Total Rewards Manager

Role overview

This position sits within Human Resources in Duleek, County Meath, and is designed to strengthen Bright’s reward function as the company scales. Bright is a PE-backed B2B SaaS organisation with about 400 employees across Ireland, the UK, and India. The company needs a dedicated reward specialist to bring stronger structure, robust controls, and strategic thinking to compensation, benefits, and reporting.

In this role, you will be the main owner of reward and reporting. You will partner closely with the CPO, the Head of People Operations & Partnering, and Finance, while also becoming the go-to person for questions about pay and benefits.

About Bright Software Group

Bright builds digital tools for accountants, payroll bureaus, and businesses across the UK and Ireland, helping them work more efficiently and serve their own customers better. The business focuses on helping people understand what matters so they can move from simply working to genuinely winning.

What success looks like in the first year

• A clear compensation benchmarking approach that gives managers and the CPO practical, defensible answers on pay.
• An annual salary review process that is organised, communicated well, and delivered smoothly.
• Benefits that employees understand, appreciate, and use more effectively.
• A dependable reporting pack for the CPO, ELT, and RemCom with accurate data available when needed.
• EU Pay Transparency requirements completed on schedule and with confidence.
• A payroll partnership with Finance that runs without gaps in accuracy or compliance.

Core responsibilities

You will lead compensation, benefits, analytics, governance, and payroll liaison activities across multiple jurisdictions.

• Run the annual pay review cycle end to end, including merit model creation, manager guidance, RemCom materials, and coordination with HR business partners.
• Carry out compensation benchmarking for Ireland, the UK, and India, while staying aware of how laws and market practice differ in each location.
• Support role evaluation and levelling, and provide market reference points for emerging or changing roles.
• Help design and maintain salary bands and pay structures with wider team support.
• Prepare RemCom packs, salary scenarios, and supporting documents ahead of meetings.
• Guide managers and HRBPs on pay decisions with practical advice and sound judgement.
• Maintain reward governance, including approvals, audit trails, and document version control.
• Lead EU Pay Transparency compliance work with the CPO, Legal, and HRBPs.
• Review pay equity across all jurisdictions and highlight any gaps that need action.
• Administer benefits across all regions, including renewals, provider coordination, and keeping documentation current and easy to access.
• Own the annual benefits review and compare the company’s offering against the market to make evidence-based recommendations.
• Improve employee understanding and usage of benefits.
• Maintain clean, accurate, and audit-ready reward data within HiBob.
• Build and manage reporting on pay, benefits, headcount, and turnover for internal leadership, RemCom, and investor use.
• Review existing people analytics, close reporting gaps, improve consistency, and use AI tools to speed up and improve insight.
• Deliver structured data extracts and analysis for leadership, audits, and investor reviews.
• Support annual people budget planning and monitor reward and benefits costs throughout the year.
• Work with Finance to ensure pay changes are reflected correctly, data is complete, and HR-related payroll queries are handled efficiently.
• Support payroll compliance checks, audits, and HMRC/Revenue questions that need HR data input.

Candidate profile

The ideal candidate brings hands-on experience in reward or total rewards, strong data capability, and the confidence to advise senior stakeholders on compensation and benefits decisions. This is a new role, so comfort with ambiguity and the ability to build processes as you go are important.

Experience and skills expected

• Prior experience in a dedicated reward, compensation, or total rewards position.
• Strong Excel ability and advanced analytical skills, with comfort building models and presenting findings to senior audiences.
• Experience preparing compensation analysis and data for leadership or governance forums.
• Practical knowledge of benchmarking methods and participation in salary surveys.
• Experience managing and reviewing employee benefits programmes.
• Working understanding of pay equity principles and employment law in Ireland and the UK.
• Experience using an HRIS, ideally HiBob or a similar system.
• Comfort using AI tools to improve speed and quality of work.
• Experience working with Finance on payroll interfaces and data governance.
• Preferred background in a PE-backed, fast-growing SaaS or technology environment.
• Exposure to M&A, organisational change, or reward harmonisation across multiple jurisdictions is an advantage.

Personal qualities

• High attention to data accuracy and the habit of catching issues early.
• Clear, confident communication with both managers and senior leadership.
• Ability to build credibility and trust through thoughtful, direct advice.
• Comfort working in a role where systems and processes are still being shaped.
• Genuine interest in using AI as a practical productivity tool.
• Ability to balance employee considerations with commercial realities.

Working at Bright

Bright describes its culture as collaborative, open, and people-focused. Even at more than 400 employees, the team environment remains strong. The company gives people autonomy, opportunities to learn, and room to make a real impact.

The business is growing quickly and investing heavily in AI, which creates meaningful opportunity for both the company and its people.

What to expect

• Hybrid working with trust to manage your own time.
• A People team that is building for the future rather than preserving the status quo.
• Direct exposure to the CPO.
• A serious commitment to AI adoption, including an AI Champions Network, a Literacy Framework, and clear expectations that tools will be used.
• A competitive salary package, benefits, and a company with strong growth momentum.

Additional information

Department: Human Resources.

Location: Duleek, County Meath, Ireland.