Microscopy Specialist

**Position Details**

College of Medicine and Health

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £35,880 to £45,163 with potential progression once in post to £47,874

Grade: 7

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 20th March 2025

**Our offer to you**

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

**Background**

**Role Summary**

**Main Duties**

**Provide a professional specialist service for the Microscopy Facility,**which will include:

- Providing full and bespoke service for light microscopy, confocal, including our high throughput systems for internal and external costumers. This will include consultations with the costumer on their experimental needs to optimize the cell sorting strategy to ensure success.
- Training users in equipment offering at the facility and curating competency training records to enable users to use equipment unsupervised where appropriate. Providing professional assistance, supervision and guidance to users to effectively use the equipment for their experimental needs.
- Providing professional specialist feedback on results to users, identifying and advising on enhancements to procedures/protocols which may elicit improvements in data.
- Ensuring the service always operates in an effective and efficient manner and the equipment is maintained, serviced, and calibrated to run to optimal parameters. And ensuring all necessary documentation pertaining to these activities is stored appropriately for review by the Research Facilities Manager.
- Organising and attending, together with the Research Facilities Manager/Technical Lead, user group meetings to review new technology and developments in the field as well as explaining the usage and capabilities of current instruments.
- Coordinating in the organisation and delivery of Continuous Professional Development by and for internal and external stakeholders.
- Promoting the Microscopy Facility services offered by the Technology Hub.
- Managing IT systems administration, with operations including file transfer, scheduled back-ups and long-term archiving of data.

**Health and Safety Management**
- Responsible for ensuring all facility users working within the area of responsibility, comply with all University/College Health & Safety policies. This will include compliance by all staff with current rules governing work with COSHH, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), biological samples, human tissue etc. and ensuring all required assessments are in place, approved and up to date.
- Responsible as a Laser Safety Officer for the area, ensuring that there is compliance with the local regulations, and documentation in place.
- Reporting any breaches or non-compliance with Health and Safety procedures to the Research Facilities Manager and/or College Health and Safety Manager.
- Ensuring the correct waste disposal protocols are complied with for laboratory, rec