Innovation Labs / Emerging Tech R&D

If you’re interested in pushing the boundaries of technology and what it can do before it gets adopted as a mainstream practice, then innovation lab and emerging tech research and development (R&D) roles might be for you. Well-funded startups, research institutions, technology consultancies and big organisations with dedicated innovation functions are the most likely to hire in this area.

First and foremost, candidates must have a deep technical grounding, being able to demonstrate genuine capability in engineering or data science. You should also be able to prototype, run structured experiments and communicate findings to technical and non-technical audiences. Beyond that, however, the skills profile is kept broad, with intellectual curiosity, research credibility and the desire and ability to move fast across unfamiliar technological domains remaining more valuable than a narrow specialism.

Roles in innovation generally take a long view, or deal with uncertain outcomes since they’re pushing the frontiers of technology use. This means that they need a different kind of project management than a more conventional delivery role, and experience with design thinking, technology scouting and build-test-learn methodologies is valued here.

Knowing how to take a concept from research to proof of concept and beyond that, how to transition it into a live product or business capability is the key to being a strong candidate for these kinds of positions.

Because of the unconventional and speculative nature of a lot of this work, the sector tends to be more open to non-linear career paths than other areas of digital recruitment. Applicants may come from academia, deep tech startups or advanced engineering teams