Software Engineer

Newcastle University - NIHR Innovation Observatory (IO)

Location:	Newcastle upon Tyne
Salary:	£31,236 to £34,610 per annum.
Hours:	Full Time
Contract Type:	Fixed-Term/Contract

Placed On:	16th January 2026
Closes:	16th February 2026
Job Ref:	29018

We are a world class research-intensive university. We deliver teaching and learning of the highest quality. We play a leading role in economic, social and cultural development of the North East of England. Attracting and retaining high-calibre people is fundamental to our continued success.

IntroductionThe NIHR Innovation Observatory (IO) is a world-leading health and care innovation horizon scanning research centre based at Newcastle University. Our work supports government agencies, industry, regulators, charities, and researchers by delivering timely, actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making, policy development, investment guidance, funding programs and improve alignment across agencies. We work across the health, life sciences and wider care ecosystem to identify innovation, gaps and unmet needs, follow trends and signal potentially game changing innovations. Our work fosters national and international collaboration supporting the growth of the UK health and life sciences sector, and is a beacon for cross-sector, interdisciplinary training and capacity building in horizon scanning and foresight. We are at the forefront of developing approaches and people to identify and analyse emerging health and care technologies, ensuring the UK is prepared to leverage scientific breakthroughs that improve patient outcomes and support system readiness.

You will have a responsibility for promoting the values of the NIHR Innovation Observatory through appropriate and visible leadership behaviours and actions. You will have a particular responsibility to:

• Teamwork: Collaborate with kindness, value and respecting everyone, offering help and support. Actively promoting an open flow of information and seeking to partner with external interest holders/stakeholders in all our activities.
• Courage and Ambition: Operate at the top of your game, valuing and actively seeking out learning and development opportunities. Giving and receiving feedback with honesty and reflecting on your approaches.
• Curiosity and Open-mindedness: Embrace creativity and value originality, seizing opportunities to learn and innovate.
• Integrity and Quality: Walk the talk and be well-prepared and robust in your approach, delivering high quality timely outputs, and managing your time and resources effectively.

The RoleWe are recruiting a Software Engineer to join the NIHR Innovation Observatory (IO), based at Newcastle University. This is a hands-on role focused on delivering high-quality code as part of our in-house technical infrastructure team. You will play a key part in building OpenScan - our cloud-based data platform for managing health innovation data and shaping the applications that sit on top of it.

You'll be joining a small, agile team working at the intersection of health data, research, and building systems that feed into national health policy and innovation tracking. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys writing clean, maintainable code, learning from others, and contributing to a technically ambitious but pragmatic build.

You will work closely with the Lead Software Engineer and Technical Project Manager to support the continuous development of OpenScan's core infrastructure, particularly around data ingestion, processing, and backend integration.

The post is full-time, fixed-term until 31 March 2031.

For informal enquiries please contact Debra Jones at Debra.Jones@newcastle.ac.uk.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or a related field.