Position Details

College of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £31,396 to £33,966 with potential progression once in post to £38,205

Grade: 6

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 20th October 2024

Background

The Characterisation Facility in the School of Metallurgy and Materials plays a vital role in the delivery of cutting-edge practical research and high quality undergraduate and postgraduate teaching by providing staff and students with access and training on a range of equipment from materialographic preparation to advanced physical and thermal characterisation techniques. The facility in the equipment includes XRD, XRF, Particle Size Analysers, STA, DSC, TMA, heat treatment furnaces, hardness testing and universal testing machines.

The Assistant Technical Specialist (Characterisation) will support these activities; being responsible for managing the day to day running and maintenance of equipment within the Characterisation Facility, as well as line managing and setting work for other technical staff in the facility.

You will provide technical expertise, support, and guidance in research and teaching activities within the Characterisation Facility laboratories in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. You will lead on the installation, operation, maintenance, and management of characterisation equipment including materialography, and physical and thermal characterisation equipment.

As the main point of contact within the Characterisation Facility, you will need to demonstrate excellent customer service skills, maintaining a positive and proactive attitude when communicating with facility users.

The primary focus of the Assistant Technical Specialist (Characterisation) is to train and support the facility users, run samples for external and internal customers, repa and care for the equipment, prepare equipment for use through routine maintenance and calibration, replenish and restock consumables, and ensure adherence to health and safety policies.

Role summary

You will provide technical expertise, support, and guidance in research and teaching activities within the Characterisation Facility laboratories in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. You will lead on the installation, operation, maintenance, and management of characterisation equipment including materialography, physical characterisation, and thermal characterisation.

As the main point of contact within the Characterisation Facility, you will need to demonstrate excellent customer service skills, maintaining a positive and proactive attitude when communicating with facility users.

You will need a detailed understanding of characterisation techniques and experimental protocols. You will be able to use your strong technical knowledge to advise on procedures, diagnose and resolve problems, and proactively suggest solutions to issues which arise.

The role will require a commitment to maintaining high health and safety standards in shared, communal, laboratories alongside colleagues and students from a range of research groups.

You will form part of a large, diverse team of technical staff who collectively support the research and teaching activities in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. You will provide support to colleagues and students at all levels in the school, and will be expected to act as a role model and coach others as appropriate.

In order to flexibly use resource, you may be offered the opportunity to work in different areas of the department or wider university.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operation of all Characterisation Facility laboratories.
• Line management of technical staff in the facility, including conducting one-to-one meetings, annual PDR reviews, and supporting the training and development of your team.
• You will maintain high standards of Health & Safety in the facility laboratories.
• You will use your in-depth knowledge of methods and procedures to advise on techniques and experimental procedures being used by researchers and students. This will involve providing training for, and communicating with, colleagues and students at a range of experience levels.
• You will need to be able to diagnose and resolve problems with equipment, using your judgment to either undertake repairs alongside colleagues, or to liaise with service engineers, as appropriate.
• Provide specific support and advice, often challenging and reinterpreting requests, and suggest solutions in regards to techniques and experiments.
• Carry out specialist technical and experimental procedures which will need you to use your judgment to assess the correct technique to use, and to consider how these may be improved, referring to your manager and Principal Investigator for approval on any proposed changes.
• You will need to maintain accurate records of all techniques and experimental procedures you carry out, and for any other research activities you may be involved in including results.
• Awareness of wider activities in the facility, and make appropriate suggestions to solve these within own work area.
• Ensure compliance with legislation relevant to the area of work.
• Create, comply with, and promote the risk assessments and operating procedures for the area.
• You may contribute to internal and external audit procedures and to regulatory inspections.
• You may be asked to assist with teaching and outreach activities in the facility laboratories.

Health and Safety duties

• Proactive support for health and safety within the laboratory. This may include being required to look after a communal area as part of your duties. Comply with all current rules and ensure all required assessments are in place, approved, and in-date.
• Fully understand the safety aspects of equipment operation, and be able to demonstrate/train staff and students at all levels on the correct usage of the equipment.
• Ensuring that regular maintenance processes are carried out and that appropriate records are maintained.
• Reporting any breaches or non-compliance with H&S procedures to the relevant staff members.
• Upholding the correct waste disposal stream as governed by College and local policy for the laboratory.
• Postholders may be asked to undergo training as a First Aider and Fire Warden.

General Administration and Organisation

• Ensuring all records are accurate and kept up to date.
• Proactively maintain stocks of consumables and, when required, generate purchase order requisitions using University systems, or delegate as appropriate.
• Receiving and correctly storing consumables/ equipment and chemical reagents.
• Ensuring that the facilities are maintained in a clean, functional, and safe condition; reporting any problems through the appropriate channels.
• Use appropriate communication channels to inform users of the Characterisation Facility of any equipment issues or scheduled equipment downtime.
• Arrange and undertake regular testing, calibration, and servicing of laboratory equipment in the Characterisation Facility to ensure equipment is maintained, liaising with service providers and ensuring disruption to Characterisation Facility operations is minimised.
• Ensuring that locally and centrally held equipment inventories are up to date.
• Adopt a proactive attitude to assisting with and implementing carbon reduction and energy saving measures.
• Maintaining relevant research lab databases/ records.

Other Duties

• In collaboration with the relevant manager, the post holder will take an active role in the training and mentoring process for junior or newly appointed staff.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Any other duties commensurate with the role, as may reasonably be required.

Person Specification

• Extensive experience of similar laboratory-based work, together with familiarity with a wide range of laboratory equipment, equivalent professional qualification, or degree in a relevant STEM field.
• Proven specialist knowledge of characterisation techniques, methods, and procedures gained through either extensive experience and/or formal qualifications.
• Ability to diagnose/ resolve problems and suggest solutions in own area, whilst having regard to the local and wider interests. Extensive proven practical and technical experience of own area, its operation and development.
• Ability to test and implement new approaches, services or systems.
• Positive service attitude and shows courtesy in dealing with others.
• Experience of working in a customer facing role, with a demonstrable experience of customer service principles.
• Needs to understand customer requirements and ensure solutions are developed to meet the needs of the customer.
• Ability to analyse problems and summarise key points to others, including non-specialist staff. Proactively anticipates and identifies problems/ weaknesses within own area based on own experience.
• Experience of training individuals to use specialist equipment.
• Demonstrable ability to plan ahead, work to deadlines involving time management and strong organisational skills.
• Ability to organise and manage own work load and demonstrate flexibility in terms of work practices and requirements.
• Demonstrable experience in laboratory management.
• Experience training and mentoring junior staff. Experience in line management and leading and developing a team is desirable.
• Able to develop and implement improvement programmes within own local, school or service area. Manages own time and sometimes small project teams to meet a service or particular project needs.
• Will prioritise and delegate work as appropriate to ensure continuity of service.
• Provides technical guidance to junior team members. High level and range of technical support activities in specific area.
• Liaises with staff, students and technical colleagues to anticipate and understand need/ provide advice/ guidance.
• Ability to work under minimal supervision but function as part of a team.
• Knowledge of current legislation relevant to the role.
• Knowledge of current H&S policies and ability to uphold same.
• Proficiency in commonly used software packages.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

Dimensions

You will provide specialist expertise in your area and provide advice and support to a range of customers. You may supervise staff; even where you do not have supervisory responsibilities you will be expected to act as a role model for other staff. You may be involved in budget monitoring.

Planning and organising 

You will be required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons without daily supervision. You will ensure that you have the resources required, which will require planning ahead and procurement of goods.

Problem solving and decision making 

You will be able to research, modify and adapt protocols after consulting relevant manager, and prepare for research experiments. You will be able to uphold Health and Safety procedures. You will need to be confident in identifying problems, breaking them down and implementing solutions. Although you will work under the direction of more senior staff you will be able to carry out your work with a large amount of autonomy.

Internal and external relationships

This role will be advising and supporting research staff and/or students, and with external contacts such as company representatives.

Informal enquiries can be made to Tom Hutchinson (t.hutchinson@bham.ac.uk)

View our staff values and behaviours here

We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.