Senior Associate, Payroll Delivery, Newcastle Upon Tyne/Manchester/Belfast 1 1 1

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AI-Enabled Solutions Analyst Global Payroll Operations — Technology

Grade / level

Senior Analyst / Assistant Manager (3–4 years’ professional experience)

Reports to

Business Product Manager — GPO Technology

Location

UK (hybrid), with periodic travel

Contract

Permanent, full-time

The opportunity Global Payroll Operations (GPO) is transforming how EY delivers global payroll and tax compliance services. We are looking for an AI-enabled solutions analyst to identify operational challenges and turn them into practical, well-governed tools and improvements. You will work across the engagement lifecycle, from pursuit and pricing through delivery and close, using AI-assisted development to build and improve solutions at pace. This is a business-facing solutions role, not a traditional software engineering position. You will use tools such as Factory.ai / Droid, Replit and other approved AI assistants to direct the creation of prototypes, data utilities, document processors and workflow automations. You will review and test the work, apply sound operational judgement, and make sure users can adopt it safely. The principle is simple: AI helps us do more with the same. It supports practitioners and frees their time for higher-value work; it does not replace human accountability. Every output with a business or client consequence remains subject to human review.   Your key responsibilities AI-augmented solution delivery

Identify and build practical solutions for operational pain points across the GPO engagement lifecycle, including prototypes, data conversion utilities, document processing and automation tools. Use approved AI development tools to move quickly from an initial problem to a working prototype. Validate AI-generated logic and outputs, test relevant edge cases, and correct defects before sharing or release. Demonstrate working solutions to users early, gather feedback from Directors, Partners and engagement teams, and iterate in short cycles. Maintain version histories, changelogs, release notes and user-facing instructions for tools you deliver. Follow existing procedures while identifying safe opportunities to improve them.

Operational analysis and solution design

Review processes, systems and operational data to identify inefficiencies, manual workarounds, duplicate entry, data-quality problems and control risks. Map processes end to end and quantify effort, error patterns and risk where evidence is available. Produce concise assessments with cited findings, severity and recommended mitigations. Translate user needs into clear solution requirements and acceptance checks. Challenge assumptions with evidence and keep a human accountable for decisions and exceptions.

Risk, governance and quality assurance

Apply a client-protection mindset to each solution: sanitise data before any approved AI processing, classify outputs by confidence, route uncertain cases for human review and exclude low-confidence results rather than guess. Maintain an audit trail for data transformations, sanitisation, testing, decisions and releases. Map deliverables to relevant SASP controls and document rationale, limitations and rollback arrangements. Run structured QA before release. Record defects with severity, reproducible evidence and links to the relevant requirement or specification. Verify that data and outputs are correct, not merely present or technically generated. Recognise when to seek specialist advice or stop work in relation to UK GDPR, WCAG 2.2 AA, security, client confidentiality or other applicable controls.

DevOps, release and service-readiness awareness

Use approved version-control and release processes so that changes can be reviewed, traced