Deep tech

Deep Tech Recruitment

Humand is a specialist technology recruitment agency based in Oxfordshire, and deep tech is the work we were built for: hard engineering and complex builds where science, software and hardware meet. We recruit the scientists, engineers and technical leaders behind quantum systems, photonics and lasers, scientific instrumentation and metrology, medical technology and imaging, applied AI and computer vision, and electronics and embedded software — for employers across Oxfordshire and the UK. Permanent, contract and retained leadership searches are three separate services, and most of these people are found by direct approach rather than by advertising.

How we work

Permanent, contract and leadership search

Where we work

Why Oxfordshire

Supporting technology employers across Oxfordshire, including companies based around Harwell, Milton Park, Oxford Science Park and Oxford Technology Park.

• Harwell
• Milton Park
• Oxford Science Park
• Oxford Technology Park

Humand is based in Eynsham, West Oxfordshire. We recruit across these clusters; we do not have offices on the campuses themselves.

Our Golang Oxford community has met at Black Cow Technology on Oxford Science Park. That is a venue that has hosted us, not a client relationship. See Golang Oxford.

Communities

Where we meet this market

We help organise and support these groups year-round, independently of any live vacancy. People who speak at our events are not thereby our clients — this is how we know the market, not proof of who we have placed.

Questions

Deep tech recruitment, answered

What is deep tech recruitment?

Recruiting for hard engineering and complex builds where science, software and hardware meet. In practice it means hiring scientists, engineers and technical leaders for products whose hard part is a physical or scientific problem rather than a purely software one — quantum systems, optics and lasers, scientific instruments, medical technology, applied AI and the embedded electronics underneath them.

Which deep tech markets does Humand actually recruit in?

Six: quantum; photonics, optics and lasers; scientific instrumentation, metrology and sensors; MedTech and medical imaging; AI, machine learning and computer vision; and electronics and embedded. Each has its own sector page on this site. We deliberately do not claim space, fusion or advanced materials as specialisms, because they are not markets we can evidence today.

Are you Oxfordshire-only, or UK-wide?

Humand is based in Oxfordshire, which is where the deep-tech density is and where we run our technology communities, but searches run for employers across the UK. Where a role is remote or hybrid, the arrangement that matters is the one the employer will actually accept.

Do you recruit permanent, contract and leadership roles in deep tech?

Yes, and they are genuinely different pieces of work rather than one process priced three ways. Permanent and contract recruitment each have their own page, and senior technical leadership runs as a retained or exclusive search with a defined package.

Why is hiring for deep tech different from ordinary technology hiring?

The candidate pool is small enough to be mapped rather than filtered, and most of it is employed and not looking. Advertising reaches the small fraction that is actively searching. It also means a brief has to be understood technically before the search starts, because the difference between two apparently similar candidates is often the specific system they have built.

How do you find people in markets this small?

By knowing them before there is a role. We help organise and support technology communities across Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley, year-round and independently of any live vacancy. That is not a candidate database — the value is that the relationships and the market knowledge already exist, which is what makes a direct approach land.