Senior Policy Officer

As a key member of the Academy's Policy Team, the Senior Policy Officer will play an important role at a critical moment for the organisation. This role will help the Policy team to plan and deliver a new set of priorities for 2026/27. Relevant priorities for this role include, but are not limited to:

• Improving health outcomes in the UK and internationally.
• Mobilising the UK health research system to turn discovery into practice.
• Making the UK the best place in the world to have a career in medical sciences.

Within these overarching priorities, there are some distinct policy programmes the incoming Senior Policy Officer is likely to work on, which could include:

• Maximising the impact of medical sciences in prevention and early detection.
• Transforming the generation and application of clinical evidence to speed up translation from discovery to patient impact, ensuring equitable inclusion of underserved groups.
• Making the UK a global leader in responsible, effective and equitable AI and data use across the biomedical sciences.

• Good understanding of the UK health research and medical sciences policy landscape, and/or other related areas.
• Experience in scoping, planning and delivering multiple policy projects in parallel, to achieve organisational objectives.
• Ability to develop knowledge of complex policy topics at pace, and identify opportunities for impact within these topics.
• Strong analytical skills and experience of collating evidence from multiple sources.
• Ability to build and maintain effective relationships with key internal and external contacts, including senior, high‑profile individuals.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to run impactful policy events, meetings, and engagement activities.
• Commitment to inclusive, accessible, and evidence‑based policy work.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Good IT, literacy and numeracy skills.
• Desirable:
  Line management experience.
• Ability to travel around the UK.

We provide our staff with a comprehensive benefits package outlined as follows:

• Competitive rewards.
• Generous pension scheme with flexible contributions – we contribute between 8% and 13% of your gross salary (with employee contributions of 3% to 8%).
• Life assurance at three times your salary.
• Work‑life balance: hybrid and agile working, 50% office attendance, 26 days annual leave plus Christmas closure days and bank holidays, buying and selling leave.
• Family‑friendly policies including enhanced maternity and paternity leave (subject to a qualifying period).
• Wellbeing and development: complimentary subscriptions to Headspace and Classpass to support your physical and mental wellbeing, and tailored learning and development support.
• Range of enhanced benefits becoming available once you have completed your probation period.