For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.. Have you become the go‑to expert for advanced flow cytometry and are you ready to lead, evolve, and scale site‑wide technical capability? Do you want to combine hands‑on technical leadership with strategic influence, driving innovation and excellence in advanced flow cytometry at a Discovery and Safety level? We are recruiting for a Technical Leader in Flow Cytometry to shape scientific direction, drive innovation, and strengthen Discovery and Safety capabilities at our Portishead site. What You'll Be Doing Scientific / Technical Responsibilities Lead the operation, development, and strategic growth of the Flow Cytometry Facility, ensuring provision of high‑quality, high‑throughput cytometry services across Discovery divisions. Design, optimise, and validate complex multi‑parametric flow cytometry panels (analytical and sorting), including development of novel assay formats to meet emerging scientific needs. Oversee instrument performance across all flow cytometers and sorters, ensuring daily QC, troubleshooting, maintenance, calibration, and coordination of engineer support when required. Drive the evaluation, implementation, and integration of new flow cytometry technologies (e.g. spectral cytometry, high‑parameter analysis, imaging flow cytometry) to expand Biotherapeutics Division capabilities. Provide expert support to project teams by advising on experimental strategies, marker selection, panel design, gating approaches, and data interpretation. Serve as the technical lead for flow cytometry in internal and external collaborations, including technology vendors and client scientific teams. Establish and enforce robust documentation standards for experimental workflows, instrument logs, QC data, and facility‑wide SOPs. Lead the procurement of new cytometry instrumentation and software, including preparation of technical justifications for CAPEX and operational budget planning. Facility Management & Leadership Develop and deliver training programs for users at all experience levels, ensuring safe and competent operation of analysers and sorters. Mentor scientific staff and junior cytometry specialists, modelling best practice and supporting technical skill progression. Coordinate work for other team members, including supervision of facility staff where applicable. Champion continuous improvement within the facility by refining workflows, implementing automation or digital solutions, and reducing variability in experimental procedures. Maintain facility compliance with all CRL health, safety, and biosafety requirements, proactively identifying risks and implementing corrective actions. Data, Software & IT Systems Serve as an expert user of data analysis platforms (e.g. FlowJo) and support teams in applying advanced analysis strategies. Oversee digital data management practices for the facility, ensuring secure storage, traceability, and retrieval of cytometry datasets. Identify and implement software upgrades or new analysis platforms that enhance scientific insight or operational efficiency. Collaboration & Communication Communicate scientific findings, facility updates, troubleshooting insights, and strategy proposals clearly to both internal and cross‑site stakeholders. Represent the Flow Cytometry Facility and discipline at internal leadership forums, cross‑site technical groups, and capability development discussions. Provide high‑level technical input into business development activities, including client interactions, proposal development, and scientific scoping. Profile and Requirements Essential MSc in a relevant scientific discipline or equivalent experience. Extensive hands‑on experience in flow cytometry within a research or drug discovery environment. Proven expertise in designing, optimising, and analysing complex multi‑colour flow cytometry panels, including use of analysers and cell sorters. Strong experience providing technical leadership, mentoring, and training scientific teams. Deep knowledge of advanced flow cytometry, including QC, troubleshooting, data analysis, and interpretation. Experience supporting discovery drug pipeline programmes, including immunological assay development. Excellent communication and influencing skills, able to explain complex concepts clearly. Ability to work on‑site in Portishead, with willingness to represent Charles River externally when required. Desirable PhD in a relevant discipline. Experience leading a flow cytometry facility or cross‑site technical capability. Experience with BD flow cytometers and / or Cytek Aurora platforms. Involvement in client‑facing projects, collaborations, or scientific conferences. What We Offer You Meaningful scientific impact – contribute to research that supports the development of life‑changing therapies. Career development & mobility – strong opportunities for progression, learning, and cross‑site or cross‑discipline growth within a global organisation. Collaborative, science‑led culture – work alongside highly skilled scientists in multidisciplinary teams, with access to advanced platforms and technologies. Investment in learning – continuous professional development, training, and access to new scientific tools and capabilities. Competitive reward & benefits – including salary, pension, and a comprehensive benefits package. Work‑life balance & wellbeing – a culture that supports flexibility, wellbeing, and long‑term career sustainability. Stability with innovation – backed by a global organisation, while still driving innovation at site and programme level. About Discovery Discovery from Charles River is industry-proven in the successful development of novel therapies, with over 350 patents and 80 preclinical drug candidates delivered to our sponsors in the past 17 years. Backed by more than 650 scientists, our comprehensive, integrated portfolio employs the latest technology and platforms to provide chemistry, biology, and pharmacology services that support clients from the earliest stages of hit identification all the way through to IND. Our client-focused, collaborative approach creates true partnerships that anticipate challenges, overcome obstacles, and move us forward together on the journey of getting new drugs to market. About Charles River Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market. With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world. At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly worked on 80% of the drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past five years. At Charles River Laboratories, we recognize and recruit all talent. We are a company committed to fostering a sense of belonging and work daily in this direction.