Bristol, UK – 6 October 2026 – Payroll professionals spend an average of 5.3 hours a week, more than half a working day, answering pay queries employees could have resolved themselves, with 78% saying those queries could often be answered from the payslip or existing guidance.

The findings come from The Pay Understanding Gap, new research from the UK and Ireland’s leading provider of AI-enabled HR, Workforce Management (WFM), pay and benefits solutions, Zellis, conducted by Censuswide among 300 payroll professionals and 1,500 employees at large UK and Irish organisations. It also exposes a stark expectation gap: 77% of employees believe payroll should catch every single mistake before payday, but only 4% of payroll professionals think that’s achievable.

Abigail Vaughan, Chief Executive Officer, Zellis said:

More than half a working day, every week, matters because of the opportunity loss it creates. That’s time that could be spent on workforce planning or responding to risk work that professionals tell us they would rather be doing. Too often payroll is only noticed when something goes wrong, but the best payroll teams aren’t just reporting on what’s happening, they’re using their insights to drive business performance. Giving employees the knowledge and tools to understand their own pay is what gives the payroll team the room to do that.

Among payroll professionals, the research found:

  • Given time back from routine queries, 65% would focus on compliance and risk management, and 62% on strategic work such as pay equity analysis and workforce planning
  • Just over 4 in 10 (43%) feel recognised as a critical business function
  • The biggest drains on payroll time are employee benefits queries (32%), compliance and regulatory change (30%) and payslip queries (30%)    

The employee findings show where that query volume comes from, and why payroll ends up absorbing it:

  • Only 49% of employees are confident they know their own tax code, the key part of payroll information that is directly tied to what they take home, compared with 89% who know their monthly take-home pay
  • 38% wouldn’t feel confident spotting a payslip error themselves, and 40% say catching it is payroll’s job, almost twice the 22% who say it’s theirs
  • 32% say they read their payslip in full every time they’re paid, but only 25% read every line item and deduction
  • 34% have taken no action at all in the past year to check their pay is correct
  • 33% have delayed an important financial decision because they weren’t sure about the finer details of their own pay    

For payroll teams, each of those gaps ends up in the same place: the query inbox, the correction run, or an error spotted too late. Much of what shapes a payslip, from hours and shifts to starters and leavers, benefits data and tax codes, originates elsewhere in the business. Payroll is simply the last function to touch the data, which makes it look accountable for all of it.

One in ten employees (10%) have now put payslip information into ChatGPT or another AI tool to check or understand it in the past 12 months. That raises a governance question alongside the workload one: sensitive pay data leaving the organisation, and answers generated with no knowledge of that employer’s pay policies, benefits scheme or local tax treatment. It also shows what employees want: instant answers about their pay. Applied AI assistance built into the employer’s own pay systems, grounded in the employee’s actual record and the organisation’s policies, can give them those answers without the data ever leaving the business, and without the query landing on payroll’s desk.

Jason Davenport, Chief Executive Officer, Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) commented on the findings, “Every payroll professional reading this will recognise the 5.3 hours a week. What the research adds is a sense of scale, and a clearer view of where those queries actually come from. The encouraging finding is what the profession says it would do with the time back: compliance, risk and strategic analysis. That is the direction the profession has been travelling in for years, and it is the argument for giving payroll teams the tools and the standing to get there.”

Zellis is calling for wider adoption of everyday language on payslips, proactive pay education, and self-service and AI assistance tools that give employees accurate answers about their own pay at the moment they need them, without having to ask. That frees payroll professionals for the strategic, higher value work the profession increasingly demands and gives them the recognition that goes with it.

The full report, The Pay Understanding Gap, is available now.

Methodology: The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 300 Respondents working in payroll in companies with 1000+ employees across the UK and ROI and 1500 full-time employees in companies with 1000+ employees across the ROI and UK. The data was collected between 26.08.2026 – 02.09.2026 for both samples. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. We adhere to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

About Zellis

Zellis helps organisations unlock meaningful outcomes by creating exceptional experiences for their people. As the UK and Ireland’s leading provider of AI-enabled HR, Workforce Management (WFM), Payroll and benefits solutions, its solutions help pay one in seven people across the region.

In 2025, Zellis brought together the very best of Zellis, elementsuite and Hastee to deliver a single system for the modern workplace. Through Worklife Reinvention, Zellis is redesigning how work gets done, with AI embedded in everyday scheduling, pay and approvals.

Zellis was named Payroll Software Supplier of the Year at the Global Payroll Awards in 2024 and 2025 and was Highly Commended in 2026.

Media contact

Lauren O’Harrow, lauren@hardnumbers.co.uk, +44 7864 874609