Operations Manager UK in Oxford

Our mission at Electrogenos is to build technology that makes green hydrogen competitive at scale. We focus on reducing the cost and complexity of hydrogen production so it can replace fossil-based alternatives across real-world applications. We are an early-stage team working at the intersection of electrochemistry, manufacturing, and deployment.

About The Role: We are looking for an Operations Manager to be the CTO’s right hand and the person who makes Electrogenos run day-to-day. You will manage the office, support the founders, coordinate with suppliers and partners, and help keep our funded R&D projects on track. As the company grows, so will this role.

This is not a back-office admin job. You will be embedded in a small, fast-moving technical team — sitting alongside scientists and engineers, understanding what they need, and making sure the operational side of the company works so they can focus on the technology. You will also be part of the wider global operations team, coordinating with colleagues across the business on commercial, administrative, and strategic priorities. You’ll have direct access to the founders from day one.

We don’t expect you to arrive knowing everything. If you’ve never prepared a grant claim or maintained safety records, we’ll teach you. What we need is someone sharp, organised, and independent with a good sense of personal responsibility — the kind of person who figures things out, follows through, and doesn’t wait to be told what to do next.

Tasks:

• Keep the Milton Park office, lab, and workshop running — you are the reason the environment works.
• Support the CTO and CEO with scheduling, travel, meeting coordination, and whatever else the day throws at you.
• Organise meetings: set agendas, take notes, chase actions until they’re done.
• Manage procurement: raise purchase orders, track deliveries, source new suppliers, chase outstanding orders.
• Monitor inventory alongside the technical team and make sure the lab never runs out of what it needs.
• Help build the operational processes and systems the company needs — procurement workflows, onboarding checklists, document templates, reporting routines.
• Support onboarding of new team members and handle basic HR administration.
• Help collect inputs for grant reports and financial claims when needed.
• Help maintain health and safety records with input from the technical team.
• Prepare and distribute documents for partners, investors, and events.
• Contribute to how the company organises itself as it scales — you will have a voice in shaping the structures, tools, and ways of working that carry us from 10 to 20+ people.

Essential Skills:

• Relentless follow-through — when you’re asked to chase something, it gets done. Every time.
• Organised and reliable — you manage multiple threads at once and nothing falls through the cracks.
• Independent and resourceful — you figure things out rather than waiting for instructions.
• Good communicator — clear in writing, confident chasing people at all levels, comfortable saying “this is overdue” to a senior engineer.
• Comfortable with procurement: purchase orders, suppliers, deliveries.
• Good with standard business tools: spreadsheets, email, shared drives, calendars, task trackers.
• Comfortable working in a technical or scientific environment — you don’t need to be a scientist, but you shouldn’t be intimidated by a lab.
• Happy in a role that is broad, varied, and evolving.

Desirable Skills:

• Previous experience in a science, engineering, R&D, or university research environment.
• Experience supporting grant-funded or publicly funded projects (even basic familiarity).
• A degree in a science or technical subject.
• Experience with HR or people systems (Personio, BreatheHR, or similar).
• Previous startup or SME experience.
• LLM basic literacy.

Your profile: You’re a few years into your career and looking for a role with real ownership and variety. Maybe you’ve been a research group administrator who kept a PI’s lab and grants running while they focused on the science. Maybe you’ve been an operations assistant at a startup who ended up being the person everyone relied on to keep things moving. Maybe you’ve been a coordinator in an R&D organisation where your job was making sure nothing got dropped.

The common thread: you’re the person who follows through. You send the reminder, chase the input, update the tracker, and close the loop — not because someone told you to, but because that’s how you’re wired. You’re drawn to science and technology even if it’s not your background, and you want to be close to the action, not behind a reception desk.

You want a role that grows with the company. What starts as keeping operations running and being the CTO’s right hand becomes leading operations for a scaling deep-tech business.

Why us? The CTO’s right hand — direct access to the founders. Part of a global operations team — coordinate with colleagues across the business, not just the Milton Park site. Build the operational backbone of a company, not just maintain someone else’s. A role that grows as the company grows — shape how we work as we scale. Mission-driven team building real technology for the energy transition. No two days the same. Competitive salary and benefits.

About us: Electrogenos is building technology to make green hydrogen competitive at scale. We focus on reducing the cost and complexity of hydrogen production so it can replace fossil-based alternatives across real-world applications. We’re an early-stage team working at the intersection of electrochemistry, manufacturing, and deployment. Our approach is practical by design: use scalable materials and processes, and validate performance through close collaboration with partners. If you want to work on hard problems with real climate impact—and help take breakthrough technology from concept to deployment—join us.