King's College London

About us

The Centre for Oral Clinical & Translational Sciences, within King’s College London’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, has a vacancy for a Biomaterials technician to run a busy research laboratory.

The centre caters for undergraduate and postgraduate research studies, specialising in healthcare technologies, and the successful candidate will be an experienced user of a range of technologies including mechanical testing and chemical characterization techniques.

The centre is located at King's College London’s Guy’s Campus at London Bridge. 

About the role

A biomaterials laboratory specialist is required for the management, maintenance and operation of the biomaterials laboratory for the user community. They should have knowledge in mechanical, thermal and general biomaterials equipment testing, ideally with an engineering background. The role holder will report to the Technical Operations Manager of Floor 17 of Guy’s Tower, where the centre’s laboratories are housed. Additionally, there will be a component to the role involving helping maintain the dental teaching Phantom Head models in the Floor 20 undergraduate laboratory.

Key responsibilities and objectives of the role include the provision of day to day management, maintenance and operation of the Biomaterials laboratory for the user community. This will include safety oversight for all new postgraduate and undergraduate students starting research projects in the laboratory including inductions and generation of relevant H&S documents appropriate to their projects, as well as giving general lab training for users to ensure competence prior to commencement of their work.

The role holder will also ensure maintenance of equipment, using either their own knowledge or through contractor engagement, and will work collaboratively with other members of the faculty’s technical team to provide a cohesive support base for all laboratory users

The role holder will become expert in managing specialist equipment access e.g. fatigue and static loading machines, thermal analysis equipment, operating highly specialized machinery such as TA (Bose) testing machines, lnstron testing machines, DMA, DSC and FTIR equipment.

The role will involve maintaining close links with our partner Trusts (e.g. GSTT Medical Physics workshops) to develop tools and jigs for use in the centre’s laboratories.

The individual will need to be able to interact and deal with a variety of personalities, and also to support post graduate teaching practicals if directed to do so. This will include liaising with Principal Investigators, the faculty’s Resources Manager and Estates to ensure the facility environment is maintained to an optimal state, as well as working with the Faculty Safety Manager, to ensure that health and safety policies, systems and procedures are implemented effectively, including COSHH, risk assessments and SOPs.

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. BSc or equivalent in relevant field 
2. Skilled technician with expertise in biomaterials testing using a variety of materials testing equipment 
3. Ability to interact and communicate well with a range of different collaborating research teams and colleagues 
4. Able to work well as part of a team and adapt proactively and innovatively to new challenges as and when they arise 
5. Effective time management skills, well organised and able to work independently 
6. Able to multi-task and manage a varied workload with flexibility within an environment with constant interruptions 
7. Ability to deal with confidential matters 
8. Ability to innovate and keep up to date with latest technologies

Desirable criteria

1. Experience in working in a research and/or teaching environment 
2. Involvement in oversight of shared resource/ small research facility 
3. Science council professional registration (or willingness to register) 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

We are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.

This post is subject to Occupational Health clearances.