Top Research Jobs in Edinburgh

Conduct research on trustworthy agentic AI and security infrastructure spanning cryptography, privacy-enhancing technologies, formal verification, and agentic systems. Help design and implement workflows that translate user requirements into formal specifications, select or generate cryptographic protocols, and verify their properties using tools such as Lean and ProVerif. Contribute to project deliverables, publications, datasets, presentations, and dissemination activities while collaborating with investigators and leading research artefacts as appropriate.

Provides organized administrative support to the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration team, covering public involvement, finance, operations, process improvement, and coordination across universities, collaborators, and members of the public. The role is part-time, fixed-term, and based in Edinburgh. It requires strong written communication, organization, teamwork, flexibility, and a solution-focused approach.

Conduct theoretical and computational research on turbulent mixing and small-scale fluid dynamics in the Arctic Ocean. Develop theoretical models, validate them through idealized numerical simulations using Oceananigans, analyze oceanic observations, and implement parameterization schemes in regional Arctic ocean models. Collaborate with the principal investigator, National Oceanography Centre, and university partners to assess impacts on ocean and climate modeling.

Conduct academic research developing optical elastography technologies for measuring the mechanical properties of living cells, organoids, and tissues. Responsibilities include fabricating and characterising soft gels, performing biomechanical and optical measurements, assembling and testing prototypes, analysing research data, preparing reports, and supporting dissemination and collaboration with academic and industry partners.

Conduct experimental research developing optical elastography technologies for measuring mechanical properties of living cells and tissues. Apply optical interferometry, quantitative phase imaging, and computational analysis; develop scripts, integrate and validate prototypes, guide a Research Assistant, and contribute to publications, presentations, partnerships, intellectual property, commercialization, and funding activities.

Coordinates drug research seminars, knowledge-exchange and research-collaboration events, plus an annual conference. The role engages drug policy stakeholders, including people with lived and living experience of drug use, and supports research activity within the University of Edinburgh. It is a part-time, fixed-term position with hybrid working potentially available.

Conduct research on morpho-syntactic variation and change in historical Scots, and develop methods for annotating parsed corpora and treebanks. The researcher will contribute to the ESRC-funded INTSAYT project, developing new research ideas, approaches, concepts, and techniques alongside the project’s Co-Investigator. This is a full-time, three-year fixed-term postdoctoral position at the University of Edinburgh.

Leads the global Gas and LNG research team, hiring and developing analysts, managing resources and delivery schedules, maintaining research quality, and supporting cross-functional transformation. The role partners with senior stakeholders across regions and functions, ensures timely supply-demand, cost, and price forecasting, and uses energy-market expertise to challenge analysis and improve team performance.

Conduct postdoctoral research on DNA methylation, epigenetic marks, and gene regulation. Use sequencing-based functional genomics assays, including TT-seq, CUT&RUN, and Nanopore sequencing, alongside synthetic landing-pad approaches in human embryonic stem cell models. Collaborate across multidisciplinary laboratories, analyze molecular and computational data, independently advance research projects, and contribute to publications.

Leads the FCA’s Agentic AI and Data Science Research function, setting AI strategy, governance, research ethics, data science standards, and long-term capability roadmaps. The role directs horizon scanning, responsible AI adoption, model assurance, and advanced analytics initiatives supporting regulation, financial crime reduction, and organisational effectiveness. It provides senior technical advice, leads multidisciplinary teams, develops talent, and influences executive, board, regulatory, and technology stakeholders.

Conduct genomic, molecular, and epigenetic research on germline-specific chromosomes in Bradysia coprophila. Investigate programmed DNA elimination and chromosome biology using genomic data analysis and laboratory techniques. Collaborate within an interdisciplinary international project and contribute to establishing Bradysia as a model system for unusual inheritance and chromosome behavior. Strong communication, organizational, and problem-solving skills are required.

Conduct nuclear astrophysics research by developing and applying R-matrix evaluations of experimental nuclear reaction cross-section data. Provide global fits and astrophysical reaction-rate evaluations, collaborate with international researchers and overseas laboratories, present findings at meetings, and contribute to supervising graduate and undergraduate students.

Conduct field-based mixed-methods research in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia on climate-information networks among pastoralists. Use social network analysis, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and workshops to collect and organize data. Apply R or Python to visualize networks, collaborate with international research partners, and contribute to academic reports and peer-reviewed publications.

Coordinate Secretariat communications and engagement for the National Research Organisations Group. Draft and maintain content, support member and stakeholder liaison, organise meetings and events, manage shared trackers, inboxes and document libraries, and provide administrative support to working groups to increase NRO visibility.

Conduct independent research on frontier AI evaluation and auditing. Design rigorous evaluations, audit methods, and reproducible experimental pipelines; analyze model capabilities, risks, robustness, and alignment-relevant behavior. Produce audit reports, recommendations, publications, tools, and presentations while collaborating with technical, policy, engineering, and standards teams. The role requires careful handling of confidential information and may involve pilot audits with frontier AI companies.

Conduct research in statistical machine learning, robot learning, and whole-body multi-contact robotic manipulation. Develop model-based and machine-learning methods, including trajectory optimization, MPPI, reinforcement learning, and diffusion policies. Work with KUKA and Kawada robot hardware, sensing, force feedback, simulation environments, and shared-autonomy teleoperation. Collaborate with project partners in Japan, support student research, deploy systems in the field, and report research progress and results.

Design, train, and evaluate large multimodal and vision-language-action models for robotic agents. Develop reinforcement and imitation learning methods, embodied datasets, simulation environments, world models, planning systems, and sim-to-real experiments. Build robust research software and distributed training infrastructure, validate approaches on physical robots, and collaborate with research and engineering teams to deploy reliable systems. Communicate findings through technical reports, open-source releases, demonstrations, and publications.

Conduct clinical trial site qualification, initiation, monitoring, and close-out visits. Ensure protocol compliance, data integrity, and patient safety; collaborate with investigators and site staff; review data and resolve queries; and contribute to study documentation, protocols, and clinical study reports. The role requires approximately 60% travel across Scotland and Northern UK.

Leads strategic internal and external communications for the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, covering media relations, social media, website, newsletters, publications, events and campaigns. Develops content, manages communications planning and brand compliance, evaluates audience engagement, builds relationships with media and stakeholders, supports senior spokespeople, and contributes to crisis communications. The role may include line management, committee representation, occasional travel, evening and weekend work, and reactive press support.

Designs, builds, and evaluates research prototypes and production-ready systems for portable AI agents, model routing, provider interoperability, memory, retrieval, tool use, and multi-agent workflows. Responsibilities include developing evaluation frameworks, conducting statistically rigorous experiments, creating schemas and APIs, optimizing model and agent systems, and translating research into secure, reliable, reusable components. The role collaborates across research, infrastructure, security, product, and engineering teams and communicates findings through technical reports, benchmarks, demonstrations, open-source releases, and publications.

Conduct industry, market, competitor, and target-account research across enterprise technology and industrial sectors. Analyze procurement processes, customer priorities, comparable products, and emerging opportunities. Summarize findings in reports and presentations while supporting consulting and product initiatives. Collaborate with leadership on commercial strategy and organize complex information into clear insights.

Conducts clinical site qualification, initiation, monitoring, management, and close-out activities for UK studies. Ensures ICH-GCP, regulatory, protocol, data integrity, informed consent, investigational product, and documentation compliance. Performs source data review, query resolution, site file reconciliation, recruitment support, audit readiness, and site communications. Manages site-level timelines and action plans, collaborates with sponsors and study teams, attends meetings and training, and may support real-world late-phase chart abstraction and junior staff training.

Research Fellows will validate AI-generated paper reproductions, simulations, and results; map research taxonomies; define standards for high-quality AI-assisted science; and create benchmark tasks and evaluations for frontier AI models. Fellows will contribute to a publicly released benchmark paper and open evaluation set as lead or first authors. The contract offers flexible, remote global work for current STEM PhD students or postdocs with published research and hands-on AI agent experience.

Supports the operational delivery of pharmaceutical clinical trials and bioequivalence studies. Responsibilities include study coordination, Trial Master File maintenance, documentation quality control, compliance tracking, audit and inspection readiness, CTMS updates, vendor and stakeholder coordination, regulatory support, and cross-functional collaboration. The role also contributes to study milestone tracking, risk escalation, meeting administration, and process improvement in an ICH GCP-regulated environment.

Lead the research and design organization across Airalo’s consumer and B2B products. Set design strategy, unify product experiences, own brand expression within the product, and establish scalable design systems, accessibility standards, quality processes, and career frameworks. Partner with Product and Marketing, use research to shape the roadmap, develop design leaders, and build the team needed to support the company’s growth.