Join to apply for the Principal Bioinformatician role at Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Do you want to help us improve human health and understand life on Earth? Make your mark by shaping the future to enable or deliver life‑changing science to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.
About the Role
The Principal Bioinformatician will lead the strategic development and integration of bioinformatics resources to advance microbial genomics for both fundamental science and public health applications. This will include leading the transformation of AllTheBacteria into a collaborative hub that supports both fundamental science and public health applications. This is an exciting opportunity to work at the cutting edge of microbiome science, ensuring the resources developed can directly support science and public health needs.
Responsibilities
* Lead, oversee, develop and maintain data assembly, annotation, and quality control for microbial genomes.
* Design, maintain, and improve pipelines and tools supporting microbial genomics research and usability for public health.
* Lead development of scalable, open‑source software for genome assembly, variant calling, and data visualisation.
* Collaborate with programme dry and wet‑lab team members to facilitate data interpretation, share knowledge and discuss analysis ideas.
* Develop and run hackathons and training sessions at the end of workshops, e.g. EBI training suite after ABPHM, Big data/AMR.
* Develop training materials to increase adoption in research and public health.
* Build collaborations with developers to expand analysis and web‑based tools.
* Build and maintain collaborations with external stakeholders, contributing to joint research projects.
About You
We are looking for a highly motivated computational scientist with expertise in microbial genomics and bioinformatics. You should be passionate about microbiome data analysis, have experience working with large‑scale datasets, and be comfortable in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment.
About Us
This position is based in the Bacterial Genomics and Evolution team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, a world‑leading research group investigating the use of computational and experimental genomic approaches to explore questions of basic science relating to the evolution and spread of bacterial pathogens in both humans and animals. This role provides an exciting opportunity to work in a world‑class genomics institute, engaging in high‑impact microbiome research that contributes to human health and disease prevention.
Essential Technical Skills
* Ph.D. or M.Sc. in a relevant quantitative discipline or equivalent experience
* Demonstrable bioinformatics working experience in scientific or academic environments
* Extensive proven experience in bioinformatics, microbial genomics, and large‑scale sequencing data in different formats including data cleaning and feature engineering
* Proven track record of open‑source tool development (Python, C++, Go, Nextflow)
* Expertise with large‑scale compute environments (LSF, SLURM, Docker/Singularity)
* Experience evaluating existing tools and developing new tools where needed based on downstream analysis requirements
* Expertise in bioinformatics tools including mappers/aligners (minimap2, Bowtie2, MUMmer etc.), assemblers (SPAdes, Unicycler etc.) and various others (SAMtools, Artemis, ACT)
* Experience leading community engagement activities, training, and international collaborations
Essential Competencies And Behaviours
* Ability to build active collaborations across academia, industry, and public health
* Commitment to open science, accessibility, and reproducible research
* Analytical, problem‑solving, and strategic thinking skills, adaptable to changing environments
* Builds collaborative relationships with stakeholders at all levels, knowledgeable in workflow management tools, and can explain complex concepts to non‑technical stakeholders
Application Process
Please apply with your CV and a cover letter explaining your motivation for applying and how your skills and experience meet the application criteria.
* Salary per annum: £53,717 to £63,000 dependent upon skills and experience
* Informatician/Data Scientist job family: Grade 1 Role profile
* Contract Type: 2 years fixed‑term in the first instance
* Closing Date: 9 th November 2025
Hybrid Working At Wellcome Sanger
We recognise that there are many benefits to hybrid working; including an improved work‑life balance, with more focused time, as well as the ability to organise working time so that collaborative opportunities and team discussions are facilitated on campus. The hybrid working arrangement will vary for different roles and teams. The nature of your role and the type of work you do will determine if a hybrid working arrangement is possible.
Equality, Diversity And Inclusion
We aim to attract, recruit, retain and develop talent from the widest possible talent pool, thereby gaining insight and access to different markets to generate a greater impact on the world. We have a supportive culture with staff networks, LGBTQ+, Parents and Carers, Disability and Race Equity to bring people together to share experiences, offer specific support and development opportunities and raise awareness. The networks are also a place for allies to provide support to others.
We want our people to be whoever they want to be because we believe people who bring their best selves to work, do their best work. That’s why we’re committed to creating a truly inclusive culture at Sanger Institute. We will consider all individuals without discrimination and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees, where everyone can thrive.
Our Benefits
We are proud to deliver an awarding campus‑wide employee wellbeing strategy and programme. The importance of good health and adopting a healthier lifestyle and the commitment to reduce work‑related stress is strongly acknowledged and recognised at Sanger Institute. Sanger Institute became a signatory of the International Technician Commitment initiative in March 2018. The Technician Commitment aims to empower and ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research, across all disciplines.
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