National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
Associate Vulnerability Researcher
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About the Role
As an Associate Vulnerability Researcher in Telecommunications, you will play a key role in developing the UK’s capability to understand and secure telecom systems. Working as part of a highly skilled and collaborative research team, you’ll be supported in building your expertise while contributing to meaningful, real-world security challenges.
This role is designed for individuals early in their research careers who are motivated to grow their technical depth and become experts in vulnerability research within telecom environments.
What You’ll Be Doing
Develop and Apply Research Skills
- You’ll build a strong foundation in vulnerability research by analysing systems to understand how and why they fail.
- Through hands-on investigation, you’ll develop your ability to identify, validate, and articulate security issues, applying your learning to improve the resilience of telecom technologies.
Explore Telecom Systems
- You’ll contribute to the analysis of carrier-grade telecom infrastructure, gaining exposure to complex systems and protocols.
- Under guidance from experienced researchers, you’ll help identify weaknesses and investigate vulnerabilities that could impact national-scale networks.
Work Within Flexible Research Areas
- You’ll operate within broad research themes rather than fixed task lists, allowing you to explore areas of interest, adapt to new findings, and develop innovative approaches.
- This flexibility supports both your growth and the evolving needs of the research programme.
Collaborate and Learn from Experts
- You’ll work closely with experienced team members, learning from their approaches while contributing your own ideas.
- You’ll also engage with wider stakeholders, including academia, industry, and government, gaining insight into how research translates into real-world impact.
Experiment with Tools and Techniques
- You’ll have opportunities to work with and prototype tools which include fuzzing frameworks, reverse engineering software, software-defined radio interfaces, and other specialised tooling.
- This may involve working with a range of programming languages and environments.
As a trusted and independent national capability, UKTL collaborates with standards bodies, academia, government departments, communications service providers, and equipment vendors.
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Successful Applicants must be able to commute to the UKTL offices in Birmingham at least twice a week.
We strive to offer a great work-life balance - if you are looking for full time, part time or flexible options, we will try to make this work where business possible. This will be dependent on the kind of role you do and part of the business you work in.
About You
You are curious, driven, and motivated to understand how complex systems behave. You may be early in your career, but you demonstrate a strong interest in security research through academic work, personal projects, or professional experience.
You likely have:
- A foundational understanding of software, systems, and networking concepts
- Familiarity with one or more programming languages, and a willingness to learn others
- An interest in how vulnerabilities arise, including common classes such as memory corruption issues
- Awareness of core security concepts and mitigations (e.g., ASLR, NX, stack protections)
- A working knowledge of Linux environments and system internals
Exposure to areas such as embedded systems, low-level debugging, or hardware interaction would be beneficial, but not essential. Most importantly, you are eager to learn, experiment, and develop your skills.
We actively recruit citizens from all backgrounds; however, due to the sensitive nature of the work in this area, nationality, residency, and security requirements are more tightly defined than in other roles. To work in this position, you will need to meet the necessary security standards. The role requires DV clearance with no restrictions, though you are able to start in post with SC clearance while your DV clearance is in progress. You are welcome to apply without already holding SC clearance; however, you will not be able to start in post until the clearance has been successfully granted.
About Us
UKTL is building leading edge Telecoms testing facilities to keep our telecommunications networks safe, accelerate the roll-out of new technologies, and grow our world leading telecoms sector to maintain resiliency and security.
Read more about UKTL here.
Successful candidates will join a state-of-the-art facility and be supporting the team conducting testing and research on the latest technologies and innovations in the industry. You will work alongside our infrastructure and Cybersecurity professionals to ensure that the UK’s world class Telecoms infrastructure grows in a resilient and secure manner underpinning growth in other industry sectors.
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As a trusted and independent national capability, UKTL interacts with standards bodies, Academia, and Government Departments as well as Communications Service Providers and equipment vendors.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is a world-leading centre of excellence that provides cutting-edge measurement science, engineering and technology to underpin prosperity and quality of life in the UK. Find out more about what it is like working here - The measure of us - Overview.
NPL and DSIT have strong commitments to diversity and equality of opportunity, and welcome applications from candidates irrespective of their background, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, or age, providing they meet the required criteria. Applications from women, disabled and black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates in particular are encouraged. All disabled candidates (as defined by the Equality Act 2010) who satisfy the minimum criteria for the role will be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme.
At NPL, we believe our success is a result of the diversity and talent of our people. We strive to nurture and respect individuals to ensure everyone feels valued by treating everyone on the basis of their own individual merits and abilities regardless of their own or perceived identity, as part of our commitment to diversity & inclusion, we ensure we’re creating an environment where all our colleagues feel supported and welcome. More about this on our Diversity & Inclusion page.
We offer a wealth of above industry standard benefits, such as enhanced pension scheme, flexible working, and more that can be found here rewards, benefits and recognition. Our values are at the heart of what we do, and they shape the way we interact, develop our people and celebrate success. To ensure everyone has an equal chance, we’re always willing
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