Research Associate in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment of UK Buildings

Research Associate in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment of UK Buildings

About The Role

We are looking for a researcher to join our team work on an exciting multi-institution project on circular economy for buildings: BuildZero.

BuildZero aims to understand if the UK’s needs from its building stock can be met with zero new raw material extraction, zero emissions and zero waste. Our research will show to what extent this vision is achievable and desirable, and provide a platform for translating circular economy approaches into practice and policy at scale.

Within this wider project, your focus will be on understanding the environmental footprint of circular economy strategies into the future. To do this, you will conduct prospective life cycle assessment of BuildZero strategies. This is essential to ensure that selected strategies really do move us towards zero carbon and zero waste construction when the whole life cycle is considered. To conduct your work you will be an integral member of the large, multidisciplinary BuildZero project team, and you will also contribute to wider project tasks, events, and outputs.

A lower grade offer may be made (Grade 6) with comparable reduction in responsibilities and amendment in job title to Research Assistant, if a suitable applicant cannot be found to fill the Grade 7 position. Applicants will need to be within six months of their course [PhD] completion date and will be promoted to Research Associate once their PhD has been awarded.

Please ensure you submit your application via our website. Please note that during initial shortlisting, the panel can only see your application form and your answers to the shortlisting questions; they cannot see your attachments (e.g. your CV).

About You

Our ideal candidates will have:

• Completed a PhD in a relevant discipline.
• Expertise in life cycle assessment.
• Experience using Brightway 2 and/or openLCA, or other relevant experience in programming (particularly Python).
• Familiarity with issues of circular economy and the built environment, though this could be substituted by a strong ability for interdisciplinary collaboration and a willingness to learn.

Apart From Excellent Technical Skills, You Will Need

• The ability to organise and prioritise your own workload, and to work in a broad interdisciplinary team, both within Bath and across the wider project.
• Excellent oral, interpersonal and written communication skills.

Interaction with academic and industrial partners of BuildZero, and participation in consortium events, will be expected.

Further information

This role is a full time position, initially offered for 2 years and available from 1 June 2026. Part time working may be possible and if interested in applying on this basis you should make this clear on your application form.

We offer a hybrid working arrangement, combining the benefits of remote working with regular on-campus collaboration. You will be required to work on campus 2–3 days per week.

As a member of Research Staff at the University of Bath, you will be encouraged to take up a minimum of 10 days professional development pro rata per year.

For further details of the role’s requirements, please see the job description.

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Dr. Stephen Allen on mn0sra@bath.ac.uk.

We consider ourselves to be a university where difference is celebrated, respected and encouraged. We have an excellent international reputation with staff from over 60 different nations and have made a positive commitment towards gender equality and intersectionality receiving a Silver Athena SWAN award. We truly believe that diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds will lead to a better environment for our employees and students and encourage applications from all genders, backgrounds, and communities, particularly from under-represented groups, and value the positive impact that will have on the university. We are committed to maintaining a safe and secure environment for our students, staff, and community by reinforcing our Safer Recruitment commitment.

We're very proud to be a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. an accredited Disability Confident Leader; autism friendly university, committed to building disability confidence and supporting disabled staff.

What we can offer you

Benefits

We're continually expanding our benefits package to better support you and enhance your experience with us and the below is just an example of some of the many great benefits we offer:

• Free counselling services through Health Assured
• Cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Staff discount at Team Bath gym
• Staff discounts on postgraduate tuition fees
• Staff discount on language courses
• Generous employer contributory pension schemes
• Generous annual leave allowance with an additional 5 discretionary days so that you can enjoy a positive work life balance
• A wide range of personal and professional development opportunities including Apprenticeships, LinkedIn Learning and more
• Free entry to the Holburne Museum in Bath
• Local discounts and more
• A family-friendly workplace
• An excellent reward package that recognises the talents of our diverse workforce
• Relocation allowance
• Visa reimbursement and Interest-Free Loan to help with the cost of some immigration expenses

Find out more about our benefits and watch the video to hear from our staff about what makes the University of Bath a great place to work as well as following us X and LinkedIn.

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Further Details

• Job Description & Person Specification
• Job Description & Person Specification

Terms and Conditions of Employment

Right to Work in the UK: We do not assess immigration or right to work status until offer stage. Being invited to interview does not guarantee you are eligible for visa sponsorship and all offers are conditional on meeting right to work requirements. Further information is available on our application support webpage.

Anonymous shortlisting: We are constantly seeking to reduce the unconscious bias that enters any assessment process, with the goal of creating an inclusive and equal assessment process. To support this, personal details such as your name, may be removed from application forms at the initial shortlisting stage.

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