Applicant Guide
NMITE Careers for Active Changemakers
A Welcome Message From our Chief Executive If you’re reading this, you’re probably not just looking for your next role, you’re probably tired of tradition, and curious about doing higher education differently. New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) was created to challenge the traditional model of engineering education. Our purpose is simple and highly ambitious: to widen access to high-quality engineering and technology education, and to develop graduates who can apply what they know in the real world. We do this through our unique and proven approach: hands-on, challenge-based learning, close partnerships with industry, and a relentless focus on student outcomes. We are intentionally small, highly collaborative, and driven by impact. Working at NMITE means having the space to shape things, not just deliver them. Academic roles here are broad and connected, you’ll work closely with colleagues, industry partners and students, and your ideas will genuinely influence curriculum and practice. This is a place for people who genuinely enjoy getting involved, sharing expertise and contributing beyond a narrow job description. We care deeply about how we work together. Alongside professional excellence, we value generosity, teamwork and a strong commitment to students. Our staff come from industry, education and professional practice, but what unites us is a belief that education should be practical, inclusive and transformative. We are proudly place-based and civic in outlook. Our work is rooted in Herefordshire, with strong links to employers, schools and communities, while also contributing to nationally important sectors such as manufacturing, construction, defence and sustainability. Above all, NMITE is a place where your work is visible and your contribution matters. If the idea of helping to build a unique kind of institution, one that puts students, practice and purpose at the centre, sounds like something you could be part of, we’d love to hear from you. James Newby President & Chief Executive NMITE
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Embedding the NMITE Teaching Model in Your Academic Practice Our academic staff do not simply deliver content throughout their teaching; they facilitate and coach students through real engineering and technology challenges that mirror the complex and agile nature of the workplace. When you come to NMITE, incorporating our distinctive teaching model into your everyday practice is central to your role from day one. We respect the practice of teaching as a highly skilled, and developing, professional craft.
Challenge Based Learning Our curriculum is built around authentic, industry-informed challenges. Rather than beginning with abstract theory and adding in application later, you will: Design learning around real problems with relevance to what is happening in the world today. Use theory as a practical toolkit to help students understand and solve those problems. Develop students’ confidence with uncertainty, increasing complexity and ambiguity as they progress through their studies. Your subject expertise remains vital, but it is deployed differently: through coaching, questioning, modelling, observation and discussion. You will be the expert in the room, but won’t always need to show it!
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Teach as a Member of an Interdisciplinary Team You will almost never teach alone. Modules are led by an assigned colleague but delivered by teams that you will need to organise or contribute to. Challenges are co-taught across disciplines and supported by learning technicians, professional staff and industry contributors. In practice this means: Planning collaboratively with colleagues from different specialisms. Being comfortable teaching alongside others and sometimes outside your main discipline. Ensure appropriate prominence for interdisciplinary content beyond your own subject area. Contribute positively to a team-based approach through openness, organisation and clear communication.
Integrate Feedback into Learning Feedback at NMITE is not an end-of-module activity. Instead, it is continuous and developmental. In your teaching practice you will be expected to: Give frequent, formative feedback in studios, workshops and during student projects. Encourage reflection as a learning mechanism. Help students understand professional feedback, and how to give and receive it. Students should never be “waiting weeks to find out how they did”, so it’s important, and expected, to be able to prepare and provide timely feedback. The positive is that in doing so, you will feel that your feedback is making a real and meaningful difference to their learning.
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Teach Professional Behaviours Explicitly At NMITE we don’t teach engineering, we teach eager learners how to be an engineer or technologist. Your teaching practice must model and develop: Teamworking and leadership. Time management and accountability. Ethical reasoning, safety and professional conduct. Communication with technical and non-technical audiences. You are not only a subject expert, you are a professional role model, and your workplace behaviours need to set the right example.
Use Industry as a Learning Partner Our employer partners shape modules, mentor students and help us assess work. As an academic, this means: Designing challenges with external stakeholders. Welcoming industry into the classroom. Helping students translate their learning into workplace competence. You do not “protect” students from industry, you prepare them for it, and help them develop the networking and communication skills to get the best from our industry partners. And because we want to continue to encourage industry and employer partners to support our curriculum, you will need to ensure that when they do, they also enjoy a stimulating and positive experience.
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Block Learning At NMITE we organise our programmes through an intensive block learning model rather than multiple modules running at the same time. Students focus on one integrated challenge or theme at a time, typically over 7 – 8 weeks. During each block they immerse themselves fully in the technical content, professional skills and applied project work linked to that challenge. For academic staff this means: Teaching is highly focused and immersive, not fragmented across many unrelated modules. You work with a small number of student teams intensively, allowing deep insight into learning, progress and behaviour. You will see them develop and grow professionally – at a much faster pace than you may be used to. Feedback is immediate and iterative, supporting learning as the block progresses. Theory and practice are tightly coupled, with concepts often introduced exactly when they are needed to solve live problems. Block learning creates a strong rhythm of design, delivery, reflection and improvement for students and staff alike. It enables deeper learning, closer working relationships and accelerated professional growth compared to traditional timetables. The model works best when modules are well planned and teams are well coordinated, and many staff find the focused nature of block teaching both engaging and professionally rewarding.
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Assessment as Evidence of Competence Assessment at NMITE is designed to evidence what students can do. In practice, you will: Assess authentic outputs: designs, prototypes, reports, presentations, portfolios. Use clear rubrics aligned to professional standards, and to accrediting body requirements, that show students what they need to achieve and demonstrate. Balance individual accountability with team-based work. This needs to balance the impact of a team on the performance of an individual. Ensure academic rigour while maintaining real-world relevance.
Reflective Practice We expect academic staff to be reflective practitioners. From the start, you will be supported, and expected to: Review the impact of your teaching on student learning. Adapt quickly based on evidence and feedback. Sometimes students need time to adapt to this way of learning and explaining the “why” of our approach to them is essential. Share practice openly with colleagues. Contribute to the ongoing evolution of the NMITE model. This includes constantly improving modules and programmes.
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What This Means for You Dependant on your background, joining NMITE sometimes requires a shift in mindset as much as a change in teaching method. You will still draw deeply on your disciplinary expertise, but you will deploy it through: Facilitation, collaboration and teamwork rather than authority and control. Design and planning, which is much more important in our model. Coaching and supporting rather than instructing. We rarely gather students in large groups and talk at them. NMITE offers a highly engaging and professionally rewarding teaching environment for those open to challenging traditional methods. You will see students grow rapidly in confidence, capability and professionalism, because our teaching is closely embedded in practice and real-world application.
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What Academic Life at NMITE Looks Like Day-to-Day Life as an academic at New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering is fast-paced, highly collaborative and grounded in real student and industry engagement. No two days look the same – for students or academics. Your working week will typically include: Challenge delivery in studios, working with students in their blocks rather than traditional one-hour lectures. Live coaching and facilitation, moving between teams, asking probing questions, unblocking problems and giving real-time feedback. Collaborative planning with colleagues, often across disciplines, to shape upcoming challenges, assessments and learning activities. Engagement with industry partners, including briefing sessions, module planning, supporting student projects and organising guest lectures. Student support and professional mentoring, helping students develop confidence, professional behaviours and resilience alongside technical capability. Reflective review and continuous improvement, individually and as a team, after each challenge or delivery block.
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This all means that academic life at NMITE is: Highly visible – teaching happens in open learning spaces with colleagues and students working side by side. It is difficult to hide, but also great to build such strong trust between colleagues. Deeply relational – you will know your students extremely well and work closely with the same colleagues over extended periods. Intellectually fulfilling – because you are constantly adapting content, responding to student feedback about their module experience and supporting their projects. Operationally involved – academics are closely connected to assessment, quality processes, student progression and employer engagement. There is less separation than in traditional universities between academic and professional services teams. At NMITE everyone is involved in one mission: to educate engineers through our distinctive learning model. Teaching at NMITE is engaging, rewarding and highly student-focused. Our staff value seeing students grow in confidence and capability, and appreciate working in a place that prioritises teaching and trusts them to help shape the institution without the usual constraints of inherited systems and structure. If you are excited by a future of teaching that is dynamic, applied, team-based and purpose-driven, NMITE will be right for you. For questions about our available career contact: Vacancies@nmite.ac.uk To apply visit: nmite.ac.uk/work-for-us
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