Lead Research Software Engineer: Consulting Services

University of Leeds; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A prestigious university in the United Kingdom is seeking a Senior Research Software Engineer to lead consulting projects and contribute to high-impact research tasks. This role involves developing relationships with researchers and promoting impactful services within a collaborative research environment. Opportunities for personal development and flexible working arrangements are offered, along with generous benefits including health and wellbeing support, holidays, and a strong pension scheme.

Benefits

26 days holiday plus approximately 16 bank holidays

Generous pension scheme

Discounted staff membership at The Edge gym

Access to personal development courses

On-site childcare and shopping discounts

Responsibilities

• Lead the Consulting Service portfolio of research software consulting projects.
• Contribute directly to complex or high-impact research software tasks.
• Act as a trusted, visible point of contact for academics seeking support.
• Develop and sustain relationships with researchers across the University.
• Promote the value and impact of our services to the research community.
• Lead the short-term internship programme.

Job description

This job is an excellent opportunity for a senior Research Software Engineer who wishes to remain actively engaged in research software practice while taking on a leadership role in shaping services, mentoring colleagues, and enabling cutting‑edge research. The role offers both the chance to deepen your expertise and to make a lasting contribution to a vibrant, collaborative research community.

Please note that this post may be suitable for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route but first‑time applicants might need to qualify for salary concessions. For more information please visit: www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa

This role is available to current employees within IT Services at the University of Leeds only. Interviews are expected to be held 17th December 2025. The role will be based on the university campus with scope for it to be undertaken in a hybrid manner, and we are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.

The University of Leeds is one of the top 80 universities in the world. We have a truly global community, with more than 39,000 students from 170 different countries and over 9,000 staff of 100 different nationalities.

The Research Computing team at the University of Leeds is a cornerstone of the university's research efforts, designing, building and supporting innovative solutions to research computing problems and supporting our research community across a range of domains, including artificial intelligence, language models, bioinformatics, computational fluid dynamics and data science. As the hosts of the University HPC (high‑performance computing) systems, our team also supports researchers from a wide range of departments across the whole University to utilise the HPC systems to perform modelling, analysis and simulations, which are crucial components of their research.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Consulting Service portfolio of research software consulting projects.
• Contribute directly to complex or high‑impact research software tasks.
• Act as a trusted, visible point of contact for academics seeking support.
• Develop and sustain relationships with researchers across the University, identifying emerging needs and supporting grant applications that fund RSE efforts.
• Promote the value and impact of our services to the research community.
• Lead the short‑term internship programme, providing undergraduates with the opportunity to work on real research challenges over a few weeks.

Benefits

• 26 days holiday plus approximately 16 bank holidays and university closed days (including Christmas) – around 42 days a year.
• Generous pension scheme options plus life assurance.
• Health and wellbeing: discounted staff membership at The Edge, the campus gym (state‑of‑the‑art facilities including pool, sauna, climbing wall, cycle circuit and sports halls).
• Personal development: access to courses run by the Organisational Development & Professional Learning team.
• Access to on‑site childcare, shopping discounts and travel schemes.
• And much more!