Lab Automation Lead - biotech

Your new company
Hays have been exclusively retained by an innovative, growing biotech in London to hire an experienced Lead Automation Engineer into their R&D team. You'll work within a multidisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and data specialists, contributing to the development of cutting‑edge translational research platforms as the company builds its capacity.


Your new role
As a Senior/Lead Automation Engineer, you will take technical ownership of laboratory automation systems, focusing on the optimisation and reliability of liquid handling platforms and automated workflows as the company continues to automate a number of its processes.
Key responsibilities include:

• Owning the performance, maintenance, and reliability of laboratory automation systems, particularly liquid handling platforms
• Operating, troubleshooting, and optimising robotic systems (e.g. Hamilton, Tecan, Opentrons)
• Acting as the primary escalation point for automation failures, instrument errors, and workflow interruptions
• Translating manual and semi‑automated processes into robust, scalable automated workflows to support R&D operations
• Supporting commissioning, validation, and integration of new automation platforms
• Collaborating cross‑functionally with scientists, software engineers, and data teams to improve workflow efficiency
• Writing and maintaining SOPs, technical documentation, and troubleshooting guides
• Driving continuous improvements in throughput, reproducibility, and operational efficiency
• Coordinating vendor support, servicing, and upgrades

This is a permanent, lab based role at the company's site in London.


What you'll need to succeed
A strong candidate will bring hands‑on engineering expertise and experience improving laboratory automation systems.You should be excited by the challenges involved in bringing in new equipment and solving problems within R&D workflows and have:

• Strong experience with laboratory automation, gained in a biotech, pharma, contract research organisation, or a similar environment
• Hands‑on expertise working with liquid handling robots (e.g. Hamilton, Tecan, Opentrons) beyond routine operation
• Proven ability to troubleshoot issues (eg mechanical, fluidic, software)
• Experience developing, optimising, or scaling automated workflows
• Familiarity with LIMS/ELN and lab data workflows
• Strong communication skills and ability to work across multidisciplinary teams
• Interest in improving R&D efficiency through automation and process engineering
• The right to work in the UK (no sponsorship is available)

Nice to haves, but not essential are:

• Experience with flow cytometry or single‑cell genomics automation
• The ability to modify automation scripts, instrument methods, or vendor software protocols, but there is an established software team for this

What you'll get in return
You'll be taking the lead for the company's automation as they continue to build this capacity and transfer their processes from manual to semi-automated and fully-automated; as well as solving hands-on problems you'll also be feeding into the company's automation strategy and working directly with C-suite and other senior stakeholders.
You'll also get a generous salary, bonus and benefits package and a great working environment with a dedicated and friendly team.


What you need to do now
If you're interested in this role, click 'apply now' to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call us now.
If this job isn't quite right for you, but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion about your career.

Keywords: Lead, Senior, Automation, Engineer, Laboratory, Robotics, Liquid, Handling, Scientist, Research, Pharmaceutical, Biotech, Workflow, Optimisation, Throughput, Systems, Engineering, Hamilton, Tecan, Opentrons, LIMS, ELN, Integration, Troubleshooting, Validation, Maintenance, Instrumentation, Software, Data, Efficiency, Process, Platforms, Scalability