Head of Business Development / Commercial Lead in Oxford

Build the commercial engine behind the next generation of autonomous chemical sensing. Mode Labs is developing an autonomous opto-chemical sensing platform for remote environmental monitoring. We are looking for a commercially astute, technically credible relationship-builder to lead our transition from field trials and early customer interest to repeatable commercial adoption.

THE ROLE

You will own commercial strategy and business development as Mode Labs moves from product development into paid beta trials and first sales. Initially, you will work hands-on across customer development, propositions, pricing, marketing, CRM and forecasting, while building a disciplined route from technical trial to commercial purchase. Reporting to the CEO and working as part of the senior leadership team, you will work closely with the CTO and product-development team to ensure that customer requirements shape our product roadmap and commercial priorities. The role begins as a senior individual-contributor and functional-lead position. As sales scale, you will build and lead the wider commercial team.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Commercial Strategy, Sales and Revenue
  • Own the commercial strategy for the initial UK water and environmental-monitoring market, defining priority customers, propositions, routes to market and milestones.
  • Build and convert the pipeline from early engagement through paid beta trials to commercial purchase.
  • Lead customer discovery, proposals, pricing and negotiations, defining clear trial objectives and purchase criteria.
  • Refine the business and revenue model, including pricing, recurring revenues, margins and customer lifetime value, and own pipeline and revenue forecasting.
• Customer Requirements, Product and Market Development
  • Establish a structured customer-requirements process, capturing use cases, performance needs, deployment constraints and procurement requirements.
  • Work with the CTO and development team to translate customer and market evidence into a prioritised product roadmap, including analytes, product improvements and adjacent applications.
  • Balance individual customer requests against wider market demand, technical effort and commercial potential.
  • Track customers, competitors, regulation and market developments to identify new sectors, geographies and routes to market.
  • Develop the longer-term commercial roadmap beyond the initial UK water market, identifying attractive adjacent sectors, geographies and partnership routes.
• Marketing, Evidence and Partnerships
  • Develop the marketing strategy and core sales collateral, turning beta trials into credible evidence, case studies and customer-facing content.
  • Build trusted relationships across the water sector and relevant technical communities, representing Mode Labs with customers, partners and industry stakeholders.
  • Identify and develop commercially valuable partnerships, pilots and grant-funded opportunities, working with the CEO and CTO where appropriate.
• Commercial Operations, Customer Success and Scale-up
  • Establish and own the CRM, sales process, qualification criteria, commercial metrics and reporting.
  • Define and manage the customer journey from initial engagement through trial, purchase, deployment and repeat business.
  • Work across engineering, manufacturing and quality to establish a scalable customer-support and service model covering commissioning, servicing, calibration and technical support.
  • Define the structure, incentives and recruitment plan for the wider sales team as demand grows.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Within your first 100 days, you will have:

• Built a strong understanding of our technology, target markets, customers and commercial pipeline.
• Reviewed and prioritised the existing pipeline, with clear qualification criteria and CRM stages.
• Secured, or materially advanced toward contract, at least one paid beta trial with a priority customer.
• Defined the customer journey from initial engagement through beta trial to commercial purchase, including clear trial success criteria.
• Reviewed pricing and revenue models and developed a credible commercial forecast.
• Agreed a focussed commercial and marketing plan covering priority accounts, collateral, evidence generation and partnerships.

By the end of your first year, you will have:

• Secured paid customer engagements and demonstrated a credible route from beta trials to repeatable commercial sales.
• Built a qualified pipeline and revenue forecast with clear priorities, ownership and next steps.
• Established a practical CRM and repeatable sales process.
• Embedded customer requirements into product and analyte roadmap decisions.
• Built commercial evidence through customer data, case studies, publications or presentations.
• Defined a scalable customer-success, support and service model that supports recurring revenue.
• Identified and developed the most valuable commercial partnerships and collaborative funding opportunities.
• Begun building the wider sales team, with a clear plan for future recruitment and incentives.

ABOUT YOU

You are a commercially minded relationship-builder with enough technical credibility to understand a customer's problem, ask the right questions and work constructively with engineers, scientists and operators. You build trust through curiosity, competence and follow-through rather than over-selling.

You are comfortable bringing structure to an early market, where the sales process, customer proposition and product requirements are still being refined. You understand that trials and partnerships are only valuable when they move the business towards adoption and revenue.

You have substantial industry experience and may have a degree, HND or apprenticeship in a relevant engineering, scientific or commercial discipline.

Essential experience

• Significant experience in business development, commercial or technical sales roles for complex B2B products, services or technology.
• A track record of launching or commercialising at least one new technical product or service, ideally moving from pilot, early adopter or demonstration activity into repeatable revenue.
• Experience of consultative selling to technical, operational, scientific, engineering, procurement or senior decision-making stakeholders.
• Strong relationship-building skills and the judgement to develop credibility across long, multi-stakeholder sales cycles.
• Experience defining customer needs and translating market evidence into product requirements, propositions or roadmap decisions.
• Practical experience of CRM, pipeline management, opportunity qualification, revenue forecasting and commercial metrics.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including pricing, business cases, proposals, contracts, negotiation and forecast development.
• Experience supporting or leading customer trials, demonstrations or pilots with clear success criteria and conversion objectives.
• Ability to work effectively with technical teams, communicate customer priorities clearly and make sound decisions with incomplete information.
• Willingness to remain hands-on with customer meetings, proposals, account plans, sales materials and commercial problem-solving.

Desirable experience

• UK water, wastewater, environmental monitoring, catchment management or related utility markets.
• Environmental or engineering consultancy, industrial process technology, scientific instrumentation, analytical equipment or sensor businesses.
• Selling hardware with recurring consumables, service, calibration, software or support revenues.
• Selling to regulated utilities, public-sector organisations, engineering contractors or framework-based procurement environments.
• Developing customer-success, technical-support or service models for deployed instrumentation.
• Collaborative R&D, grant-funded projects or other non-dilutive funding mechanisms involving customers and commercial partners.
• Building commercial evidence through case studies, conferences, publications, reference customers or industry partnerships.
• Recruiting, coaching or developing sales and business-development teams.
• International market development or distributor and channel partnerships.

Eligibility: The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate the right to work in the UK. The role requires regular travel to customers, partners, trials and industry events across the UK, with occasional overseas travel.

Benefits

WHAT WE OFFER

• Salary: £75,000 - £85,000 p.a. depending on skills and experience, plus an annual performance bonus linked to agreed commercial objectives.
• Benefits: Employee share-option scheme.
• 25 days paid leave plus bank holidays.
• Company pension contributions matched up to 5%.
• Group life & legacy cover Annual discretionary training allowance.
• One paid charity volunteering day per year.
• Travel-to-work loan and cycle-to-work salary sacrifice schemes.
• Flexible working arrangements where practical.

This role is advertised as full-time, although 0.8 FTE will be considered. Flexible or hybrid arrangements may be possible. However, we expect the successful candidate to spend the majority of their working time in Oxfordshire during their first 3-6 months to build relationships with the team and develop a detailed understanding of the product and market. Thereafter, greater flexibility may be possible, recognising that the role will involve significant UK and occasional international travel.

HOW TO APPLY

Please apply via the application link, submitting your CV and a short statement explaining why you would be a strong fit for the role. Closing date: Open until filled. Applications will be reviewed as received.

Preferred start: By January 2027.

Interview Process: Shortlisted candidates will complete an initial telephone or video call followed by an in-person interview. The interview may include a short technical exercise or presentation based on relevant previous experience; details will be provided in advance.

Disclaimer: Whilst we will aim to get back to everyone who applies, we are a small company and may not be able to provide feedback to all applicants. We apologise for this inconvenience.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

We are an equal opportunities employer and commit to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace whilst creating an environment which promotes dignity and respect for all. We post our job descriptions across a wide range of recruitment platforms to enable us to attract the most diverse range of candidates we possibly can.

ADJUSTMENTS AND PROVISIONS

We want our recruitment process to be accessible. If you need a reasonable adjustment at any stage, please contact us and tell us what would help. You do not need to disclose a diagnosis to request an adjustment.

ABOUT MODE LABS

Mode Labs is a customer-driven technology company developing the next generation of autonomous chemical sensing systems for environmental monitoring. Based in Oxford, UK, the company was founded in 2024 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford's Chemistry and Materials departments. Our vision is to bring chemical understanding outside the laboratory, delivering clear measurement data where it is needed most: precision sensing, anytime, anywhere. Our mission is to protect the environment and human health by monitoring and reporting changes to our ecosystems.