Research careers

Summary for Resesarch Careers

Be part of something bigger

Our passion for discovery drives our quest to uncover the basis of genetic and infectious disease. Our research is built upon our Faculty of approximately 40 research leaders. Each develops his or her own hypothesis-driven research, seeking answers to important biomedical questions, and leads a team of postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and support staff. We look to our Faculty to provide the vision to establish and lead internationally influential science, while giving them access to unparalleled facilities to support the delivery of projects and the generation of data and biological resources on a vast scale.

The Institute’s researchers engage in projects that seek to further understanding of gene function in health and disease. They aim to generate data and resources of lasting value to biomedical research that can be translated into diagnostics, treatments or therapies that reduce global health burdens.

Our research portfolio is broadly divided into seven main areas of investigation: Human genetics; mouse and zebrafish genetics; cellular genetics; cancer genomics, pathogen genetics; malaria; and computational genomics. Working within these areas, our Faculty of world-leading scientists can explore and develop their own unique hypotheses.

View our Vacancies

Career opportunities are available across all areas of the Sanger Institute’s research portfolio. We recruit locally, nationally and internationally and welcome applications and expressions of interest at every level. View our vacancies either through our own Sanger jobs portal, on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Ways to find our Vacancies:

Faculty Positions

We look to our Academic Faculty to provide the vision to establish and lead internationally influential science while giving them access to unparalleled facilities to support the delivery of projects and the generation of data and biological resources on a vast scale. The research projects of each Faculty member are aligned to and strengthen our overarching areas of human genetics, mouse and zebrafish genetics, pathogen genetics and bioinformatics.

Our research is built upon our Faculty of approximately 40 research leaders. Each develops his or her own hypothesis-driven research, seeking answers to important biomedical questions, and leads a team of postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and support staff. Faculty recruitment takes places in several ways, including opportunities for clinicians.

Research roles

Our Research Managers and Research Assistants are generally degree qualified individuals – in higher grades you may need more advanced qualifications – who use their experience and knowledge to provide technical leadership and administrative support to a project or several projects. They carry out biological experiments and form the core of a laboratory or project(s).

As a Research Manager or Assistant at the Institute, you may operate either as a team member carrying out scientific procedures or have responsibility for an element of a team’s activity. Research Managers provide dedicated support to the Head of Faculty and their teams. This includes strategic oversight and operational management to ensure the delivery of a seamless scientific administrative service.

Postdoctoral Fellow Positions

Training and developing scientists is an important priority for the Wellcome Sanger Institute. We offer a wide range of opportunities for Postdoctoral Fellows (PDFs) and provide a first class and well-resourced learning environment in which individuals are equipped with the knowledge and skills they will need for a successful career in science.

We welcome applications and approaches from committed and talented individuals who would like to spend time at the Sanger Institute as part of their postdoctoral training. There are a number of routes in and the Institute provides a flexible-structured PDF Programme. We also offer the Janet Thornton Fellowship which is a postdoctoral level fellowship aimed at those who have been out of science for a minimum of 12 months.

Postdoctoral Fellows information

Postdoctoral Fellow programme

Scientific Management Roles

Scientific Managers will generally be found within the Institute’s larger, more complex pipelines and projects, although larger Faculty teams may also engage Scientific Managers particularly where there are high throughput activities.

Scientific Managers have a variety of backgrounds and experience but all of their roles comprise significant managerial aspects – responsibility for projects, people, resources, budgets and often a combination of all four. Many are scientifically trained to PhD level; others will have a first degree in a biological or computing discipline and/or professional management qualifications. All roles will require a successful track record in managing scientific/technical teams and projects and call for particular skills in communication, coaching and managing priorities.

Bioinformatician roles

Genomic research generates data on a massive scale and the infrastructure and methods to manage and interpret large-scale data are essential to the translation of research into biological understanding. Our bioinformaticians are more directly involved in the scientific research and use computers as their ‘tools’. Roles range from developing the software which underpins scientific projects and programmes to carrying out biological analyses, from generating statistical hypotheses to annotating genes, from writing complex algorithms to piecing together sequence data.