It’s great to know you’re making a difference to the future of aviation! Whatever part you play you’ll be helping us deliver operational excellence to our customers. Based at our Luton manufacturing plant you’ll do just that. Established in 1993, GKN Aerospace in Luton is a world leader in commercial and military ice protection systems and transparencies. Offering a full range of capabilities; design, analysis, testing, certification and manufacture of electro-thermal ice protection, military fast jet canopies and flight deck windows to over 20 programmes including: Boeing 787, Dreamliner, AgustaWestland, AW101, Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed, Martin F-22 Raptor. Our customers include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopters, Textron, BAE Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Leonardo. Our Luton site is home to 370+ employees and onsite facilities including onsite parking, food hub and vending machines.
The Luton Engineering & Technology team is focussed on developing product and manufacturing process technology related to aircraft ice protection systems, transparencies and coatings, and specialist structures for both civil and defence applications.
We’re looking for a Research Specialist - Special Coatings Technology to join our coatings development team based at our Luton Manufacturing facility, to support the development of next generation high performance transparency polymer coatings, icephobic coatings and coating manufacturing processes.
As a Research Specialist you will bring your knowledge in polymer coatings development, processing, application and coating testing techniques to deliver high-impact research and development across Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 1–7. You’ll be responsible for ensuring that all research outputs are technically robust, innovative, and aligned with our broader engineering and sustainability goals.
You will also be responsible for providing support to existing programmes within your field of expertise, helping to resolve manufacturing issues and supporting continuous improvement efforts.
You will have a track record of delivering high quality technical work, with experience of working within a project environment. You will have good written and oral communication skills, and be confident working with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders, including non-technical colleagues.
As this is a research role we are looking for a hands on innovative thinker, your work should push the boundaries of conventional coating technologies, application and evaluation/testing techniques.
Core operational hours at our Luton site are: 07:30 - 16:30 Monday to Thursday & 07:30 - 12:30 Friday.
