Crew Employment & Payroll Manager
Every crew member on a managed superyacht needs a legal employer, a compliant contract and the right pay landing on the right day. The Crew Employment & Payroll Manager makes that happen across a whole fleet. It is a desk job with real consequences. One wrong figure or a missed insurance enrolment and a deckhand in Antibes is out of pocket, or a captain loses trust in the office.
The jobWhat fills the day
Most superyacht crew are not employed by the owner directly. They are employed by a crew employment company, often based in the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Malta or Monaco, which contracts them to the yacht. You run that engine. You issue Seafarer Employment Agreements that meet MLC 2006, process monthly payroll in USD, EUR and GBP, track leave and sick pay, enrol crew on P&I and medical insurance, and handle social security where it applies. You also sort out final pay, repatriation costs and disputes when someone leaves mid-season.
The workload depends on the fleet. At a small management company you might look after 15 yachts and 200 crew yourself. At a large one you lead a team handling thousands of seafarers. Month end is always tight, with cut-off dates for captains' timesheets and bank deadlines. Season changes bring a rush of new joiners and leavers: April and May for the Med, November for the Caribbean. Rotational contracts on 70m+ yachts, day-rate relief crew and charter bonuses all add work that standard payroll software was never built for.
Hiring comes from two directions. Some managers are former pursers or chief stews who handled crew admin aboard and wanted a shore life. Others are trained payroll or HR professionals who learn yachting on the job. Employers want strong Excel, experience with a payroll system, a working grasp of employment law across several flags, and complete discretion. Owner names, salaries and medical details pass across your desk daily. French or Italian helps in Monaco offices.
The usual next step is Head of Crew Services, running crew employment, recruitment and training together. From there people move into yacht crew manager, compliance or general yacht management roles. Some take their skills to family offices that run a yacht alongside aircraft and houses. Professional qualifications such as the CIPP payroll diploma or a CIPD HR qualification speed promotion and make you more portable outside yachting if you ever want to leave the industry.
Skills employers look for
- Multi-currency payroll
- MLC 2006 compliance
- Seafarer Employment Agreements
- Social security coordination
- Crew insurance administration
- Advanced Excel
- Confidential data handling
A working dayMonth-end Thursday in a crew employment office, Douglas, Isle of Man
Check overnight emails from captains in the Caribbean and Asia. Two timesheets are still missing ahead of today's payroll cut-off.
Chase the missing timesheets and confirm a mid-month salary increase for a newly promoted bosun on a 60m motor yacht.
Run payroll checks with the team, reconciling leave days, overtime for a shipyard period and a charter bonus split.
Lunch away from the desk, usually a walk along the promenade.
Draft Seafarer Employment Agreements for three new crew joining a yacht in Palma next week and send them to the captain for approval.
Call with the P&I broker about a stewardess injured ashore in Monaco and what the contract and insurance cover.
Coffee and a catch-up with the compliance manager on an upcoming flag state audit of crew records.
Approve the final payroll file, release bank payments and send payslips to crew on 22 yachts.
Calculate final pay and holiday owed to a departing chief engineer, then close the day.
Pay by experienceAnnual salary. Estimates. Bars share one scale.
Office hours with an annual bonus at some firms. Isle of Man and Guernsey have lower income tax than mainland UK, and Monaco roles usually pay EUR 55,000 to 85,000. See the Yacht & Crew Management salary guide for figures from live adverts.
Qualifications
Must have
Gets you hired
- CIPP Diploma in Payroll Management
- CIPD Level 3 or 5 in HR
- MLC 2006 training course
- PYA GUEST purser modules
- AAT accounting qualification
Where it leadsA typical career path
Yacht & Crew Management jobsOpen now on SuperyachtRoles.com
Questions crew ask
Do I need to have worked on yachts?
No, but it helps a lot. Former pursers understand rotations, charter bonuses and how captains think. Payroll professionals from outside the industry get hired too, provided they learn MLC 2006 and seafarer social security quickly.
Why are so many of these jobs in the Isle of Man and Guernsey?
Those jurisdictions have well-established crew employment companies, stable legal systems and clear rules for employing seafarers who work outside the UK. Malta, Monaco and Fort Lauderdale also have sizeable offices.
Is the work seasonal?
The job is permanent and year-round, but workload peaks at month end and when the Med and Caribbean seasons start. Expect a few long days in April, May and November.
What is the hardest part of the job?
Handling different rules at once. A single yacht can have crew of eight nationalities, paid in three currencies, under a flag state with its own requirements. Getting all of that right every month, quietly, is the whole job.