CoSTAR - National Lab Senior Technician (Virtual Production)

Story Futures Strategic Business Unit

Location
Other

Salary
£41,374 to £48,639 per annum - including London Allowance

Post Type
Full Time

Hours per Week
35

Weeks per Year
52

Closing Date
23.59 hours BST on Sunday 14 June 2026

Reference
0526-163

Right to work: Please note that it will not be possible for the University to issue a Certificate of Sponsorship to the successful candidate for this position. Therefore, the appointable candidate will need to be eligible to work in the UK or have leave to remain in the UK and associated right to work for the duration of their employment with the University, in accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

Full-Time, Permanent.

We are seeking an experienced technician to join our studio team at CoSTAR National Lab.

This role will be responsible for the design, configuration and operation of real-time systems and pipelines within the studio, supporting virtual production and R&D activity. The post holder will ensure that real-time environments are stable, performant and correctly integrated with camera, tracking and stage-based systems.

The Senior Technician will act as a central point of technical expertise for the studio, working across multiple systems to ensure consistent, reliable and production-ready operation.

This is a hands-on role requiring strong technical understanding, problem-solving ability and the confidence to work within complex, multi-system environments.

What is the CoSTAR Stage?

The CoSTAR Stage at Pinewood Studios will be a state-of-the-art Converged Media Production Stage, purpose-built as a flexible and reconfigurable R&D environment at the heart of the UK's globally recognised centre for screen production. The Stage is designed to be modular and adaptable, supporting a wide range of production formats and creative applications within a single collaborative space. Its infrastructure includes LED and projection display systems, motorised rigging, integrated spatial audio, camera and motion tracking, a next-generation ST-2110 IP media network and an advanced AI compute platform. The stage will provide an industry-leading environment for experimentation, prototyping and demonstration across film, television, live performance, immersive media and gaming.

What is CoSTAR?

CoSTAR (Convergent Screen Technologies and Performance in Realtime) is a £75.6 million investment from the UKRI Infrastructure Fund, delivered by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). CoSTAR establishes the UK’s first national network of research and development (R&D) Labs for the Creative Industries, forming part of the UK’s long-term research infrastructure to support innovation-led growth in some of the country’s most economically and culturally significant sectors.

About the team

We are building a team to operate and maintain the stage and its systems day-to-day, supporting users from the creative industries and academia to carry out groundbreaking research and development projects. We expect the team members to come with the skills and experience needed to work effectively with our core systems and to have the flexibility to thrive in a constantly changing R+D environment. They’ll need the interpersonal skills to work closely with people from a wide range of industries, with varying levels of studio experience: supporting users new to the environment one day and learning from world-leading experts the next.

What you will be doing (see job description for full details):

Working with CoSTAR staff and partners to configure, operate and maintain real-time environments for studio-based production and R&D activity.
Responsible for scene setup, content integration and system configuration within real-time engines.
Prepare real-time systems for sessions, including configuration, testing and validation.
Ensure correct alignment between physical and virtual environments.
Work closely with other technical roles to maintain stable, end-to-end workflows.

You should apply if you:

Enjoy working in a fast-moving, agile environment, both independently and as part of a team.
Have significant experience of working in Virtual Production, with a genuine passion and interest in new and emerging creative technologies and a commitment to work in a focused and professional manner.
Have solid technical understanding of real-time engines (e.g. Unreal Engine) and media server technologies such as Disguise or nDisplay.

This is a full-time, permanent role and is available immediately.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion is a priority for CoSTAR. As such, we actively welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are especially keen to recruit people from groups currently under-represented in creative technology including women, non-binary and disabled people and ethnic minority/ global majority candidates.

We also aim to remove barriers to our recruitment process and invite applicants to contact us on recruitment@rhul.ac.uk if you require any reasonable adjustments or support with your application.

The post will be based at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and the post holder will be expected to work fully on-site.

For an informal discussion about the post, please contact harpreet.gahir@rhul.ac.uk

The RHUL Recruitment Team can be contacted with queries by email at: recruitment@rhul.ac.uk

Please quote the reference: 0526-163

Closing Date: 23:59, 14 June 2026

Interviews may be online and / or in person at the Royal Holloway campus and are expected to take place between 23 June and 17 July 2026.

Further details:

Job Description & Person Specification

The university has adopted hybrid working for some roles therefore some remote working may be possible for this role.

Royal Holloway is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and encourages applications from all people regardless of age, disability, gender, marital status, parental status, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or trans status or history. More information on our structures and initiatives around EDI, including information on staff diversity networks, can be found on our Equality and Diversity Intranet page.