University Technician

Nana's job title is Bioengineering Core Facilities Laboratory Technician at Imperial College London

What I do

My work varies greatly. I might be scheduling facility inductions, ensuring facility instruments are functioning properly and checking PPE stock levels. Sometimes research students ask me for chemicals, equipment, lab coats and other resources to help them in their research.

Between May 2020 and August 2020 my work changed, and I was involved with the face shields project. We were assembling face shields for the NHS staff at the Imperial Hospitals and produced around 50,000 face visors for the nurses. It was a great pleasure to be involved in that.

Nana in lab coat in front of bottles in lab

Hear more about Nana's role by watching the video below...

How I became a technician

I studied biology, chemistry and physics and then environmental science at A-level and Biochemistry at the University of Westminster. I then started a Science Technician job at a school sixth form.

During that time, I also applied for a part-time position at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College and I did both jobs for two years. After an unsuccessful interview for a part-time Lab Technician in the Life Sciences Department, the interviewer saw my potential and passed on my details to my current manager.

I applied for the Bioengineering Support Technician role and secured that position full-time.

A typical day
in my working life

It is a nine-to-five job, Monday to Friday. First thing I do is check through my emails and prioritise my tasks. I have a notebook and I write down the tasks I have to complete that day, so I don’t forget anything.

A high-priority task would be if a piece of equipment broke down because the lab users are highly dependent on the equipment for their research experiments. So, I would make sure it was repaired by a Service Engineer or by another means.

I have to be very organised. I will check to see if I can resolve the issue myself before calling on someone else to help repair it.

A surprising fact about my job

Although I work with lots of different technical equipment, my notebook is the most useful!

Nana in protective clothing injecting liquid into bottle

A little more about
my everyday role

The most exciting thing I've achieved in my job so far

Working on the face visors during the pandemic felt like an achievement. As a result of that I was nominated for the COVID-19 Technician Award at Imperial College. I was in a secondment position helping teach courses in Molecular Bioengineering, so I was supporting the teaching of lab techniques and skills to students on the Molecular Bioengineering course. This also felt like a positive moment in my career.

The best bits about working in a team

I am part of the technical team within the Bioengineering Department. It is very supportive, and everybody has a vast range of skills that they bring to the department. We have Mechanical Workshop Technicians, Tissue Culture Technicians, Electronic Engineers, Teaching Technicians and Support Technicians - so there’s a real range.

The next steps in your career journey

Lab management – that is what I am looking into.

Find out more about this role

Discover what qualifications you’ll need, how much you can earn, and what the next steps are.

Nine apprentices sitting on sofas socialising

Meet other technicians

Read more real life technicians stories, see what they do every day, and how they got started.

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