We study experimentally the motion of non-deformable microbeads in a linear shear flow close to a wall bearing a thin and soft polymer layer. Combining microfluidics and 3D optical tracking, we observe that the steady-state bead/surface distance increases with the flow strength. Furthermore, we show that such lift is in quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions based on elastohy-drodynamics, which attribute the lift to flow-induced deformations of the layer. Thus, this study provides the first experimental evidence of " soft lubrication " at play at small scale, in a system relevant to e.g. the physics of blood microcirculation.