Market leading HR and Payroll for Higher Education
Universities and colleges face rising costs, diverse workforces, and increasing pressure to deliver accurate, compliant HR and payroll operations. Zellis HCM AIR gives you clarity, confidence and control – with real-time data, automated compliance, and integrated payroll for academic and professional services staff.
Why higher education institutions choose Zellis
Zellis empowers universities.
Accurate payroll for every contract type
Manage term-time, academic roles, irregular hours, research contracts, and multiple roles with complete accuracy.
Connected data for HR and Pay
Gain real-time visibility of workforce costs, compliance risks, and pay anomalies across faculties, campuses, and departments.
Compliance built in
Automated checks for right-to-work, visa tracking, pensions, National Minimum Wage, and audit-ready reporting.
Self-service
Mobile access to intelligent payslips, appointments, policies, and updates reduces admin queries and improves the campus experience.
The Zellis difference in Higher Education
With better insight, streamlined processes, and accurate payroll, your teams can focus on research, teaching and student success, not spreadsheets.
Designed for the sector
Support for complex pensions and academic-specific contract structures.
Actionable insight for leaders
Real-time dashboards highlight staffing trends, cost pressures, and compliance issues.
Integrated systems
Connect HR, payroll and existing systems for a single source of truth.
Secure and accessible
Role-based access and mobile-friendly tools give every colleague a seamless experience.
Ready to Bring Clarity and Confidence to HR and Payroll?
Join the universities using Zellis to streamline HR and payroll processes, enhance governance and free up teams to focus on teaching and research.
Download the Higher Education brochure
Universities today face tightening budgets, fluctuating student numbers and increasing reliance on complex, multi‑contract workforces — all at a time when regulatory expectations from OfS, HESA, UKVI and multiple pension schemes continue to rise. Legacy systems simply weren’t built for this level of complexity.
Our Higher Education brochure shows how Zellis brings real‑time payroll, AI‑enabled insight and seamless cloud‑based integration to help HR, payroll and finance teams reduce admin, improve accuracy and stay ahead of change.
Expert services that scale with your institution
Managed payroll services
Ensure accurate pay for large, diverse workforces, from academics to visiting lecturers.
Payroll resilience and assistance
Bring in specialist support during peaks, restructures, or staffing gaps.
Background checking and compliance
Standardise DBS/right-to-work and sponsorship checks with digital record-keeping.
Financial wellbeing for staff
Earned wage access, financial education, and analytics that improve wellbeing and retention.
Don’t just take our word for it
Our Higher Education customers in numbers
60+
91%
87%
86%
Frequently Asked Questions
Ready to unlimit what’s next for your university or college?
Bring clarity, accuracy, and resilience to your HR and Payroll operations.
Trusted by leading global clients
Our latest resources for higher education
The hidden stress quietly holding MATs back
Discover how financial pressure is impacting staff wellbeing, performance and skills development across Multi‑Academy Trusts.
Why HR and payroll integration is the key to reducing cost, risk and admin across Multi-Academy Trusts
Discover how integrating HR and payroll systems can help MATs cut costs, strengthen safeguarding and provide a positive experience for staff.Centralisation in multi-academy trusts: What good looks like in practice
As MATs grow and processes diverge, discover how centralisation gives staff across every trust the confidence and clarity they need.
