King's College London

About us:

The Department of Psychology was founded in 1950 at the Institute of Psychiatry - now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, IoPPN - since when it has carried on a distinguished programme of research, teaching, and clinical practice. The Department is one of the UK’s largest academic groupings of clinical and health psychologists, with developing strength in broader areas of psychological science.

The IoPPN is a Faculty of King's College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease.  The IoPPN's greatest strength is the interdisciplinary nature of both its research strategy and educational activities, providing unique opportunities for students and staff. You can find out more here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/index.aspx 

Our BPS-accredited BSc Psychology undergraduate programme, which started in September 2015, was the first undergraduate degree within the IoPPN and has grown in student numbers to an intake of approximately 270 students per year. The programme is highly ranked across the UK and worldwide, reflecting our commitment to high quality education.

This role will be based primarily at KCL’s Guy’s Campus (London Bridge), where the BSc Psychology team is based. The team contains approximately 30 academics, focused on teaching and supervising undergraduate students. The IoPPN also has staff based at both the Denmark Hill and Waterloo campuses, and some travel to these campuses may be occasionally necessary. King’s also welcomes hybrid working, and working from home may be a possibility when members of staff are not engaged in duties requiring them to be on campus (to be discussed at the point of offer).

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity for two highly motivated Lecturers (Education) to join us to contribute to the BSc Psychology programme within the Department of Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London (IoPPN, KCL), and to deliver specialist teaching commensurate with their field of expertise.

The postholders will be responsible for delivery, leading, and future development of modules in psychology, including coverage of topics from the British Psychological Society (BPS) core curriculum. In particular, we are looking for expertise in one or more of the following areas to support teaching in our core curriculum and popular optional areas:

-          Biological Psychology: teaching topics such as the ionic basis of the action potential and the neural basis of attention.

-          Individual differences: teaching topics related to how genes and environment influence psychological traits and mental health conditions.

-          Mental health: teaching topics related to specific conditions (e.g. risk factors for eating disorder) as well as research and intervention approaches.

-          Performance: teaching topics related to human performance (e.g. in elite sports or other demanding occupations) and skill acquisition.   

We are therefore seeking enthusiastic and dedicated colleagues who can make a distinctive contribution to education. We are particularly interested in recruiting people with a background in learning, teaching, and assessment in relation to core BPS curriculum content for undergraduate programmes, and who have a current programme of psychology and/or pedagogical research. You should have excellent teaching and communication skills and be able to inspire and inform students.

The appointment will be made at Lecturer level on the Academic Education Pathway, where the primary contribution is to education (80% of role) and secondary contribution to scholarship (20%). On average, this would be the equivalent of four days a week spent on education. The AEP contract is focused on the delivery of education, education and subject-specific scholarship, and leadership in education. The following expectations are associated with the AEP for BSc Psychology staff: teaching on core modules, supervision of approximately 6-10 undergraduate students per year for dissertations, student support including personal tutoring, educational leadership and innovation, education-related and subject-specific research, and administration. Promotion is possible throughout the Academic Education Pathway, up to the level of Professor (Education). The content of a member of staff’s workload will be decided in discussion with the Head of Department and line manager.

We are deeply committed to embedding good equality and diversity practice into all our activities so that the university is an inclusive, welcoming, and inspiring place to work and study. The IoPPN strives to be an open and supportive community, with a strong emphasis on working practices that promote diversity and inclusion.

This is a full-time position (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

The start date for this appointment will be 1st September 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter.

About you:

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

Essential criteria

1. PhD awarded in area relevant to the BSc Psychology programme (Biological, Individual Differences, Mental Health or Performance)
2. Experience of module leadership on undergraduate modules for Psychology students
3. Experience of designing and delivering excellent teaching and assessment for undergraduate students, in person and online, particularly in relation to modules in biological psychology, individual differences, mental health and performance.
4. Highly effective oral and written communication skills, to convey conceptual and complex ideas and information
5. Ability to conduct high quality research evidenced in the areas where teaching is required or pedagogic research, for example, by high-quality publications and presentation of research in national and/or international fora
6. Evidence of high self-motivation and ability to organize, plan and prioritize workload, alongside good administrative skills, including excellent IT skills and experience with virtual learning environments (e.g., Moodle)
7. Ability to supervise high quality undergraduate research project, evidenced by experience of successful project supervision

Desirable criteria

1. Higher Education accreditation/qualification (e.g. Advance HE Fellowship or PGCAPHE)
2. Understanding of the UK Higher Education environment
3. Experience of providing pastoral support and guidance to undergraduate students
4. Track record of obtaining funding support for pedagogic research, or research in an area where teaching is required.

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 page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university. The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination. When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

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 person specification section of the job description. 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.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

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

Interviews are provisionally due to be held in the week commencing 22nd June.