LifeArc
Senior Project Lead, Clinical Programmes
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Senior Project Lead, Clinical Programmes
Location: London
Job Type: Permanent with hybrid working (3 days in the office required)
Closing date: 16 September 2026
Agencies: We will only work with recruitment partners on our preferred supplier list and will not engage with speculative CVs submitted.
Are you passionate about making life science life changing and delivering impact for patients? We want to hear from you.
About The Role
This role is responsible for the management and delivery of complex clinical projects, leading delivery across matrixed internal teams and external partners. The post-holder is accountable for delivery to agreed timelines, budget, and quality standards, ensuring projects are effectively set up and progressed in line with clinical strategy and operational systems and frameworks, and may act as Programme Lead for larger-scale or strategically important initiatives.
Key Responsibilities Include
- Clinical Project Delivery: Lead the planning and delivery of complex clinical projects and programmes, ensuring achievement of timelines, budget, quality standards, and strategic objectives through effective management of scope, stakeholders, dependencies, and cross-functional delivery teams.
- Stakeholder and Partner Leadership: Lead and manage relationships with external partners, collaborators, and delivery organisations, acting as the primary point of contact to ensure effective communication, alignment, accountability, and successful.
- Risk, Governance, and Performance Management: Lead project governance, risk, and issue management, ensuring effective oversight, reporting, escalation, and continuous improvement to support informed decision-making and successful delivery outcomes.
- Cross-Functional Integration and Alignment: Collaborate with cross-functional clinical teams to ensure clinical strategy is effectively translated into delivery plans, providing operational insight to support project prioritisation, governance, and successful programme execution.
- Team and Organisational Contribution: Contribute to a high-performing, collaborative team environment by supporting team priorities, sharing expertise, fostering effective cross-functional partnerships, and driving alignment to organisational objectives.
Essential Experience Required
- Significant experience leading delivery of complex clinical projects or programmes within industry, academia, or not-for-profit settings
- Experience managing end-to-end clinical project delivery, including planning, set-up, execution, and close-out
- Experience working with external partners, collaborators, and delivery organisations across multi-stakeholder clinical initiatives
- Experience leading delivery across matrixed internal teams and partners, coordinating multiple workstreams and dependencies
- Experience managing project timelines, budgets, risks, and performance to agreed objectives and governance requirements
- Experience operating within clinical development and clinical trial environments, across therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, or related areas
- Experience applying governance processes and reporting requirements in clinical project delivery
- Experience in rare disease, global health, or priority disease areas relevant to the organisation
- Experience working in partnership-led or collaborative delivery models aligned to organisational or programme objectives
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Desirable
- Experience acting as Programme Lead across multi-project or multi-partner initiatives
- Experience working within collaborative or partnership-based clinical delivery models
- Exposure to clinical project assessment, due diligence, or portfolio review processes
Education
- Degree in life sciences or a related discipline (minimum BSc or equivalent experience)
- Postgraduate qualification (e.g. MSc, PhD) or equivalent experience desirable
Skills & Abilities
- Delivery leadership, with the ability to direct complex, multi-stakeholder clinical initiatives to successful outcomes against agreed timelines, budget, and quality standards
- Matrix leadership and relationship building, with the ability to develop effective working relationships and lead internal teams and external partners across complex, multi-stakeholder delivery models
- Stakeholder management, with the ability to engage and influence across organisational and partnership environments
- Planning and organisation, with the ability to prioritise, coordinate, and manage competing demands and dependencies
- Communication skills, with the ability to convey complex information clearly and effectively to a range of audiences
- Critical thinking, problem solving, and judgement, with the ability to identify, assess, and resolve risks and issues in complex delivery settings
- Collaboration, with the ability to contribute effectively to team and matrix working environments
- Attention to detail and quality, with the ability to ensure consistency and accuracy in delivery outputs
- Adaptability, with the ability to respond effectively to changing priorities and delivery contexts
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About Us
LifeArc is a not-for-profit life science organisation, leading the way for change in rare diseases in the UK and supporting promising initiatives in global health. We seek out research in areas of unmet need that has great potential, providing support to help it become breakthroughs that change lives.
What We Can Offer You
Focused on finding life changing solutions for underserved patients, our people thrive in an inclusive, and supportive environment that prioritises their health and wellbeing. Our multidisciplinary approach guarantees our people growth opportunities, while our culture of innovation and collaboration drives the impact we make delivering on our purpose of ‘putting patients at the centre of everything we do’.
LifeArc is committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible and developing a culture that values differences. As a Disability Confident Employer, we guarantee an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term health condition who meet the essential criteria for the role.
Please note that in certain situations, such as high volumes of applications, it may not be practical to interview all eligible candidates. In these cases, we may need to select those who best meet the essential criteria. (At LifeArc, the Disability Confident Scheme’s ‘minimum criteria’ is referred to as ‘essential criteria’).
Salary will be determined by qualifications and experience along with other exceptional benefits. Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose those which are important to you. Our pension scheme offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance, and annual leave of 31 days PLUS bank holidays.
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for example, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At LifeArc we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so whatever your background or lived experience, if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. Our top priority is finding the best candidate, and you may be just right for this or other roles.
We all have potential. At LifeArc, you’ll discover what you can really do with it.
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