharges across the three companies.

· Ensuring up-to date an in-sync timetables internally and externally.

· Supporting finance with payroll related queries.

· Leading on the year-end payroll process and supporting evidence.

· Managing the payroll forecasting, budgeting and building the payroll model process alongside the Chief Financial Officer and the People and Culture Director.

· Preparation of and inputting of monthly and weekly payroll for different contract types – salaried staff, hourly paid staff, cast, crew () and IR35 deemed contracts.

· Collating departmental timesheets as necessary.

· Calculation and processing of payroll additions and deductions (SMP, SSP, pensions, earnings attachments).

· In charge of HMRC filings.

· Calculation of holiday pay for hourly paid staff.

· Maintenance of auto-enrolment legislation.

· Communications on payroll in conjunction with the People team.

· Resolving any staff pay and pension queries.

· Processing Tronc reports.

· Reporting on staff members count, including reports such as contractual hours, sickness levels, Accrual reports and other ad hoc reporting as required.

· Remain up to date with statutory/industry payroll legislation to ensure The Old Vic remains compliant.

Rota/Scheduling Management

· Assisting in the OVSC Employee lifecycle and change administration processes. This includes contract variations, change request forms and gap filling.

· Planning and agreeing the timeline for each new rota’ing phase with the Front of House Operations Coordinator

· Maintaining an overview of the rota construction process – including availability requests and submissions, and the building of each new rota.

· Providing rota/Staff Savvy support, advice and expertise to the Front of House Operations Coordinator as necessary.

· Working with the HODs and People Partner to ensure that staff are the systems are used correctly, including accurately signing in and out – and investigating any queries or discrepancies in relation to pay as required.

· Providing payroll related support and advice (in relation to holiday pay, sick pay, etc) to staff as necessary.

· Processing the Shift worked report per show for the People Team.

· Checking on Probation Review forms completed by managers to assist in staffing decisions such as contract extensions.

· Supporting recruitment timelines and liaising with the People Team and Front of House Management teams for training and to get on SS before their first shift.

· Sign off agency timesheets based on bookings including coding.

· Having an awareness of staffing requirements across all venues, events and ad-hoc shifts from a staffing cost perspective.

· Keep recharge log and Rota Calendar up to date with staffing requests.

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and the Theatre's management may, at any time, allocate other tasks which are of a similar nature or level.

The successful candidate will be invited to come in for at least 3 days to shadow the current Payroll Manager for the May pay run:

• Monday 11th May

• Friday 15th May

• Tuesday 26th May

Person Specification

· CIPP payroll qualification.

· Previous experience of payroll preparation for a multiple PAYE schemes and for multiple contract types.

· Pensions legislation knowledge and experience.

· Experience running end-to-end payroll process in-house via a payroll system such as Cascade and Staff Savvy.

· Understanding of theatre union rules and regulations (BECTU, Equity) desirable.

· Exemplary organisation skills as well as written and verbal communication skills.

· Strong excel skills and ability to structure and work consistently across data sets.

· Acute attention to detail, with a priority given to confidentiality of data.

· Proven experience of managing organisation wide projects.

· Ability to work to deadlines and prioritise tasks.

· A proven ability to work effectively and efficiently in with competing demands.

· Excellent customer service skills with a people-centric approach.

First stage conversations will be week commencing 7 April 2026.

Second stage conversations will be week commencing 13 April 2026.

Equal Opportunities

We actively support and encourage people from a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets to join us and help shape what we do. We are particularly keen to receive applications from people of the global majority, LGBTQ+, neurodiverse and disabled candidates.

We may take positive action, in cases where candidates are equally qualified, to increase the employment of under-represented groups at The Old Vic.

In the event that we ask you to attend the theatre for a conversation and you are struggling financially, we may be able to reimburse you for any reasonable travel costs.

We partner with a range of inclusive organisations, to find out more please read our FAQs.

FAQs

Read our recruitment and selection and equal opportunities FAQs here.

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About The Old Vic

The Old Vic, 103 The Cut, London SE1 8NB. oldvictheatre.com