AI Improvement Specialist
Location: Stone, Staffordshire Hybrid working, 2 days a week in our Stone Office)
Status: Permanent
Package: Competitive Salary, Flexible Working, Development & Opportunity (Personal & Technical), Private Medical (Optical & Dental options), Matching Contributory Pension, 25 Days Leave + Public Holidays + Buy and Sell Scheme, Life Insurance, Referral Scheme, Employee Assistance Program, Benefits Hub.
At Instem, you’ll empower pharmaceutical companies, CROs, government agencies, academic institutions, by providing cutting-edge SaaS solutions and consultancy services designed to help researchers make discoveries, and to accelerate and advance their research programs.
You’ll work with technology that supports over 50% of global drug discovery and is trusted by leading pharmaceutical, biotech and CRO organisations worldwide.
This is not a role for AI enthusiasts who have discovered process improvement, it is a role for improvement practitioners who have discovered AI.
If your instinct when you find a broken process is to understand why it is broken before you think about how to fix it – and if AI has become one of your primary tools for fixing it over the last year or two – this role is worth reading in full.
We are not looking for the most technically sophisticated AI builder. We are looking for the person who makes the most lasting improvement – one who earns trust with business teams, understands the problem before reaching for a solution, and stays engaged until the change has genuinely taken hold.
AI is the toolkit – improvement is the job.
Our Culture & Work Environment.
You’ll be part of a friendly, solutions-focused environment within a global business of over 400 people. Here, you’ll experience a high-performance culture balanced with genuine flexibility - we trust you to take ownership, deliver meaningful results, and work in a way that suits you.
You’ll be encouraged to grow, share your ideas, and make a real impact. We’re passionate about creating a place where you can develop your skills, contribute confidently, and succeed in your career.
Why join us as a AI Improvement Specialist?
The role is a brand new role & one of a kind for Instem!
A business-facing continuous improvement role sitting within the Architecture Practice. This person works across Instem's business functions – partnering with teams to understand how they work, identifying where friction, duplication, or inefficiency can be removed, and driving those improvements through to sustained adoption.
What makes this role distinctive is the toolkit. AI has transformed what is possible for a skilled improvement practitioner: workflows that once required developer resource can be built in days; processes that once depended on manual effort can be automated meaningfully; insights that once took weeks to surface can be found in hours. This person brings that capability to Instem's teams – working at the level each team needs, from helping a function get more from the tools they already have, to building AI-powered solutions that genuinely stick.
What You’ll Be Doing
Process Discovery & Improvement Planning
- Work with business teams to understand current processes – observing, questioning, and facilitating structured sessions that surface how work actually happens, not just how it is supposed to happen.
- Translate improvement opportunities from the TOM Programme into a prioritised, actionable pipeline with clear expected outcomes and sequencing logic.
- Facilitate discovery sessions that identify where AI, automation, or smarter tooling could reduce effort, eliminate repetition, or improve the quality of outputs.
- Prioritise opportunities by business value, feasibility, and readiness – and maintain visibility of the improvement pipeline across functions.
AI-Enabled Solution Delivery
- Design and implement AI-powered workflows, automations, and solutions that deliver identified improvements – choosing the right tool for each problem, not defaulting to the most sophisticated approach.
- Build using Instem's tooling ecosystem (CoPilot, Claude, ChatGPT, Power Automate, and related platforms), extending where needed to meet each function's specific requirements.
- Develop reusable components – workflow templates, prompt libraries, and patterns – that build a shared toolkit across the organisation rather than creating solutions that need to be rebuilt from scratch each time.
- Own delivery end-to-end: from design through to handover, with a clear definition of done and evidence that the solution is working as intended.
AI Capability Championing & Enablement
- Act as Instem's practical guide to getting the most from AI tooling – demonstrating what is possible rather than just describing it.
- Run targeted, practical enablement sessions tailored to each team's specific work and tools – not generic AI training, but sessions built around what that team actually does.
- Build reference patterns and worked examples that others can follow and adapt as they develop their own AI capability.
- Stay current with AI tooling developments and bring relevant new capabilities to the attention of the teams that would benefit most.
Adoption, Governance & Standards
- Stay engaged through the adoption phase – not handing over and moving on, but remaining present until the change has genuinely taken hold and teams are sustaining it themselves.
- Produce handover materials, runbooks, and guidance that allow teams to own and sustain solutions independently after the initial delivery phase.
- Ensure all solutions are designed and operated in accordance with Instem's AI usage policies, data handling standards, and Quality Management System.
- Flag compliance, data handling, and governance considerations early and route them through appropriate channels; work within the Architecture engagement model for agents and automations
What We’re Looking For
As part of the selection process, shortlisted candidates will be asked to walk through a process improvement initiative where AI played a significant role in the solution – covering the problem they identified, how they discovered and scoped it, what they built or implemented, and whether it was actually adopted. The sophistication of the technology matters less than the quality of the thinking and the reality of the outcome.
Essential
- Demonstrable experience in process improvement, operational efficiency, continuous improvement, or business change – with a track record of working directly with business teams to identify problems and deliver lasting improvements.
- Genuine, hands-on use of AI tools to deliver improvements in a professional context – not just using AI, but using it to design, build, and implement solutions that have been adopted and used by others.
- Structured approach to discovery and facilitation – able to run working sessions with non-technical teams, surface genuine insight about how work gets done, and translate findings into a clear improvement pipeline.
- Ability to produce reusable patterns and guidance – workflow templates, prompt libraries, and materials that build others' capability rather than creating ongoing dependency.
- Strong written and verbal communication – able to explain complex ideas in plain language and adapt to very different audiences, from operational teams to senior stakeholders.
- Awareness of AI governance and data handling considerations in an enterprise setting, including a practical sense of when AI is and is not the right approach.
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- As part of the selection process, shortlisted candidates will be asked to walk through a process improvement initiative where AI played a significant role in the solution – covering the problem they identified, how they discovered and scoped it, what they built or implemented, and whether it was actually adopted. The sophistication of the technology matters less than the quality of the thinking and the reality of the outcome.
What We Offer
We invest in you because you’re at the heart of our success. Depending on your location, you’ll have access to a range of benefits, including:
- Comprehensive Healthcare (Medical, dental, vision, life, and more)
- Comprehensive wellbeing and support initiatives
- Clear career pathways to support you with getting to the next level
- Pro-rated and immediate vacation days
- Continuous training and development
- Generous retirement plans
Ready to Make a Difference?
Join a team that values your perspective and supports your growth, while helping shape the future of life sciences. Apply now - we’d love to hear from you, and our Talent team will be in touch.
An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.
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