Senior Policy Officer

• 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.
• Conducting a foresight exercise to identify high-impact innovations that will be critical within the near future and ensure the health system is enabled to support them.

The Senior Policy Officer will be line managed by a Policy Manager.

What you will be doing

As Senior Policy Officer, you will lead on or support a range of policy projects and activities to inform and influence the policy landscape in accordance with Academy priorities. This work may include leading on or supporting the following:

• Major working group studies and corresponding outputs.
• Informing and responding to Government set pieces and announcements.
• Consultations and rapid responses, and shorter position papers.
• Roundtables, workshops, and other relevant policy events.
• Correspondence and briefings for senior stakeholders.
• Working closely with Fellows and other experts to identify and analyse key policy issues, gather data and expert opinion. Construct impactful conclusions and recommendations to advise internal and external stakeholders.
• Delivering implementation and follow-up activities on policy recommendations across external audiences and stakeholders.
• Maintaining an excellent understanding of the policy landscape by monitoring developments and key policy issues, including the use of animals in research (please see the Academy’s statement on the use of animals in research).
• Scoping potential new areas of policy work, and/or identify opportunities for the Policy Team.

External engagement

• Collaborating with organisations from academia, Government, healthcare, industry and the charity sector.
• Maintaining and developing an effective network of contacts across the sector (including our Fellows) to inform and increase the impact of policy work.
• Representing the Academy at external meetings, parliamentary engagements (such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Life Sciences) and political events (such as party conferences).

Supporting the Academy’s wider functions

• Supporting the Academy’s briefings and parliamentary monitoring functions.
• Coordinating across a wide range of Academy functions, including its Briefings, Impact, and Events capabilities, to maximise the effectiveness of policy work.
• Working with the Communications and Engagement teams to co-develop relevant outputs and activities.
• Briefing senior stakeholders for high-level meetings and events where necessary.
• Supporting the development of core scripts on priority policy topics across the Policy team.
• Supporting the Monitoring and Evaluation team with monitoring the policy team’s impact.

Budget and line management

• Occasionally managing policy budget lines.
• Occasionally supervising policy interns and placement students.

Benefits

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

• Generous pension scheme with flexible contributions – we contribute between 8% - 13% of your gross salary (with employee contributions of 3% - 8%).
• Life assurance at three times your salary.
• 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).
• Complimentary subscriptions to Headspace and Classpass to support your physical and mental wellbeing.
• Support through tailored learning and development.
• A range of enhanced benefits become available once you’ve completed your probation period.

For more information and to apply, please visit our careers portal.

Closing date: 9.00am on Wednesday, 22 April 2026.

Interview date: Thursday, 7 May 2026 (held online).