Research Scientist (Metagenomics)

🔒 Confidential Employer
Posted 3 May 2026
LOCATION
Norwich
TYPE
Full-time
LEVEL
Mid-Senior level
SALARY
£40,750 / year
CATEGORY
Science & Research
This employer holds a UK Home Office sponsor license — sponsorship for this specific role is at the employer’s discretion

SKILLS

Metagenomics Bioinformatics Population Genetics Programming (R, Python, Perl, C++) Microbiome Research Genomics Data Analysis Statistics

FULL DESCRIPTION

Research Scientist (Metagenomics)

[Employer hidden — view at passion-project.co.uk] is hiring a Research Scientist to join the Laboratory of Dr Hildebrand in the Gut Microbes and Health programme. This is an ERC-funded post investigating the inheritance and evolution of human-associated microbes.

Salary: £33,050 to £40,750 per annum | Contract: Full-time, 2 years | Location: Norwich, UK

The Role

How do gut bacteria colonize their human hosts? How do they persist for decades? And how many are inherited? The group received an ERC Starter grant to dissect microbial genetics enabling long-term colonization using a novel family-centric cohort in Norwich. High-resolution metagenomics will track microbes—eukaryotic and prokaryotic—across individuals and families, determining genes under selection. This involves working with metagenomic bioinformatics (assembly, genome binning, gene predictions) combined with population genetics and/or network inference algorithms.

The Environment

The Hildebrand group uses metagenomics to research diversity and evolution of microbial communities. The group has a joint appointment between the [Employer hidden] Bioscience and the Earlham Institute. Located on the Norwich Research Park, which hosts 3,000 researchers and clinicians, 17,000 students, and over 115 companies.

The Ideal Candidate

  • Hold a PhD (or equivalent) in biology, bioinformatics, molecular biology or related discipline
  • Background/interest in microbiomes & biodiversity, metagenomics & patient cohorts, ecology & evolution
  • Experience in metagenomics, population genetics, human patient cohorts or comparative genomics
  • Exposure to statistics and programming (R, Python, Perl, C++ or equivalent)

Additional Information

Salary £33,050 to £40,750 per annum. Full-time, 24 months contract (potentially extendable 12 months). For further details, visit the HR website or contact the Human Resources team on [contact hidden] or [contact hidden] quoting reference 1004440. Interviews early May 2023. Closing date: 25 April 2023.

About the [Employer hidden]

The [Employer hidden] is a new interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to understanding how food and microbes interact to promote health and prevent disease. A partnership between [Employer hidden] Bioscience, the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and BBSRC. The [Employer hidden] Bioscience is a registered charity (No. 1058499) and is an Equal Opportunities Employer. The [Employer hidden] supports equality of opportunity.

Sign up free — access 45,000+ UK sponsor-licensed jobs