Perplexity
JGA recommended.

Use a specialist UK payroll recruitment firm or executive-search firm , not a payroll bureau. For a permanent Global Payroll Director who can remediate errors, rebuild controls, and own multi-country delivery, the strongest routes are:

Best-fit recruiters

| Recruiter | Why they fit | Evidence |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Portfolio Payroll / The Portfolio Group | The UK’s largest specialist payroll recruiter; handles permanent executive roles from Head of Payroll through Payroll Director, including international payroll and payroll-systems specialists. | theportfoliogroup +1 |

| Oakleaf Partnership | Dedicated payroll recruitment consultancy that sources permanent and interim Global Payroll Directors and implementation leaders across the UK and internationally. | [oakleafpartnership](https://www.oakleafpartnership.com/business-areas/payroll/payroll-capabilities) |

| JGA Recruitment | UK payroll-specialist recruiter; explicitly notes that permanent global payroll leads or heads of payroll can require a multi-week search, so it is suited to a considered director-level hire. | [jgarecruitment](https://jgarecruitment.com/author/bharper/) |

| The Leppington Group (TLG Talent) | Specialist payroll/payroll-technology talent network that places senior roles such as Global Payroll Manager and Payroll Operations Director, with emphasis on governance, vendor management, and multi-country environments. | [theleppingtongroup](https://www.theleppingtongroup.com/payroll-talent) |

How to brief them

Ask for a permanent in-house Global Payroll Director / Head of Global Payroll , reporting ideally into CFO or HR/People leadership, with a mandate covering:

• Root-cause analysis of recurring pay errors, including data flows, calculations, cut-offs, interfaces, and vendor handoffs.

• A payroll control framework: maker-checker approvals, reconciliation, exception management, access controls, audit trail, and pre/post-payroll validation.

• Global payroll governance, country compliance, tax/statutory filings, and external-audit readiness.

• Vendor and in-house delivery oversight, SLAs/KPIs, remediation plans, and service-improvement governance.

• Payroll transformation: standardisation, automation, system integration, and scalable operating model.

A comparable live UK role illustrates the profile: a Global Payroll Lead is expected to standardise and automate global payroll, establish controls and governance in every country, manage vendor/system agreements, and work with HR, tax, legal, reward, and finance on audits and compliance.

[linkedin](https://uk.linkedin.com/jobs/view/global-payroll-lead-at-kantar-media-4130576291)

Practical recommendation

Start with Portfolio Payroll and Oakleaf Partnership for a permanent search, and consider JGA or TLG as a second source if you need deeper access to transformation-led or niche global-payroll candidates. Portfolio explicitly recruits permanent payroll directors and executive-level payroll leaders, while Oakleaf specifically lists Global Payroll Directors among its permanent-search capabilities. theportfoliogroup +2

Avoid describing the role as “payroll outsourcing support” in the brief; use a title such as Global Payroll Director — Transformation, Controls & Compliance to attract an accountable internal leader rather than a service provider.