Principal Regulatory Medical Writer

Salary: £50,000-£58,000 plus benefits
Reports to: Medical Writing Manager
Contract:
1x Permanent Contract
1x 12 month Fixed-term Contract
hours: Full-time, 35 hours per week (flexible working requests considered)
Location:  Stratford, London (high flex 1-2 days per week in the office, or Homebased on request).
​We’re happy to offer home-based contracts through our flexible working policy. While this role does involve occasional travel to our Stratford Office — typically 4 to 6 times a year, please note that travel expenses are not covered. We aim to keep travel minimal and purposeful, ensuring it adds real value to your work and team collaboration. 
Closing date: Sunday 8th November 2026
Interview process: Competency-based interview process

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer.

We have an exciting opportunity for two Principal Regulatory Medical Writers to join Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development (CDD), with one permanent position and one 12-month fixed-term contract available.

In this role, you'll provide expert medical writing support across a range of key regulatory and scientific documents, including Clinical Study Reports (CSRs), Investigator’s Brochures (IBs), and other clinical and scientific reports. You'll play a key role in ensuring the delivery of high-quality, compliant documentation that supports our clinical development programmes.

As a senior member of the team, you'll provide specialist advice and guidance on medical writing best practice, drive consistency across documents, and identify opportunities to improve processes and ways of working. You'll also support the wider team by deputising for the Medical Writing Manager when required.

About the team

The Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development (CDD) is the world's only charity-funded drug development facility. Our pioneering research is driven purely by the goal to see scientific breakthroughs bring benefits to patients sooner.

CDD is the sponsor of early phase and precision medicine clinical trials in oncology agents. Our broad portfolio rivals that of a medium-sized pharmaceutical company, spanning antibodies, cell therapies, vaccines, drug conjugates and small molecules, making this an interesting and dynamic area to work in.

What will you be doing?

Key duties include:

• Be a subject matter expert in Medical Writing activities, responsible for Medical Writer training and process improvements.

• Act as a mentor and train new starters and more junior Medical Writing roles and key groups in CDD as required, sharing knowledge and expertise to benefit others.

• Deputise for the Medical Writing Manager on delegated tasks and represent the Medical Writing group on cross-functional working groups.

• Provide specialist medical writing skills within CDD, including writing, editing, reviewing and quality control, to ensure timely production of CSRs and IBs within applicable regulatory timeframes.

• Manage the preparation, update and tracking of CSRs, clinical trial summary results and IB Packages in use in CDD‑sponsored trials in line with current regulations, and compile compliance metrics.

• Proactively contribute to the continuous review and improvement of document writing processes in CDD, to ensure consistency and best practice.

• Produce and maintain appropriate regulatory document templates, SOPs and guidance documents.

• Develop and maintain an awareness of CDD clinical trials and key projects. Build good working relationships with key functions in CDD to ensure timely delivery of data and documents and to review third-party documents to assess the need for IB supplements.

• Assist with recruitment and may have line management responsibilities for up to 2 members of the Medical Writing team.

What skills are we looking for?

Essential

• Science graduate (Medical/Biomedical Sciences/Pharmaceutical/Pharmacy).

• Extensive regulatory writing experience with clinical trial documents including CSRs and IBs. Would ideally also include experience working with Protocols, Development Safety Update Reports (DSURs).

• Ability to produce high quality, scientifically/medically accurate reports.

• Experience reviewing and quality checking the work of other Medical Writers to ensure they meet the project brief/specification and are scientifically and technically accurate.

• Excellent proofreading skills and attention to detail.

• Organisational and communication skills.

• Negotiation and influencing skills.

• Excellent written and spoken English.

Desirable

• Medical/Medical Sciences background or experience.

• Higher degree (Masters or PhD).

• Experience in early phase clinical development.

• Oncology experience.

• Project management experience.

Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do. 

Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination   

Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism    

Human: Act to have a positive impact on people   

Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively 

We’re looking for people who can believe in and embody these organisation values and can use them to drive forward progress against our mission to beat cancer. 

What will I gain?

We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals. 

You can explore our benefits by visiting our careers web page. 

How do I apply?

We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. CVs are required for all applications; but we won’t be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to complete the work history section of the online application form for us to be able to assess you fairly and objectively.  

For more information on this career opportunity please visit our website or contact us at recruitment@cancer.org.uk.    

For more updates on our work and careers, follow us on: Linked In, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.  

Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented.

We want to see every candidate performing at their best throughout the job application process, interview process and whilst at work. We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen. Please contact recruitment@cancer.org.uk or 020 3469 8400 as soon as possible. 

Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18, so that we can protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.