Apprentice Laboratory Technician (Core Laboratory Support) Level 3 University of Liverpool

What you will do in your working day

Support Institute and Departmental core duties:

• Assist with general housekeeping
• General tidiness, cleaning, and routine care of laboratories, facilities, and equipment
• Decontamination of biological waste using the autoclave
• Disposing of biological material and hazardous waste
• Change of gas cylinders
  Use of lab equipment including pH meters, dishwashers, water purification machines, and more
  Maintaining supplies of liquid nitrogen, ensuring dewars are topped up, and transporting liquid nitrogen dewars/dispensers for filling
• Carrying out the cleaning, sterilising of glassware using the glassware washer
• Laundry of laboratory coats and maintaining adequate stock of clean coats
• Defrosting of freezers/cleaning of fridges, when necessary
• Ensuring a constant supply of 70% ethanol/detergent for use in the laboratory
• Assisting with the cleaning of tissue culture suites including hoods, water baths, work surfaces, shelving, floors, and routine sterilisation of CO2 Incubators
• Occasionally assist with the preparation of media, if required.
• Assisting with maintaining stock levels, unpacking deliveries, and restocking shelves to maintain consumables levels within laboratories
• Assist with the cataloguing of the liquid nitrogen cell freezer database
• Recycling collection
• Legionella flushing
• Timely handling of deliveries, if required
• Performing any other reasonable duties, as required
• Skills sets are required to carry out the role
• Training will be provided to cover the role/duties.

Health and Safety:

• Assist with carrying out PAT testing, if required
• Reporting to the technical supervisor/senior technicians for any infringements of laboratory regulations/practices within the institute

Wider Activities and Functions

• To assist with technical duties in any of the Institute-supported laboratories/sites, if required or requested by the Technical Supervisor/Technical Manager, due to variations in business needs, staff shortages, or re-organisation.
• To fully engage with the University’s process, by planning and participating in open days, visit days, and outreach activities if required.
• Participation will include but is not restricted to, the setting up and dismantling of events, giving demonstrations, and acting as a University ambassador giving help and guidance, as required.
• To engage with the University/Faculty LEAF initiative – to help improve the sustainability and efficiency of laboratories.

Behavioural Expectations

• Portray a positive “can do” and “make it happen” attitude to enable staff and students to achieve their goals and the Institute to achieve its ambitions
• A flexible approach to working hours is required
• Staff operating at this grade have sufficient knowledge to work on day-to-day issues without continuous reference to others
• They communicate regularly with others to pass on the information and maybe the initial point of contact for enquirers.
• Staff carries out straightforward tasks to a given plan, which often require gathering information from standard sources or carrying out routine record keeping.
• The nature of the work requires staff to solve simple problems and make minor decisions relating to the immediate task at hand.

Points to Note

• The purpose of this job description is to indicate the general level of duties and responsibilities of the post. The detailed duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character or level of responsibility entailed as expected within the role.

The training you will be getting

• Level 3 Laboratory Technician qualification.
• Training will be delivered either on-site or block/day release.
• Location of training - varies from on-site to off-site.

What to expect at the end of your apprenticeship

• Generally, the Level 3 qualification takes 2 years to complete. You will gain an extra year in employment to help you become attractive in the market. The career progression is based on the choice of the candidate. This can be from naturally applying for a higher grade technical post in the University to as far wide as being competitively attractive to posts in Industry to the NHS. The choice is yours.