Senior Policy Officer

What you will be achieving

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.
• 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).