Public Health Careers Weekly | Edition 015
Missed this week’s email? Welcome to the online edition of Public Health Careers Weekly. Every Friday, we publish carefully selected public health opportunities, sector updates and practical career advice to help you build your career in UK public health. If you’d like future editions delivered straight to your inbox every Friday, subscribe to Public Health Careers Weekly.
🌟 Opportunity of the Week
Health Improvement Manager
Public Health Scotland
Band 7 | £52,845 to £61,466 | Edinburgh or Glasgow
Three full-time posts | Closing 15 October 2026
Public Health Scotland is recruiting two permanent Health Improvement Managers and one 12-month fixed-term or secondment post.
The roles cover Fairer, Healthier Economies; Equity, Inclusion and Mental Health; and Early Years, Children and Young People. They require experience managing complex programmes, using evidence and intelligence, influencing policy and building partnerships.
Why it matters: The three portfolios demonstrate the breadth of contemporary health-improvement work, including child poverty, fair employment, public mental health, suicide prevention and early years.
💼 Featured Opportunities
Community Ageing Well Practitioner
ABL Health Ltd
£26,000 | Mansfield and South Nottinghamshire
Closing 19 October 2026
Deliver community healthy-ageing education, strength-and-balance sessions and behaviour-change support while gathering information for programme evaluation.
Why it matters: Combines frontline prevention with community engagement, partnership working and programme insight.
Healthy Lifestyles Programme Lead
ABL Health Ltd
£32,000 to £38,000 | Gloucester
Closing 15 October 2026
Lead an integrated healthy-lifestyles service covering weight, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, early years and workplace health.
Why it matters: Offers responsibility for staff, performance, service improvement and relationships with commissioners and community partners.
Project Manager
Imperial College London
£48,246 to £58,318 | London with hybrid working
Closing 22 October 2026
Coordinate vaccine-epidemiology research within Imperial’s Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology.
Why it matters: Shows how project-management experience can support highly technical public-health research without the role itself being an epidemiologist post.
Research Fellow in Climate Change and Public Health
UCL
£46,261 to £54,019 | London with hybrid working
Closing 22 October 2026
Develop climate-health indicators and epidemiological evidence for the Lancet Countdown.
Why it matters: A specialist opportunity linking climate, epidemiology, policy and public communication.
📰 This Week in Public Health
UKHSA appoints new scientific and medical leaders
UKHSA has appointed Dr Gail Carson as Chief Medical Advisor and Professor Robin May as permanent Chief Scientific Officer.
Why it matters: Their experience illustrates the combination of outbreak response, research, risk assessment and evidence-based policy needed in senior health-protection leadership.
Scotland updates its maternity and neonatal dashboard
Public Health Scotland has released its latest quarterly pregnancy, birth and neonatal indicators while highlighting incomplete submissions affecting several NHS boards.
Why it matters: Public-health intelligence involves communicating uncertainty and data quality as clearly as the headline findings.
Northern Ireland launches a health-innovation partnership
The Academic, Health and Economic Partnership will connect health services, universities, government, industry and communities to develop and scale innovations.
Why it matters: It creates a stronger bridge between research and implementation, with relevance to evaluation, partnerships, commissioning and programme delivery.
🎓 Learning Opportunity
Introduction to Population Health Management
NHS Learning Hub | Online | Certificate available
An introductory course explaining population health management and its relationship with wider population health.
Why it matters: Particularly relevant to work involving prevention, integrated care, inequalities and population needs.
💡 Career Insight
Programme delivery is a public health career route
This week’s opportunities show programme skills being used across community prevention, national health improvement, healthy-lifestyle services and vaccine research.
Public health delivery requires people who can coordinate partners, translate evidence into action, monitor performance and improve programmes.
Candidates with project, programme or service-improvement experience should search beyond conventional practitioner titles.
✍️ Application Tip
Name the tools and methods
Avoid vague claims such as “experienced in data analysis” or “used project-management methods.”
Specify the relevant tools and approaches you have genuinely used, such as R, SQL, Power BI, COM-B, PRINCE2, Agile, logistic regression or logic models.
Specificity helps the panel understand whether your experience matches the work.
🧰 PHCH Resource of the Week
Interview Preparation
PHCH Interview Preparation combines role-specific strategy, likely interview themes, a personalised preparation guide and a mock interview.
Explore PHCH Interview Preparation
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