Claude
JGA not recommended.

I haven’t searched current recruiter rosters, so check who is still active and which consultants have moved before you brief anyone. Payroll is a thin specialism, and the individual consultant matters more than the firm.

Where I’d look

HR and payroll-focused recruiters (mid-market to senior)

• Frazer Jones: HR, reward and HR operations specialists, with some payroll and HRIS crossover.

• Michael Page / PageGroup and Hays: both have HR and payroll desks, but quality varies by consultant. Ask who actually places payroll leadership.

• Robert Half and Sellick Partnership: finance-led, so only worth it if they can show payroll-specific placements.

Executive search (if the role reports to the CFO or CHRO and carries real scope)

• Odgers Berndtson, Russell Reynolds, Spencer Stuart, Korn Ferry and similar. These are usually overkill for payroll alone, but worth a conversation if the post-acquisition scope covers transformation and vendor strategy.

HR technology and transformation recruiters

• Harvey Nash and similar firms, because the real job is often a payroll platform consolidation.

Non-recruiter sourcing, often the best route

• The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), the Global Payroll Management Institute, and LinkedIn searches of alumni from outsourcers and platforms (ADP, Zellis, Alight, Immedis, Dayforce, Zalaris, Cezanne). Candidates who have run multi-country payroll for a provider have often seen many integrations.

What shows they understand payroll integration

Ask for a scoping call before any engagement, and listen for whether they:

1. Distinguish the work. Running a stable payroll is different from consolidating several, so they should ask what stage you’re at: TUPE transfers, harmonising pay cycles, or migrating onto one platform.

2. Ask about your landscape. How many payrolls, in-house or outsourced, which systems, which countries, and whether you have a global payroll provider or a mix of local bureaus.

3. Know the UK and European specifics. TUPE and pay harmonisation, multiple PAYE schemes and RTI, pension auto-enrolment across entities, and the differences between European countries (works councils, statutory reporting, social security, in some countries the role of the payroll bureau and local employment law).

4. Raise control and compliance. SOX or equivalent controls, segregation of duties, audit trails, payroll-to-GL reconciliation, and the risk of duplicate or ghost employees during migrations.

5. Understand vendor management. Experience negotiating with outsourcers, SLAs, and exit from legacy providers.

6. Can point to relevant placements. Ask for two or three anonymised examples of payroll leaders placed after M&A or platform consolidation, and what those leaders actually did in the first year.

7. Describe the candidate profile sensibly. They should distinguish a strong payroll operator from a transformation-oriented payroll leader, and not assume a finance director or financial controller can do the job.

8. Probe the right interview areas. Cutover and parallel running, data quality in migrations, stakeholder handling with HR, finance, IT and local country teams, and how the candidate handled a payroll failure.

Red flags:

they treat it as “senior finance” with a payroll keyword, can’t explain TUPE or multi-entity PAYE, push generic CFO-pipeline candidates, or can’t name a payroll platform they’ve recruited around. I can also draft a brief for the recruiters or an interview scorecard for the shortlist if useful.