Senior Payroll Specialist

Charles River Laboratories, Inc.; Balerno; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job description

For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.

Job Summary

Our Payroll Team currently has a fantastic opportunity to join them as a Senior Payroll Specialist as part of the wider Finance Shared Service function based at Riccarton, Edinburgh. This is a Fixed Term Contract Opportunity with a current end date of 31st December 2025.

Although the team’s office base is Edinburgh, the Payroll Team predominately work from home.

Our Payroll Department is a managed processing service supporting various Charles River companies throughout Europe.

The principal duties of the Senior Payroll Specialist are:

1. Preparation of payrolls for Charles River Laboratories in line with pre-determined reporting dates
2. Maintenance of salary records in line with statutory and company specific requirements
3. Ensure audit requirements are maintained
4. Regular communication with employees and key stakeholders
5. Support continuous improvement projects
6. Maintain processing manuals and knowledge base documentation
7. Complete adhoc payroll related requests and submissions
8. General administration tasks

Job Qualifications

The following are minimum requirements related to the Senior Payroll Specialist position:

1. Experience of working in a multi-national organisation with regional or global payroll departments
2. IT proficient – particularly confident in excel and PowerBI
3. Understanding of audit controls
4. Continuous improvement mindset
5. Ability to work within a fast paced, deadline driven and evolving environment
6. Good stakeholder management

The following would be beneficial but not essential:

1. Experience operating ADP Global View and ADP Celergo
2. Proven track record operating within an outsourced payroll model
3. Experience of operating within a centralised payroll function supporting EMEA
4. Language skills, in particular Dutch or French

Competitive Salary and Benefits package including:

1. CAREER PROGRESSION OPPORTUNITIES: A well-structured, clear career progression – regardless of what role you have there is a portfolio of Learning and Development opportunities to enable independent development in addition to more formal programmes across a wide range of technical and soft skills.
2. PENSION: A generous Pension Scheme which incorporates 8% employer contribution.
3. CREDS: Charles River Employee Discount Scheme. Access to our employee discount and cashback schemes across hundreds of retailers, including dining, holiday and insurance etc.
4. ANNUAL LEAVE: 29 days annual leave (Pro Rata) in addition to 4 officially recognised Bank Holiday days at Christmas and New Year.
5. EAP: Employee Assistance Programme provided via Cigna, offering support to anyone with concerns or issues around Mental Health; General Wellbeing; Addictions; Finance; Elder Care and many others.
6. CYCLE TO WORK SCHEME: Cycling to work is a great way to improve your fitness, save money on your commute and it’s often a less stressful route into work.
7. PAID VOLUNTEERING: Opportunity to volunteer (paid) for one day each year.

About Corporate Functions

The Corporate Functions provide operational support across Charles River in areas such as Human Resources, Finance, IT, Legal, Sales, Quality Assurance, Marketing, and Corporate Development. They partner with their colleagues across the company to develop and drive strategies and to set global standards. The functions are essential to providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness, to ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.

About Charles River

Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.

With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly supported the development of 80% of the drugs approved by the FDA in the last five years.

At Charles River Laboratories, we recognize and recruit all talent. We are a company committed to the principle of diversity and inclusion and work daily in this direction.