Claude: both observations

You need a specialist search firm, retained or contingent, rather than a generalist recruiter. A permanent director who will fix repeated errors and weak controls is a hard hire, because strong candidates tend to be well employed and cautious about walking into a troubled function.

Specialist payroll and HR search firms in the UK

• Frazer Jones. A global HR recruitment specialist with a dedicated payroll practice. Its head of payroll recruits executive payroll and benefits professionals with UK, EMEA and global remits. This is probably the most obvious first call for a director-level hire. [frazerjones](https://frazerjones.com/consultants/john-obrien)

• Middlemore. A specialist executive search and recruitment firm covering Global Payroll, HR, HRIS, Finance and Reward. It offers executive search, permanent recruitment, talent mapping and salary benchmarking, and its work includes global payroll transformation, governance and compliance, which fits your brief. [gpa](https://gpa.net/blogs/directory/middlemore)

• JGA Recruitment Group. A specialist payroll and HR recruitment agency that places senior global payroll roles on a permanent basis. [studentjob](https://studentjob.co.uk/vacancies/5218402-svp-global-payroll-hcm-in-united-kingdom)

• Altum Consulting. It is currently recruiting an interim global payroll director, so it clearly works in this space, though the role I found was interim.

• Oakleaf Partnership and The ONE Group. Both do payroll and finance recruitment, though their listings I found were mostly manager-level. They may suit you better if you later need the layer below the director.

Broader executive search firms

Morgan McKinley, for example, offers executive search alongside permanent and contract recruitment. Large generalist firms such as Hays, Robert Walters, Michael Page and Korn Ferry also have finance and HR practices. They can be useful if you want a wider net, such as candidates from finance transformation or shared services backgrounds, but they will usually have less depth in payroll specifically.

[morganmckinley](https://morganmckinley.com/uk/jobs/london/global-compensation-tax-manager-london/1105353)

Choosing and briefing a firm

1. Ask about their global payroll network and recent director-level placements. Ask for examples with similar remediation or control-improvement mandates.

2. Decide on retained or contingent. For a sensitive, senior hire, retained search with a proper candidate-mapping exercise is more reliable. Contingent firms tend to circulate CVs rather than approach passive candidates.

3. Be upfront about the problem. Repeated pay errors and weak controls will come out in due diligence anyway. Candidates who have fixed this before will be more attracted by a frank brief and clear backing from the executive team.

4. Define the profile precisely. You probably want someone with a governance and controls background, experience of vendor and provider management across multiple countries, and a track record of system or process transformation. Say whether the remit is operational delivery, remediation, or both.

5. Check the ethics and terms. Ask about fees, the replacement guarantee period, and any restrictions on approaching candidates from your own clients or suppliers.

Many of these firms will also offer an interim director to stabilise things while the permanent search runs. That can be a useful bridge, since a good permanent hire may take three to six months to land. I can draft a role brief or a shortlist of questions to put to the search firms if that would help.

Several UK recruiters work in this space, and which fits best depends on how senior the role is and which function it reports into. I haven’t vetted any of them, so treat this as a longlist to approach.

Specialist payroll and HR recruiters (retained or contingent)

• JGA Recruitment Group describes itself as a specialist Payroll and HR recruitment agency, so payroll is its core focus. Its listing I found was for a global payroll role at an investment firm. [studentjob](https://www.studentjob.co.uk/vacancies/5280719-global-payroll-expert-remote-uk-100k-in-bury)

• Hays has advertised a Payroll Director role in London at £80,000 to £100,000 plus bonus for a global software business, so it handles director-level payroll searches. [aicpa-cima](https://mycareer.aicpa-cima.com/job/4462555/group-payroll-manager/)

• Oakleaf Partnership calls itself the UK’s largest independent HR recruitment consultancy. It has placed Head of Global Payroll roles covering UK, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. [personneltoday](https://jobs.personneltoday.com/job/1401574274/head-of-global-payroll/)

• Frazer Jones (part of SR Group) is a global HR recruitment specialist that has recruited global payroll leads for financial services and investment firms. [personneltoday](https://jobs.personneltoday.com/job/1401654798/global-payroll-specialist/)

• Morgan McKinley offers permanent recruitment and executive search and lists payroll roles, though what I found was mostly lower-level. [morganmckinley](https://www.morganmckinley.com/uk/jobs/surrey/payroll-lead/1103779)

Several of the Oakleaf and Frazer Jones listings I found date from 2019 to 2022, so use them only as evidence of the sectors these firms cover.

Broader executive search firms

If the role is a true director reporting to a CFO, CHRO or Reward Director, you could also consider retained executive search firms with finance and HR practices. Examples include Michael Page, Robert Walters, Hays Executive, and boutique reward and HR search firms. The usual trade-off is that specialist payroll firms know the candidate pool well, while larger search firms bring more discretion and senior-level access.

How to choose and brief them

• Be explicit about the turnaround remit. Say the role is to fix repeated pay errors and weak controls. That tells recruiters to look for someone with control frameworks, remediation and audit experience. Many candidates are better at running a stable payroll than at repairing a broken one.

• Ask about their direct experience. Ask how many global payroll director placements they’ve made in the last 12 to 24 months, and whether they can show relevant candidates already.

• Confirm the commercial terms. Fees are typically a percentage of first-year salary, with either retained or contingent arrangements. Ask about the replacement guarantee period.

• Check sector fit. The firms above seem to place a lot of tech and financial services roles. If you are in manufacturing, retail or another sector, ask whether they have candidates from comparable environments.

• Consider an interim in parallel. If the errors are urgent, an interim payroll controller can stabilise things while the permanent search runs. That is separate from outsourcing the payroll itself.

If you tell me your sector, headcount, number of countries and reporting line, I can help you draft a role brief or a shortlist of questions for recruiters.