Life Sciences Manager

About us 

We are a leading consultancy with a purpose to make an enduring impact on health and healthcare. We work with leaders and frontline teams to improve health, transform healthcare, drive adoption of innovation and create value through investment. 

Our consultancy serves the entire healthcare sector, from payors and providers of care, to life sciences companies, health tech and sector suppliers and health investors. We provide end-to-end services, from strategy through implementation, accelerated by data, digital and AI. 

We shape opinion through evidence-based thought leadership on key issues affecting health. With a strong ability to access and use health data, our consultants help to deliver positive and meaningful change. 

Our Life Sciences practice operates at the intersection of health systems and industry, partnering with global pharmaceutical companies at the EUCan and global level and engaging earlier in the product lifecycle, increasingly two to five years ahead of launch. We are the partner that drives and proves the uptake of innovative, population health medicines: our deep NHS relationships and whole-population linked data assets are the engine we use to demonstrate real-world value, evidence we then carry into EU, Canadian and global markets. Our ambition is to reach £10m in Life Sciences revenues by 2030, with the majority of that growth coming from beyond the UK. 

Our strategic intent 

We are focused on building the leading consulting company dedicated to health. We serve the entire healthcare sector, including healthcare systems (providers, payors and regulators), life sciences (pharmaceuticals, biotech, devices and diagnostics), health technology, health investors, and the wider supplier landscape.    

We provide end-to-end services, from strategy through implementation, supporting organisations to improve population health and healthcare outcomes. Our work spans strategy and transformation, finance and performance improvement, and delivery accelerated by data, digital and AI. We help clients understand their ambitions, identify opportunities to create value, apply innovation in practice, and deliver sustainable, measurable change.    

Within life sciences, our ambition is to be the partner that drives and proves the uptake of population health medicines. We help pharmaceutical, biotech and diagnostics clients accelerate the adoption of innovation across health systems, generate real-world evidence from linked population data, and shape the policy, HTA and market access conditions in which new treatments succeed. We increasingly engage at the global and EUCan level and earlier in the product lifecycle, thinking global and acting multi-local across UK, EU and Canadian markets. 

Our consulting is accelerated by data. With a strong ability to access and use health data, we are recognised for our expertise in its safe and responsible application, improving health and healthcare delivery, supporting adoption of innovation, generating evidence, and informing decision-making. Our engineering and data science capabilities underpin our consulting and are also deployed directly with clients, often as part of multidisciplinary teams.    

We are building a community of expert consultants who want to operate at the leading edge of the profession and who share a passion for health. Through structured career development from Analyst to Partner, underpinned by apprenticeship, mentorship and formal training, we are cultivating the leaders of the future and supporting individuals to develop distinctive expertise that creates value for our clients.  

About the role 

By joining our team as a Manager in our Life Sciences practice, you will become part of a group of consultants committed to improving health and care for all. Our team combines deep sector knowledge with experience, including leaders from the NHS, global pharma and established consultancies, helping life sciences companies accelerate the adoption of innovation and prove its value across health systems, increasingly at the global and European level and earlier in the product lifecycle, where the strategic decisions that shape a medicine’s launch are now made. 

Working with leading global pharmaceutical, biotech and diagnostics companies, alongside the NHS providers, payors and regulators that shape access to their products, you will lead complex engagements that tackle some of the greatest challenges in bringing innovation to patients. While this role is anchored in life sciences, our Managers work across CF’s full healthcare remit, so you will also contribute to engagements spanning health systems, health technology and health investors. It is a genuine leadership role, where you will build distinctive expertise at the intersection of health systems and the global life sciences industry. 

Responsibilities

In this role, you will lead complex life sciences engagements, drive high-quality delivery and support CF’s ambition to grow its global life sciences practice. Your responsibilities will include: 

• Leading end-to-end problem solving across life sciences engagements, such as accelerating the adoption of a new medicine, generating real-world evidence, or building the case for patient access and reimbursement, structuring complex challenges into clear workstreams and guiding teams to robust outcomes 

• Facilitating high-impact problem-solving sessions with senior client leaders, ensuring time is used effectively and decisions are well informed 

• Owning delivery management, ensuring work is delivered to agreed scope, quality, timelines and resource plans 

• Balancing competing priorities across projects and wider commitments, demonstrating sound judgement in fast-moving environments 

• Overseeing the production of high-quality, client-ready outputs, from initial analysis through to final delivery 

• Managing day-to-day client relationships, acting as a trusted point of contact and ensuring a consistently positive client experience 

• Supporting and developing teams, proactively addressing delivery risks, resolving issues and creating an environment where people can perform at their best 

• Building and strengthening client relationships across existing and new accounts, including global pharmaceutical companies and the UK institutions (NICE, ABPI, DHSC and MHRA) that shape market access, engaging clients in conversations about future needs and opportunities 

• Identifying and shaping growth opportunities with clients, supporting the positioning of CF to secure follow-on work and new revenue 

• Maintaining commercial oversight, including project profitability and forward-looking pipeline opportunities 

• Contributing significantly to business development and origination, including high-quality proposals, responses to competitive tenders, and thought leadership that supports the growth of CF’s global life sciences practice 

• Harnessing CF’s whole-population linked data and measurement capabilities to demonstrate, not just assert, how health-system partnership drives and proves the uptake of population health medicines 

• Supporting clients across UK, EU and Canadian markets and engaging earlier in the product lifecycle, as CF shifts from a UK to an increasingly global focus 

Requirements

To be successful in this role, you are likely to have a combination of the following: 

Mandatory 

• Experience working in management consulting within a strategy or digital transformation role, with an in-depth knowledge of the life sciences sector (pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical devices or diagnostics) and how it interacts with health systems 

• Experience working with global or EUCan pharmaceutical clients, with a genuinely global lens rather than UK-only life sciences experience 

• Ability to work across CF’s healthcare specialisms, spanning health systems, life sciences, and health technology and investors, applying expertise flexibly across engagements 

• Ability to think strategically and develop comprehensive plans to address complex life sciences and healthcare challenges, such as accelerating the adoption of innovation or building the case for patient access 

• Strong project management skills, including multitasking, resource management, and delivering successful outcomes 

• Proficiency in data analysis, with the ability to collect, interpret, and use complex data sets for informed decision-making 

• Exceptional leadership abilities, with the capacity to inspire and mentor team members for high-performance results 

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to establish and nurture client relationships with senior stakeholders across global pharma and health systems 

• Strong business development acumen, including identifying new opportunities and contributing to organisational growth 

• Commitment to continuous learning and staying updated with industry trends and best practices 

• Willingness and ability to travel 

• Minimum 2:1 graduate degree in a clinical, scientific or health economics discipline (or equivalent experience) 

Desired 

• Knowledge of a specific therapeutic area (such as cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, neuroscience, respiratory or immunology) or methodological domain (health economics and outcomes research, real-world evidence, or market access) 

• Familiarity with the NHS data landscape, including linked datasets, DARS and secure data environments, and its applications in life sciences 

• Experience engaging with EU or Canadian pharmaceutical markets, HTA bodies (including NICE and the EU Joint Clinical Assessment) or reimbursement frameworks 

• Experience of business development or origination within life sciences, developing proposals, thought leadership and senior client relationships 

Flexible working

We follow a hybrid working model that balances in person connections and remote work to drive exceptional client impact. We enjoy working in person together with clients and colleagues and work where clients need us to be.

In supporting flexibility and remote working, team members can work from home one day per week as standard. Additionally, we offer 44 remote working days per year which can be used to top up your working from home days and enable you to work from home up to two days per week-subject to client needs. Alternatively, you could use your allowance in blocks to manage school holidays or other commitments. Our core in person working hours are from 10am until 4pm allowing you that extra flexibility to manage your schedule in a way that works for you. 

Our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We are committed to building an inclusive and supportive culture where diversity thrives, and all our people can excel. We only recruit, promote and reward our people based on their skills and contribution, without regard to gender, race, disability, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or other characteristics. 

We are Disability Confident Accredited, and we want you to feel comfortable and able to perform at your best in the recruitment process, if you require any reasonable adjustments for any part of the recruitment process, please let us know. 

Benefits

• We offer a competitive and flexible reward package designed to support you at work and beyond it. You will benefit from a generous holiday allowance that grows with your career (minimum of 25 days), a strong employer pension contribution, and the freedom to tailor benefits to suit your lifestyle, from wellbeing and fitness to financial protection.

• We are committed to supporting life’s important moments, with enhanced family leave, income and life protection, and access to practical benefits that make everyday life easier, such as interest-free loans and travel support.

• Your wellbeing matters to us. You will have access to a comprehensive wellbeing and employee assistance programme, preventative health benefits, and initiatives that support an active, balanced way of working.

• Above all, we invest in our people; offering flexibility, security, and benefits that grow with you, so you can do your best work while building a sustainable and rewarding career.