Industrial placement programme
Our placements
Salary: £26,000 (plus £1,300 allowance, which can be taken as cash, or used for additional benefits)
Duration: 12 months, full-time, on-site, learning role
Location: Stevenage
Functions: Biological sciences, Chemistry and Data Sciences – Bioinformatics
Applications are now closed
The experience
Join us and you’ll support our teams working across a number of areas in the drug discovery process. You’ll work closely with our expert team members to gain valuable experience in areas such as:
Biological sciences
Join us and you’ll support our teams working across a number of areas in the drug development process. You will work closely with our expert team members to gain valuable experience in areas such as:
- Molecular biology
- Microbiology
- High content imaging and flow cytometry
- Protein expression and purification
- Biophysical characterisation
- Assay design, optimisation and automation
- Pharmacokinetic and metabolism studies
- Target validation studies (gene editing, pharmacology, bioinformatics)
- Cellular models of disease supporting small molecule and/or antibody programs (including primary models)
- Antibody discovery
- Antibody engineering
- Antibody screening and optimisation
Chemistry
Join us and you’ll support our teams working across a number of areas in the drug development process and work closely with our expert team members to gain valuable experience in areas such as:
- Medicinal and practical synthetic chemistry
- Chemical analytical and purification technologies
- Identification of therapeutic leads
- Pharmacokinetic and metabolism studies
- Computational drug design
- Data analysis
- Multiparameter optimisation
- Hit identification
- Hit to lead drug discovery
- Lead optimisation
Data sciences – Bioinformatics
This Industrial Placement in antibody and small molecule drug development is an opportunity to get involved with exciting work in our Bioinformatics team. We have an active programme in neurodegeneration (including Motor Neuron Disease) and offer antibody humanisation as a service.
You’ll work closely with our bioinformatics team to gain valuable experience in a major life sciences organisation. You’ll also get to collaborate and interact with our wider Data Science team that has expertise in areas such as Chemoinformatics, Data Engineering, AI & ML and Health Data Science.
You’ll apply bioinformatics and data science techniques including analysis of ‘omics scale data, R/Python programming, statistical data analysis and visualisation. Depending on the nature of the projects, there may be an opportunity to combine the bioinformatics aspects with laboratory data generation.
During your placement, we’ll expect you regularly present your experimental results and conclusions to the project team, while maintaining high-quality written lab notebook records of your research. In return, you will have the opportunity to use the work you do here to assist with your degree submission and gain true research experience.
Eligibility
You must be studying for your first (undergraduate) degree and in your 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of study (Integrated MSc accepted). You must be available to start a 12-month placement from September 2026 as part of your degree course and it must be approved by your university.
For each placement, you must be studying one of the following disciplines:
Biological sciences
- Biological sciences
- Biomedical sciences
- Biochemistry
- Natural sciences
- Microbiology
- Molecular biology
- Pharmacology
- Immunology
Chemistry
- Chemistry or medicinal chemistry (BSc/MSci/MChem)
- Natural sciences (with chemistry modules)
Data sciences – Bioinformatics
- Studying a biological discipline that incorporates a significant analysis or computational component. This could for example, be a biology or genetics degree involving modules in programming and statistical data analysis, or a dedicated bioinformatics or computational biology degree.
Skills and strengths we are looking for
- Relevant degree subject (see above) and on track to achieve at least a 2:1
- Collaboration
- Drive and determination
- Analytical mindset
- Accountability
- Adaptability
- Desire to learn
- Effective communication skills
In line with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, you must also have the right to work in the UK. Find out more.
What we can offer you
Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose which are important to you. We can offer you a pension scheme which offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance and 31 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays.
Join us, and you’ll have the scope to be creative and take measured risks. You’ll be rewarded for your curiosity, for working as one team, and for learning fast. And you’ll have everything you need to be your best every day. We all have potential. At LifeArc, you’ll discover what you can really do with it.
Application process
If you applied, and your online application form is successful, you will be invited to complete a short strength-based video interview, known as Snapshot.
Full instructions and guidance on how to approach and prepare for a strengths-based assessment will be provided.
We are also proud to be using Rare Recruitment’s Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) which allows us to consider your achievements in the context in which they were gained. We understand that not every candidate’s achievements look the same on paper – and we want to recruit the best people, from every background
During my placement, I worked on a COVID-19 project, where I was lucky enough to develop my laboratory skills, including optimisation and validation of MST and functional in vitro cell-based assays, alongside analysing various data outputs.
Natasha, former placement student and current Associate Scientist at LifeArc
Working in a research group has given me the tools to confidently design experiments and trouble-shoot problems when they ultimately arise.”
More career opportunities
Fellowship opportunities
Virtual work experience
Opportunity Assessment Group (OAG) internship
Contact us
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