Behavioural Scientist in Portsmouth

Our Company Social Machines is a behavioural science research and innovation company. Our domains of interest include cybersecurity, influence and information conflict, resilience and organisational culture, and human factors integration with a focus on building safe and effective human-machine teams. We primarily work within the Defence and Security sector, but our work also extends to government, academic, and private organisations in various sectors, including energy, health, and manufacturing.

At Social Machines, we believe in a world where societies are both open and resilient; we’re interested in the relationships between people and technology – or sociotechnical systems – and how they can be protected and made more resilient to exploitation. Our core values are empathy, creativity, and integrity. We maintain that understanding diverse perspectives is key to creating impactful solutions. We find creative ways to address complex problems that meet the needs of our stakeholders. We conduct ourselves with integrity.

We are seeking to employ up to three new behavioural scientists on a permanent basis. The successful candidates will apply behavioural and social science tools to practical problem-solving tasks for our clients. You will be able to bridge academic research, policy and practice in order to achieve great impact. A significant part of this will involve planning projects, reviewing academic papers or collecting open-source data, designing experiments, applying qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyse data, distilling and summarising findings, as well as writing policy-oriented research papers and presenting to clients. Your communication skills will be of high calibre, enabling you to interact effectively with multidisciplinary teams and people with different backgrounds/expertise.

Some of our recent projects include:

• Development of an application for measuring and evaluating cyber security culture;
• Developing a science-based AI application that can represent different defined personas for a user to interact with;
• Experimentation to profile cyber adversary decision-making processes and turn these into AI-driven Defences;
• Profiling of adversary organisational influence capabilities;
• Review of information elicitation techniques for use in crisis scenarios;
• Generating survey inventories related to measure AI readiness and maturity;
• Leading the people component of a large AI transformation programme;
• Developing safety guidance in relation to the human aspect of human-AI teams.

Salary £33,000 - £41,000 pa dependent on skills and experience.

Additional Benefits:

• Flexible working conditions: we focus on output and have core hours, but will expect you to identify how to meet your work and professional objectives in the context of your wider life;
• Emphasis on skills and knowledge development;
• We are a fully remote working organisation – you can work from (almost) anywhere in the world, with your commute likely taking seconds. You’ll be provided with equipment and essential working tools that enable our work. Travel to client sites within the UK may be required occasionally;
• 25 days annual leave + all UK-wide public holidays;

We are looking for:

Essential:

• Values that align with ours: empathy, creativity, integrity;
• A bachelor's degree in a behavioural or social science at a minimum 2:1 or above;
• A master’s degree in a behavioural or social science;
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communications skills;
• Commitment to personal and professional development;
• Ability to work with resilience under pressure;
• Self-motivated, proactive, and able to deliver quality work mostly independently, with minimal supervision;
• Advanced skills in qualitative and/or quantitative research methods;
• Ability to travel occasionally within the UK;
• Fit with remote working: We are looking for candidates for whom remote working will fit their lifestyle;
• Willingness and ability to undergo security vetting – this means you must have resided in the UK for at least 5 years;
• Comfort with the UK government Defence and Security sector – we do not make ammunition, but we are committed to the safety and security of the UK and its allies in Liberal Democracies across the world;
• UK nationality or UK right to work.

Desirable:

• PhD in a behavioural or social science and/or chartership;
• Strong understanding of theories and practice of influence in online and offline environments;
• Knowledge in any one of our key domains of interest;
• Interest in / knowledge of International Relations, global politics, Defence and Security;
• Experience in the UK defence or security environment;
• Experience of working on complex, interdisciplinary projects requiring engagement with a wide range of stakeholders;

We are especially interested to hear from those with a background in organisational psychology (including organisational development, change, and culture), social psychology, human factors integration and human machine teaming, and any aspect of human interaction with artificial intelligence.

Any contract offered includes a 6 month probationary period.

IMPORTANT: Applicants should copy and paste this application webform into their browser and complete by Thursday 28th May 2026. Applicants who require it can instead request an MS Word version by emailing. Note that we do not accept automated LinkedIn applications. Applicants who are shortlisted will be contacted shortly after, and invited to participate in further assessment and interview w/c June 1st. The successful candidates will start with Social Machines as soon as possible after this date.