We cog your gears of innovation
We cog your gears of innovation
We connect startups, universities, research centres and industrial teams — and the kit they keep in cupboards that cost more than a house. Then we let grown-ups publish work packages, and grown-ups apply.
The proposition
A salon for people who still make things
Finding the right person, the right kit, and a job worth doing has always taken too many emails. Blighty Boffins is the introduction: part brokerage, part salon, part very well-organised noticeboard.
We take the work seriously and ourselves only as seriously as is useful. Wit is a form of precision. Class is knowing when to stop talking.
More about us
Domains
Where the work lives
Advanced Manufacturing
Making things that still work after Tuesday, at a scale that would have impressed Brunel.
Aerospace & Defence
Wings, rotors, and the sort of reliability one prefers at 38,000 feet.
Clean Energy & Net Zero
Decarbonisation with numbers attached, not just a tasteful shade of green.
Digital & AI
Intelligence that has been asked to do a job, not merely to impress a slide.
Life Sciences & MedTech
Biology, devices, and the habit of being quietly good at both.
Materials & Quantum
Atoms, lattices, and the occasional particle that refuses to pick a side.
Mobility & Infrastructure
Trains, roads, ports, and the civilised idea that things should arrive.
Space & Satellites
In orbit — smaller than the speeches, larger than the jokes.
Work packages
Proper jobs, on a board
design · £40–70k
Design a hydrogen-ready combustor liner for a 2 MW industrial turbineA liner that can live with hydrogen without becoming modern art. Thermal, materials and a drawing pack a foundry will not laugh at.
characterisation · £25–45k
Characterise graphene-enhanced concrete for rail sleepersMixes, coupons, and the difference between a press release and a sleeper. Freeze–thaw, fatigue, and a report a track engineer can read.
prototype · £30–55k
Build a digital twin of a tidal barrage lockA twin that predicts gate loads and silt, not a dashboard that looks like a video game. Must run on a laptop in a harbour office.
trial · £18–32k
Thermal-vacuum campaign for a 6U photonic payloadBook the chamber, write the procedure, and do not cook the optics. We have a payload. We need a grown-up campaign.
What people say
“At last, a noticeboard that does not talk to me as if I were a series A.”
“They found us a tank, a professor, and a sentence that described the job. I nearly wept.”
“The work package was shorter than our NDA and twice as useful.”
“They take the work seriously and themselves only as seriously as is useful. That is the brief, and they appear to have read it.”
Latest notes
View all22 Aug 26
Work packages are not vibes14 Aug 26
The shed is a serious place5 Aug 26
Measurement before metaphor28 Jul 26
The box and the job
Events
Browse eventsIn-Person Seminar
Boffins' Breakfast — Clerkenwell17 Sept 26
Webinar
How to write a work package that a grown-up will apply to24 Sept 26
Hybrid
Manchester materials afternoon8 Oct 26
Hybrid
Orkney: a weather window, explained22 Oct 26
Join in
If you invent things, or need things invented
Startups, universities, research centres, and the occasional genius in a shed. Publish a package, apply to one, or simply look around.
