ALTEN UK Innovation Engineer Lab Placement 2026 - Year in Industry

ALTEN UK (parent company of Quick Release) are a leading Engineering and IT consultancy operating across 30 countries, paving the way in various sectors, including Aeronautics, Space, Defence, Automotive, Rail & Mobility, Energy & Environment, Life Sciences & Health, and Telecoms. Our mission is to enable and support our customers' development strategies, technological advancements, and sustainability initiatives. We are united by a common purpose: building tomorrow’s world today.

Our Innovation Lab brings together industry challenges, cutting-edge technologies and an enthusiastic team of innovation engineers. Our projects are strategically focused on delivering inventive solutions to address sectors & customers challenges, drive digital transformation and enable businesses to thrive in the modern landscape.

Examples of the Innovation Lab’s projects:

• A web-based, AI powered, service that allows identification of optimal solar panels placement and assists the acceleration of their deployment across urban and rural areas.
• A Multi-Agent RAG-based web app to speed up the process of authoring technical documents and minimise the risk of hallucination.
• A mobile app, running on a single camera device, allowing 3D object scanning, part identification, quality inspection, measurements, display additional information using AR.
• A bespoke LLM tool, like Grammarly but non-cloud based, to correct technical documents with sensitive information automatically.
• A computer vision tool, running on a standard mobile phone, to allow real time part detection and recognition. A game changer for quality inspection.
• Winning the ZF Open-Source Mobility Hackathon with a set of simulations testing traffic control interventions to reduce the transit time of an emergency vehicle through a city.

What will you be doing? This 1-year placement offers a unique opportunity to assume early responsibility as part of a dynamic team and apply cutting-edge technology to real world problems. You will be:

• Utilising innovation development methodologies, while facing a wide scope of applications.
• Expanding and using your technical skills.
• Working with ALTEN technical specialists to validate and improve your solutions.
• Learning how to discuss, report, and present your work in a professional environment.

You will also be engaged in all stages of innovation:

• Ideation: participating in workshops to foster creativity and generate ideas.
• Maturation: conducting research on state-of-the-art, thinking up smart options, identifying potential partners, estimating cost/time/resources.
• Project development: through a full agile methodology, from setting objectives, investigating and developing smart solutions, to ultimately validating their performance.

You are working towards a Master’s degree in any of the following:

• Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Computer Science, with a preference for practical skills in NLP, LLM, Transformers, and Computer Vision.
• Full stack development (front end and back end).

An added bonus if you have experience in:

• Automation or Robotics.
• UnrealEngine, Unity.

We are also looking for candidates who are:

• Experienced in programming in Python, write clean code, and test thoroughly.
• A team player, willing to explore different options to solve a challenge, and open to any of them being the best solution.
• Proactive and demonstrate a high level of communication skills.
• Enthusiastic about learning and capable of independently expanding your knowledge, skills, and experience.

You bring a technical and analytical approach to problem solving. You have legal right to work in the UK. The ideal candidate is curious, positive, creative, collaborative, and looking to challenge themselves. We seek individuals who thrive in dynamic environments, embracing change and ambiguity while demonstrating readiness to contribute to impactful projects within cross-functional teams. We also celebrate multiple approaches and points of view. We believe diversity drives innovation, so we are building a culture where difference is valued and encouraged.

Salary: £25,400 base + £1,000 bonus

Vacation: 24 days + 8 bank holidays

Standard ALTEN Benefits

Location: Based at the ALTEN Derby Innovation Lab (8 Pinnacle Way, DE24 8ZS Derby, UK). Hybrid (office/home) working option available. Some travel may be required.