Technical Specialist

**Position Details**

School of Metallurgy and Materials

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822

Grade: 7

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 10th December 2025

**Background**

The Facility for Electron Microscopy (FEM) is based within the School of Metallurgy and Materials and supports and provides access to state-of-the art equipment for more than 70 research groups across 3 Colleges at the University of Birmingham (Engineering & Physical Sciences, Life & Environmental Sciences, and the College of Medicine & Health), as well as to more than 20 external academic and industrial partners. The FEM has over 200 individual users who we support to use our suite of ten electron microscopes, including three Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM). Other services provided include sample preparation, coating and cleaning, and specimen sectioning on ultramicrotomes.

**Role Summary**

The post holder will be a technical specialist for Electron Microscopy, in particular TEM, to provide technical expertise, support, and guidance to users in the FEM to strengthen the service we offer. The post holder will support the FEM and its users through operation and maintenance of Electron Microscopes, sample preparation activities, and training and supervision of users.

As a member of the technical team, the post holder will assist in maintaining the FEM and its lab spaces. This includes equipment such as a scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes, micro-CT systems, and ultramicrotomes, coating machines and other sample preparation equipment.

The post holder will work closely with research staff and PhD students from the University of Birmingham, as well as external Universities, and industrial and commercial contacts.

The post holder will not be carrying out their own research, but will contribute to the success of research within the university through training and technical support. Where training is not feasible, the post holder will operate the equipment to generate high quality data and images for both internal and external customers.

The post holder will be line managed by the FEM Manager in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. The post holder will supervise and line-manage other technical staff.

The post holder will be required to lead on daily, weekly, and monthly tasks without daily supervision, leading on projects with medium to longer term horizons also. They may be involved in monitoring of research and will be able to research, modify, and adapt protocols after consulting relevant senior staff.

The post holder will need an in-depth understanding of the research questions, techniques, and experimental protocols. They will be able to use their knowledge and experience to advise on procedures, diagnose and resolve problems, and proactively suggest solutions to issues which arise. The post holder may need to operate out of normal working hours to accommodate experimental procedures.

**Main Duties**

- Support the FEM and its users through specialist operation and maintenance of transmission electron microscopes and the related sample preparation.
- Line-manage other members of technical staff.
- Assist in managing the laboratory areas including Health & Safety responsibilities.
- Use knowledge of methods and procedures to advise on experimental techniques being used by researchers and/or students. This will involve communicating with colleagues at a range of levels.
- It will be essential to contribute to effective knowledge transfer in the context of user training/teaching new users and also in presenting in technical and scientific meetings/workshops for knowledge/skill exchange.
- Diagnose and resolve problems and suggest solutions regarding techniques and experiments. Problem solving, including diagnosis of mechanical, electronic or vacuum problems in the microscopes. Liaison with service engineers to ensure as little down time with equipment as possible, judgment on when to call a service engineer.
- Carry out work with a large amount of autonomy.
- Partly responsible for proactively managing and maintaining the equipment of the FEM. Calibrate and maintain equipment as required. This includes but is not limited to measuring ionizing radiation, maintaining vacuum systems, filter changes, calibrating instruments.
- Organise disposal of waste materials though the correct processes.
- Use in-depth knowledge of methods and procedures to advise and lead on techniques and experimental procedures being used by researchers and/or students. This will involve communicating with colleagues at a range of levels, as well as with inexperienced students.
- Be able to diagnose and resolve problems, proactively identifying solutions regarding techniques and experiments and acting as an escalation point.
- Develop cutting edge services and systems to anti