676 Research Engineer jobs in the United Kingdom

We’re looking for a talented R&D Engineer to join a forward-thinking engineering team. You’ll take products from concept through design, prototyping, testing, and into production—using customer feedback and performance data to shape results.

What You’ll Do:

• p>Develop and improve products from concept to launch

• Analyse market and user feedback for design improvements

• Use data to solve engineering challenges and measure results

• Manage bespoke projects from design to delivery

• Provide technical support for products in the field

• Keep up to date with emerging tech and market trends

What You’ll Bring:

< i>

Degree in Mechanical Engineering or similar

• Extensive product development or engineering support experience 

• 3D CAD skills (Autodesk Inventor ideal)

• Confident with technical documentation and MS Office (ERP/MRP a bonus)

• Proactive problem-solver with a drive for improvement

• Excellent communicator and team player

Must have UK work eligibility and a full UK driving licence.

Apply now and turn ideas into real-world solutions.

We are looking for a Research Engineer with strong software development skills to join our team.

Responsibilities will include:

• Streamlining existing processes and assisting with the implementation of quantitative strategies
• Efficiently processing, storing, and retrieving extensive amounts of market data
• Maintenance of and improvements to proprietary backtesting framework
• Validation of existing models and implementation of automated regression tests
• Benchmarking and improving computational performance of research code
• Thorough examination of large volumes of post-execution data
• Serve as the primary resource for software engineering challenges within the broader research team

The ideal candidate will possess a minimum of three years of relevant work experience.

Requirements

Attributes that position you as an exemplary candidate include:

• Strong expertise in Python, Java and SQL
• Advanced problem-solving skills with a meticulous attention to detail
• Innovative thinking, creativity, and unwavering persistence
• Strong motivation to automate and optimize processes
• Willingness to navigate system constraints and challenge existing limits
• Capability to efficiently construct comprehensive data analysis pipelines including advanced statistics/machine learning concepts
• Flexibility to work beyond standard hours when required
• Experience in distributed/high-performance computing
• A Master's or PhD degree in a highly quantitative discipline, such as mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, or engineering is highly desirable
• We prioritise your programming skills, raw talent, and potential to make a meaningful impact and deliver value — over unnecessary bureaucracy

This position is within front office trading, therefore, permanent remote work is not a viable option.

Benefits

• Attractive base salary
• Performance-based bonus program
• Comprehensive Private Medical, Vision, and Dental Insurance
• Defined contribution pension plan
• 28 days of paid annual leave in addition to public holidays
• Complimentary lunch on Fridays
• Snacks and beverages
• Budget allocated for conferences and professional development
• Office located in Central London
• Visa sponsorship available

If you find the above job description appealing, we invite you to submit your CV along with a concise cover letter that articulates your motivation for applying and highlights your suitability for the position.

About Electric Twin

Electric Twin is building the future of strategic decision-making. We use large language models (LLMs) to simulate human behaviour, allowing our clients to create science-based synthetic populations that mirror their target markets and research demographics.

Our platform provides a suite of investigative tools—from qualitative polling and quantitative analysis to simulated focus groups and one-on-one discussions. This enables leaders in business and government to investigate outcomes in near real-time, continuously refine ideas with powerful feedback, and make critical decisions with confidence.

With a unique proposition in the rapidly developing generative AI sector, Electric Twin is poised for significant growth. We are backed by world-class leadership, including:

• Alex Cooper (Co-founder): Former COO at UNDO, Director of Mass Testing for the UK's Department of Health, and Advisor for 10 Downing Street.
• Ben Warner (Co-founder): Former Chief Advisor on Digital and Data to the UK Prime Minister, Data Scientist at Faculty, and EPSRC Research Fellow at UCL.

We build science-based synthetic populations and the tools to interact with them. The world's leading companies and governments use Electric Twin to make better decisions. Now, we are looking for brilliant minds to join us on this mission.

The Role

As a Research Engineer at Electric Twin, you will focus on one of the most exciting and challenging applications of AI: modeling human behaviour. Your primary role is to pioneer the application of existing LLMs to create believable, consistent, and scientifically-grounded AI agents. You will design the cognitive architecture of our synthetic agents, figure out how to evaluate their behaviour in ambiguous scenarios, and develop the experimental methods to validate our simulations.

You will be at the forefront of an emerging field, tackling questions like: How can we use an LLM to give an agent a persistent memory? How do we ensure a population of agents behaves in a way that is statistically representative of a real demographic? How do we measure and validate "realism" when there is no simple ground truth?
This is a deeply interdisciplinary role that combines creative AI application, rigorous experimental design, and insights from computational social science to bring our synthetic populations to life.

Key Responsibilities

• Design AI Agents:  Develop sophisticated prompting strategies, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, and tool-use frameworks to imbue AI agents with consistent personas, memories, and reasoning capabilities.
• Develop Experimental Methods:  Design and execute experiments to test and validate the behavioural outputs of LLM-powered agents against real-world data and established social science principles.
• Create Novel Evaluation Frameworks:  Build and implement robust methods for measuring the quality and realism of our simulations, especially on ambiguous tasks where traditional accuracy metrics don't apply.
• Build the Simulation Platform:  Contribute to the core architecture that allows us to run, observe, and analyse complex simulations with thousands of interacting AI agents.
• Translate Needs into Research:  Work closely with product and commercial teams to understand client challenges and translate them into focused research questions and technical solutions.
• Stay at the Forefront:  Research and apply the latest techniques in agentic AI, multi-agent systems, and LLM evaluation to continuously advance our platform's capabilities.

Requirements

We are looking for a creative and rigorous engineer who is passionate about using AI as a tool to understand the human world.
Essential Skills & Experience:

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computational Social Science, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Deep experience in applying large language models (LLMs) to solve complex, open-ended problems.
• Strong proficiency in Python and common ML libraries/frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow, Hugging Face).
• A strong scientific mindset geared towards rigorous experimentation, coupled with the engineering discipline to build the reliable and scalable systems needed to test complex hypotheses.
• A keen interest and/or background in the principles of human behaviour, cognitive science, psychology, or social dynamics.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical and experimental concepts clearly.

Bonus Points (Advantageous, but not required):

• Experience or strong interest in multi-agent systems, agent-based modeling (ABM), or game theory.
• Hands-on experience with advanced LLM application techniques like RAG, chain-of-thought, and agentic tool use.
• Experience designing and conducting experiments in a social science or human-computer interaction (HCI) context.
• A track record of publications in relevant AI or interdisciplinary conferences.
• Experience deploying ML-driven applications into production environments.

Benefits

• Define a Category:  Shape the core application of a company pioneering a new frontier in AI and strategic intelligence.
• Solve Fascinating Problems:  Work on intellectually stimulating challenges that blend creative AI application with deep insights into human behaviour.
• World-Class Team:  Join a small, high-caliber team with proven leadership from the highest levels of technology, government, and business.
• High Impact:  In our flat, collaborative environment, your work will have an immediate and tangible impact on our product and our clients' success.
• Growth Opportunity:  As an early member of the team, you'll have significant opportunities for personal and professional development as the company grows.

Are you an experience R&D specialist on the lookout for a new role?

If you have a background in textiles or chemical manufacturing and a role with a blend of R&D and Quality appeals, then read on.

We’re partnering with a highly impressive, innovative manufacturing business in their search for an R&D Process Specialist. They’re looking for someone to lead exciting product development projects and drive quality improvements.

If you’re focussed on your own development, then this is a great place to be, as they active encourage ongoing training and development of all employees.

This role is about variety, innovation and making a real impact in a business that values expertise and invests in its people.

What you’ll get

• Salary £38k – £40k (DOE)
• Pension scheme
• 26 days holiday + stats
• Life Assurance
• Annual bonus scheme
• Early finish on Friday’s
• The opportunity to study and further develop your skills

About you

• You’ll have previous experience in an R&D and/or Quality role
• A science or engineering degree is desirable but not essential
• Competent in Excel and PowerPoint
• You’ll enjoy leading multiple R&D projects
• You’re an analytical thinker who enjoys solving complex problems
• Confident decision-maker, comfortable managing multiple projects at once
• Of course, you’re naturally curious with the drive to improve processes
• A background in technical manufacturing, textiles or chemicals is required

About the role

• You’ll lead multiple R&D projects to develop new products and improve existing products
• Replace raw materials, enhance capabilities and keep products competitive
• Facilitate FMEA and root cause analysis activities
• Support and investigate customer complaints, CAPA’s and NC’s related to R&D
• Review, amend and update process documents eg machine specifications, setting sheets etc
• Carry out QC testing of product trials in conjunction with the Quality Engineers
• Liaise with customers and suppliers in relation R&D activities

About the company

• A hugely successful technical textile manufacturer with a great reputation.
• Part of a global group, but with a tight-knit, friendly team on site.
• A company that offers long term career prospects and actively encourages training and development

Research and Development Engineer
Scroll down the page to see all associated job requirements, and any responsibilities successful candidates can expect.
Colchester
£45,000 - £55,000 + Progression + Training + Growing Company + Pension + 25 Holidays
A brilliant role in a leading company on offer where you can use autonomy to write your own script and play an influential part in the company's growth and future plans.
This company are leaders in the automation industry. They have grown exponentially over the last c
Please click on the apply button to read the full job description

Research and Development Engineer
Colchester
£45,000 - £55,000 + Progression + Training + Growing Company + Pension + 25 Holidays

A brilliant role in a leading company on offer where you can use autonomy to write your own script and play an influential part in the company's growth and future plans.

This company are leaders in the automation industry. They have grown exponentially over the last c.

We have a current opportunity for a Robotics Research Engineer on a Temporary basis. The position will be based in Abingdon. For further information about this position please apply.

Job Description / Job Scope:

Provide Research Engineering expertise to research and technology projects. Contribute to developing the research engineering capability of the organisation. Supporting RACE projects and the execution of advanced research project.

* Conducting research independently and in collaboration with others, contributing to RRDD deliverables
* Responsible for producing reports as required for project deliverables
* Responsible for Presenting and publishing work
* Designing and developing hardware and software test platforms
* Supporting other engineers, scientists, and projects with research expertise
* Support projects to develop or improve/extend research over timescales of weeks to years
* Diagnose issues and design solutions considering full technical and human context
* Contribute to building relationships with internal and external partners to analyse and establish requirements, deliver projects, and define future collaborations
* Manage projects and other activities to ensure the aims are achieved with appropriate quality standards, timescales and costs and partners are kept informed
* Provide research advice and help to colleagues, including strategic aspects such as project scoping, technology choices, make vs buy decisions, sustainability planning
* Contribute to improving UKAEA's research culture and practices
* Represent RRDD externally with customers, collaborators, and at external events

Expertise in one or more of the following:


* Manufacturing processes deployable by robots (laser cleaning, cutting, additive manufacturing, surface preparation, inspection)
* Radiation hardening technologies / Radiation tolerant electronics
* ML / AI / Digital Infrastructure
* Mechanical systems, sensing / non-destructive testing, actuation mechanisms
* Dynamic modelling and systems identification
* Control theory
* Intelligent control for manipulation or position control

Qualifications Required:

* Expertise in any specialist area specified in the Job Scope for this position
* Degree in a scientific, engineering, or technical subject or equivalent knowledge and experience
* Understanding of Engineering design process principles and application
* Broad understanding of Robotics
* Appetite and ability to research and learn about new technologies and domains and to judge how to apply and share this knowledge
* Good interpersonal and communication skills, and a proven ability to function as part of a team
* Ability to communicate effectively, collaborate and influence people with various roles and backgrounds
* An excellent working knowledge of English

Experience Required

* Experience of developing high-quality software used in relevant applications
* Experience of applying, adapting, and promoting good development practices throughout the entire research lifecycle
* Experience in Research Engineering - Minimum 3 - 5 Years Working Research experience

Desired Experience:

* Established publication record
* Postgraduate research degree or equivalent experience.
* For candidates with a software background - experience in ROS, experience with Unreal Engine, experience in the design of human-machine interfaces, experience in applied AI or ML for operations
* Experience of on-site deployments or demonstrations of research
* Experience of supporting collaborative research activities
* Experience of supervising and mentoring others in a research project context
* Experience of conducting research in an operational environment with change control, monitoring and support arrangements
* Experience of developing risk assessments and mitigation plans in relation to physical trials
* Knowledge of public sector procurement processes
* Chartered Engineer or Physicist qualification

Rullion celebrates and supports diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for both employees and applicants.