SMART Buildings R&D Engineer (KTP Associate) (1FTE/FTC 30 months)

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KTP Associate will be an employee of Glasgow Caledonian University but will be based at Solis Trading Ltd with regular supervision meetings with the University’s supervisory team

This is a full time/fixed term opportunity for 30 months

An additional £5,000 training and development budget is available for this opportunity

The Role

The main purpose of the role is to contribute to the delivery of a 30-month project which aims to develop, test, verify, and launch a Digital Twin platform to support the life span of physical assets by remotely monitoring their condition and health, which will enable proactive maintenance, service, and repair for commercial clients in the UK facilities management sector.

We are seeking a Smart Building Development Engineer to support the design, development and operation of Digital Twin solutions for various built environment applications. The role sits at the intersection of building physical equipment, data engineering and software development for data science, focusing on turning live operational data from buildings into reliable, usable Digital Twin capabilities.

You will work with data from building management systems (BMS), energy, environmental and occupancy systems, helping to integrate disparate sources into a coherent Digital Twin architecture. The role is practical and delivery-focused, with an emphasis on robust data pipelines, system integration and operational insight, rather than visualisation alone.

This is a hands-on role suited to someone who enjoys working with real assets and real data, and who is motivated by improving how buildings are understood, operated and maintained. You will collaborate with engineers, estates teams and digital specialists to ensure Digital Twin solutions are technically sound, scalable, secure and genuinely useful to end users.

The role offers the opportunity to work on complex buildings or estates, contribute to the evolution of Digital Twin platforms, and help shape how digital approaches support building performance, resilience and long-term value. We would particularly welcome applicants with industry experience in developing intelligent systems that support decision-making using supervised and unsupervised learning, and with a clear understanding of data in the context of physical systems as well as development of predictive analytics targeting the degradation of such systems.

The duties and responsibilities will include – sensor deployment and integration, and development of the data-pipeline/ infrastructure capable of supporting the realisation of data-enabled services for a wide variety of customers. The job involves interaction with the customers and their equipment base, mapping of their engineering and business challenges, articulation of the requirements for DT design and development, deployment of sensing capabilities, design and deployment of DT models and predictive analytics. The job also involves working very closely with the SOLIS Group’s IT manager to ensure the DT solutions meet the company’s and its customers’ cyber security requirements.  Additional desirable experience includes managing data pipelines that involve data ingestion, transformation, integration, and cloud-based storage; deploying AI systems using cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), containerisation (Docker), API endpoints, and model inference optimisation; particularly in collaboration with senior leadership or communities to co-design solutions aligned with organisational needs of various customers.

The job will require an entrepreneurship mindset (awareness of commercialisation of Product-Service Systems/Software as a Service). It will often involve work (installation of sensing technologies, configuration of edge devices and communication infrastructure) and meetings at customers’ sites.

The position offers the KTP Associate the following benefits:

• £5,000 to spend on personal training
• Excellent opportunity of a permanent position with the company in a leadership role
• Being part of a young and very dynamic results-driven engineering team. Benefits working for Solis Group include 28 days annual leave increasing to 33 days, workplace pension, private health insurance, gym membership, birthdays off, duvet day, training and development opportunities, social team-building events
• You will own and drive your applied R&D KTP project, linked to both a university and a business whose experienced teams will provide you with full support. Applying academic knowledge to a real-world challenge, this is a chance to deliver impactful technical solutions and rapidly grow your career with the company.
• A KTP could be the perfect launchpad, helping enhance your career by managing a challenging project central to a business’s strategic development and long-term growth (clear route to market already identified with the KTP Associate being responsible to design and deploy the DT solution via the KTP project).
• You can choose a variety of training modules during your KTP: project management, marketing and communication, finance, leadership and/or personal development, as well as job-specific technical training.

Within the first 6 months, you will have:

• Gained a strong understanding of the building estate, asset types and data landscape, including BMS, energy, environmental and techniques required to monitor pumps (and their energy consumption), plant rooms, boilers (safety/alarms - temperature and pressure) and remote testing in water tanks for compliance around legionella.
• Contributed to the development and stabilisation of Digital Twin data pipelines, improving data quality, reliability and accessibility.
• Supported the integration of multiple building systems into a coherent Digital Twin architecture, working effectively with engineers, data specialists and estates teams.

Within 12 months, you will:

• Be independently delivering robust Digital Twin features that support building performance monitoring, fault detection and operational decision-making.
• Have helped establish repeatable, scalable approaches to data ingestion, integration and modelling across buildings or estates.
• Be recognised as a trusted technical contributor, able to translate building and engineering requirements into effective Digital Twin solutions that are usable by real-world operators and decision-makers.

Business Partner – Solis Trading Ltd

Incorporated in August 2020, SOLIS Group is an ambitious SME with 16 FTEs that offers soft and hard services in facilities management for commercial clients across Scotland (https://www.linkedin.com/company/solis-group22/). Soft services include pest control, domestic and industrial cleaning, environmental maintenance, and security & CCTV. Hard services include plumbing and heating, water hygiene, electrical, building management systems/controls, ventilation, air conditioning, thermal insulation, and building fabrics. https://www.solis-group.co.uk/

Knowledge Transfer Partnership

This project is part of the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme that aims to help businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base. Successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects are funded by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK and are part of the government’s Industrial Strategy. KTP Associates spend around 10% of their time on training and development. You will be employed by the University, but your role will be based at the company. Many KTP Associates are offered a permanent role with their company at the end of the KTP project. To find out how KTP works and the vital role you will play if you successfully secure a KTP Associate position. Please visit: www.ktpws.org.uk

Glasgow Caledonian University

Glasgow Caledonian – the largest and leading modern university in Scotland - is a vibrant, values-led university with campuses in the heart of Glasgow and London. With a strong commitment to high quality education and research which supports the communities we serve, we have strong partnerships with employers to ensure our students get the careers they dream of and deserve.

Named UK Modern University of the Year for Graduate Jobs in the latest Daily Mail University Guide, and the top-ranked UK modern university in the Times and Sunday Times Guide 2026, we are a UK top 40 university according to these highly regarded guides. We are the only Scottish university with EcoCampus Platinum accreditation and were ranked first in Scotland for sustainability in the most recent People and Planet league table (2024).

With a wide range of professionally accredited courses and links with over 300 industry partners, we are the top university in Scotland for students in employment and/or further study within 15 months of graduating at 92% - with 78% of graduates in highly skilled occupations (HESA 2025). We are Scotland’s leading provider of Graduate Apprenticeships. We are committed to widening participation, helping more people from diverse backgrounds into university. Our modern campuses support nearly 23,000 students from 119 countries.

Our research is addressing many of today’s biggest global challenges. We are unsurpassed by any other Scottish modern university for the level of research (72%) considered to be world leading or internationally excellent, and our health research is surpassed only by King’s College London for outstanding impact (REF2021).

Guided by our values – integrity, responsibility, creativity and confidence - we transform the lives of the people and communities we serve.

As the University for the Common Good, we are committed to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as our values in everything that we do.  As such, we welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates who demonstrate the GCU Values.

Glasgow Caledonian University is committed to a fair and transparent recruitment process that is free from bias so that we can attract and retain a high performing workforce which makes a critical contribution to our success​.

The University holds the prestigious Athena Swan Silver institution award, which recognises our significant record of activity and achievement in promoting gender equality across different disciplines.

Glasgow Caledonian University is committed to a fair and transparent recruitment process that is free from bias so that we can attract and retain a high performing workforce which makes a critical contribution to our success​.

The University holds the prestigious Athena Swan Silver institution award, which recognises our significant record of activity and achievement in promoting gender equality across different disciplines.

The University holds the Race Equality Charter Bronze award, in recognition of our work to combat racism and support race equality.

As a Disability Confident 'Committed' employer, we are striving to ensure that our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to disabled people. Although the Disability Confident 'Committed' level does not guarantee an interview for disabled applicants, we will make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants during the recruitment process.

The University also holds the ‘Carer Positive Established’ employer award, which recognises our commitment to supporting staff with caring responsibilities.

Glasgow Caledonian University are committed signatories to the Armed Forces Covenant. 

The University offers a range of benefits including opportunities for professional development, family friendly policies, cycle to work scheme and onsite childcare facilities.

The School of Science and Engineering is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion, and is one of only two such Schools in Scotland to hold the prestigious Athena Swan Silver Department Award for promoting gender equality and women’s careers in STEMM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) and allied STEMM subjects (surveying, environment and management of all themes) in higher education.

Further details on this post are available by contacting the Academic Supervisor: Dr. Octavian Niculita (octavian.niculita@gcu.ac.uk).