Senior Scientist - AI/ML in Saffron Walden

For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.

At Charles River, we help our clients discover, develop, and manufacture new therapies that make a meaningful difference to patients’ lives. Our success is built on deep scientific expertise, collaboration across disciplines, and innovative thinking. We are now seeking a Senior Scientist – AI / Machine Learning to strengthen and expand our AI-enabled drug discovery capability at our Chesterford Research Park site. This role is central to operationalising our AI/ML strategy and delivering high-quality, data-driven insights across integrated drug discovery programmes. Apply today and help us advance the future of AI-enabled drug discovery.

Candidates must have full and permanent Right to Work in the UK as we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

As a Senior Scientist in AI/ML, you will work with scientific independence under strategic direction, applying advanced machine learning and informatics approaches to real drug discovery challenges.

You Will:

• Develop, deploy, and apply AI/ML models for molecular design, prediction, and decision making.
• Apply AI/ML and (chemo)informatics to support high quality scientific decisions across client programmes.
• Drive innovation in AI, automation, and in silico strategies, accelerating progression from hit to candidate.
• Collaborate closely with medicinal chemists, biologists, computational scientists, project leaders, and clients.
• Present scientific results, challenges, and recommendations clearly to internal and external stakeholders.
• Maintain awareness of emerging AI/ML technologies and scientific literature, sharing knowledge across teams.
• Contribute to scientific proposals, client presentations, and business development activities.
• Mentor and support colleagues, helping to build informatics and AI capability across the organisation.
• Function as an ambassador for Charles River at conferences and external scientific events when required.

Skills, Qualifications & Experience

Essential:

• PhD in Computational Chemistry, AI/ML, Chemoinformatics, or a related discipline.
• BSc/MSc in chemistry or computer science with significant industry experience applying AI/ML in drug discovery.
• Demonstrable experience developing and deploying AI/ML methods in a drug discovery environment.
• Strong Python programming skills, including experience with Jupyter notebooks and modern IDEs.
• Experience working with structured and unstructured data.
• Proven ability to work effectively in multi-disciplinary, project-based teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to communicate complex ideas clearly and pragmatically.

Desirable:

• Industry experience within a CRO or pharmaceutical drug discovery organisation.
• Sound understanding of the mathematics and statistics underpinning AI/ML.
• Experience using commercial and open-source molecular modelling software.
• Exposure to bioinformatics or biologics focused data.

This role is hybrid/onsite, with regular attendance required at our Chesterford Research Park (Saffron Walden) site. Travel may be required for client meetings and scientific conferences.

What We Offer You:

At Charles River Discovery UK, we offer a competitive and comprehensive benefits package designed to support our employees’ health, wellbeing, and professional growth. A generous bonus and non-contributory pension, health, dental and much more.

About Discovery:

Discovery from Charles River is industry-proven in the successful development of novel therapies, with over 350 patents and 80 preclinical drug candidates delivered to our sponsors in the past 17 years. Backed by more than 650 scientists, our comprehensive, integrated portfolio employs the latest technology and platforms to provide chemistry, biology, and pharmacology services that support clients from the earliest stages of hit identification all the way through to IND.

About Charles River:

Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities.

Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market. With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe.