School/Department School of Water, Energy and Environment
Based at Cranfield Campus, Cranfield, Bedfordshire
Hours of work 37 hours per week, normally worked Monday to Friday. Flexible working will be considered.
Contract type Permanent
Salary Full time starting salary is normally in the range of £33,309 to £37,127 per annum, with potential progression up to £46,409 per annum
Apply by 28/06/2021

Role Description

Interviews to be held: 08th July 2021

Cranfield University’s world-class expertise, large-scale facilities and unrivalled industry partnerships is creating leaders in technology and management globally. Learn more about Cranfield and our unique impact here.

The School of Water, Energy and Environment and Technical Services welcomes applications from experienced technicians who are open to progressing their career.

About the School of Water, Energy and Environment

The School of Water, Energy and Environment leads in delivering Cranfield’s Mission within Water, Energy and Power, and Environment and Agrifood.  The School is committed to leading in its areas of expertise through investing in world class staff and facilities over the long term.

Cranfield’s expertise in energy and power covers a range of the potential energy solutions, from our ongoing relationship with oil and gas, to our developing reliance on renewable energy from the world around us. The changing energy landscape presents exciting opportunities and the potential for the UK to lead in new technologies and services related to low carbon energy and power generation.  Our expertise is supported by unique industrial scale experimental facilities across many kinds of energy systems. These world-leading multi-disciplinary energy research facilities span thermal, biochemical, wind and wave energy technologies:

• Advanced thermal conversion processes;
• Clean hydrogen production;
• Combustion processes;
• Carbon capture technologies;
• Anaerobic digestion plant;
• Structural integrity laboratory;
• Materials testing in energy recovery environments;
• Process systems laboratory

About the Role

Development and maintenance of first-class teaching and industrial-scale research facilities is key to delivering the University strategy, alongside the need for strong and flexible technical support, which enables academic staff and researchers to deliver contracts to quality, time and cost, and to deliver teaching informed by our research.  The facilities mission is, ‘To provide an efficient, effective, flexible, financially secure and safe set of facilities to meet the research (and teaching) needs for all users while providing an environment which encourages excellence and innovation in our research activities.’

This role will provide specialist technical support, alongside the day to day line management of the Energy technical team.  Under the leadership of the Head of Technical Services, you will work to develop and deliver premier technical support and technical facilities. 

About You

You will have significant technical expertise with practical experience gained in a mechanical engineering field, and will be comfortable working with large test-scale combustion and other energy technology rigs. You will have well-developed troubleshooting skills and be able to competently develop academics outline plans into physical testing capabilities. You will also have an appreciation of the materials testing and analytical requirements of energy-related research work. 

You will be a motivated individual, someone who wants to lead a practical and dedicated hands-on technical team to deliver a safe, high quality, highly productive working environment. We have an ambition to ‘set the standard’ and become an example for a how good a highly operational mechanical / chemical engineering lab can be. You will therefore, be knowledgeable and able to achieve the operation of research facilities to a high level of health, safety and environmental awareness. You will also be an excellent communicator and able to work with a wide range of people. 

In return, the successful applicant will have support to ensure their ideas deliver our desired outcome, alongside future opportunities for career development and opportunities to supportworld leading research and education.

Our Values

Our shared, stated values help to define who we are and underpin everything we do: Ambition; Impact; Respect; and Community. Find out more here. We aim to create and maintain a culture in which everyone can work and study together and realise their full potential.

Technician Commitment

As part of our commitment to support and develop Technical staff across the University, we are a founding signatory of the Science Council's Technician Commitment. This is a sector wide, collaborative initiative led by the Science Council and supported by the 'Technicians Make It Happen' campaign, to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research.

Diversity and Inclusion

Our equal opportunities and diversity monitoring has shown that women and minority ethnic groups are currently underrepresented within the university and so we actively encourage applications from eligible candidates from these groups.

To further demonstrate our commitment to progressing gender diversity in STEM, we are members of WES & Working Families, and sponsors of International Women in Engineering Day.

Flexible Working

We actively consider flexible working options such as part-time, compressed or flexible hours and/or an element of homeworking, and commit to exploring the possibilities for each role. Find out more here.

How to apply

For an informal discussion about this opportunity, please contact Mrs Jane Hubble, Head of Technical Services (SWEE), at j.s.hubble@cranfield.ac.uk