Senior Research Laboratories Technician

Job description
Job Description

UE06- £32,+82- £38,205 pro rata

College of Science & Engineering- School of Physics & Astronomy

Part Time- 24 hours per week

Open Ended- Permanent Contract

The Opportunity

This role offers a fantastic opportunity to apply and develop your engineering, technical, facilities-management, Health & Safety and project management skills in an exciting and world leading research environment.

The successful candidate will provide specialist technical support across a range of scientific research laboratories, both within the James Clerk Maxwell Building and Erskine Williamson Building. These labs include rheology, optics & lasers, X-ray, high pressure, magnetism and extremes of temperature. You will have the ability to use, maintain and develop a full range of scientific equipment and apparatus, underpinning the supervision, training and support given to staff, students and visitors undertaking experiments within these facilities. Additionally, you will jointly fulfill the role of Deputy CSEC Superintendent, supporting and assisting the facility’s Superintendent in their various duties – including facilities management and health and safety guidance and compliance – particularly with respect to the laboratory facilities and the scientific equipment, apparatus and instrumentation therein.

As a minimum, you will be educated to HNC/HND level in a technical or engineering discipline and have experience in scientific laboratory and workshop environments. Whilst the role requires demonstrable knowledge and experience of instrumentation, experimental apparatus, and laboratory / facilities management, training in specialist areas will be provided as required

This post is part-time (24 hours per week) and is available with immediate effect. As this is a shared role, we would be open to considering a flexible working pattern.

As part of your application, we would welcome a CV and brief covering statement describing your suitability for this position.

Informal inquiries may be made by contacting the Technical Services Manager – Neil Wood – neil.a.wood@ed.ac.uk or the CSEC Superintendent – Katalin Kis – Katalin.Kis@ed.ac.uk

The School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce, and eliminating discrimination. The School strives to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for all and we are looking to actively diversify our staff. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates and in particular encourage applications from people of colour, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people and other minority and under-represented groups. We aim to ensure that our culture and systems support flexible and family-friendly working, as evidenced by our Juno Champion and Athena SWAN Silver awards.

Your Skills And Attributes For Success
• Well organised with excellent planning skills
• Self-motivated
• Excellent and well proven inter-personal/communication skills
• A high degree of technical expertise
• Relevant experience in a similar role

Click to view a copy of the full job description (opens new browser tab)

As a valued member of our team, you can expect:
• A competitive salary of £32,+82 to £38,205 (pro rata)
• An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work
• To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community
• Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, staff discounts, family-friendly initiatives, and flexible work options. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page (opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits

Championing equality, diversity and inclusion

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.

The School of Physics and Astronomy strives to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for all and we are looking to actively diversify our staff. We particularly encourage applications from people of colour, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people and other minority and under-represented groups. We aim to ensure that our culture and systems support flexible and family-friendly working, as evidenced by our Juno Champion and Athena SWAN Silver awards.

Prior to any employment commencing with the University, you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work web pages (opens new browser tab)

The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. International applicants will therefore be unable to apply for and secure a Skilled Worker visa. They will only be able to take up this role if they can demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.

Key dates to note

The closing date for applications is 12 September 2024.

Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:5+pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone.

Interview dates TBC.

About Us

As a world-leading research-intensive University, we are here to address tomorrow’s greatest challenges. Between now and 2030 we will do that with a values-led approach to teaching, research and innovation, and through the strength of our relationships, both locally and globally.

About The Team

ICMCS deals with the emergent behaviour from many interacting objects. The traditional application of this is to Condensed matter physics (CMP), which is concerned with the study of liquids and solids, and ‘viscoelastic’ materials (such as polymers and suspensions) with properties in between. In essence, condensed matter physics is about discovering and characterising the behaviour of these materials in the laboratory, and understanding such behaviour in terms of the microscopic constituents (atoms, molecules, colloidal particle, etc.). Experimentally, the determination of structure, and the characterisation of static and dynamic optical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical, high pressure and other properties calls upon a very wide range of tools. To gain conceptual understanding of phenomena uncovered in the laboratory requires the methods of quantum, classical and statistical mechanics, applied both analytically and by computer simulations.

We have special expertise in extreme conditions physics (high pressures, high magnetic field, low temperature), and in soft matter, unravelling the complex behaviour of suspensions and polymers. Finally, we are now applying the methods and results of CMP to the study of non-equilibrium complex systems. This includes biological systems which are, after all, specialised forms of condensed matter. It also includes evolving and social systems such as ecosystems, economics and linguistics.

Applications of the Institute's work are very broad, ranging from life on mars, through terrestrial ecosystems, materials for nuclear reactors, antimicrobial drugs, crystallography at extreme conditions, synthesis of superhard materials, liquid crystals, paints, shampoo to tomato ketchup. It is therefore not surprising that more physicists work in CMP than in perhaps any other single sub-discipline of physics.

Further information can be viewed at https://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/icmcs