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
Senior Public Health Practitioner
NHS Grampian Band 6 | £43,231 to £52,679 Aberdeen | Permanent | 2 posts Closing: 6 November 2026
Join the Aberdeen City Health & Social Care Partnership Health Improvement Team and support prevention work across Active Ageing, Population Mental Health and Healthy Weight.
The role includes community engagement, programme planning, evaluation, partnership working and turning evidence and local needs into practical action.
Why it matters: Two permanent Band 6 posts make this a strong opportunity for people with public health or health improvement experience who are ready to take on more responsibility for programmes and partnerships.
View the NHS Grampian vacancy
💼 Featured Opportunities
Research Assistant in Machine Learning for Epidemiology
University of Sheffield £32,080 pro rata | £6,416 actual salary for 7 hours per week Sheffield / hybrid | Fixed term Closing: 8 November 2026
Help develop an early-warning system to predict Strep A outbreaks using epidemiological data and machine learning.
The role involves data cleaning, analysis, visualisation and Python.
Why it matters: An unusual opportunity to build experience where infectious-disease epidemiology and data science meet.
View the University of Sheffield vacancy
Statistician
Queen Mary University of London £40,815 to £52,790 London / hybrid | Full time | Fixed term Closing: 23 November 2026
Work within Barts Clinical Trials Unit on cancer research, screening and prevention studies.
Applicants need an MSc, PhD or equivalent experience in statistics or a related quantitative field. Experience using statistical software such as R is essential.
Why it matters: A strong option for quantitative professionals who want to apply statistical skills to cancer prevention and population health research.
Research Associate or Research Fellow in Computational Health Policy Modelling
Imperial College London £50,733 to £67,351 London / hybrid | Fixed term for 24 months Closing: 22 November 2026
Work on Health-GPS, a model used to explore how policies affecting areas such as diet, physical activity and income could influence chronic disease and health outcomes.
Why it matters: A good example of how epidemiology, programming and health policy can come together in one role.
View the Imperial College London vacancy
📰 This Week in Public Health
New restrictions on vapes and nicotine products
What changed: From 29 October, UK rules now prevent the sale of all vaping and nicotine products, including nicotine-free vapes and nicotine pouches, to under-18s. New restrictions also cover promotional giveaways and substantial discounts.
Why it matters: Tobacco and nicotine control creates work across public health policy, behaviour change, enforcement, surveillance and evaluation.
Read the government guidance
UKHSA strengthens norovirus surveillance
What changed: UKHSA has introduced more detailed norovirus typing and is developing next-generation sequencing to strengthen surveillance. Changes have also been made to national reporting and the norovirus dashboard.
Why it matters: It shows how infectious-disease surveillance increasingly brings together epidemiology, laboratory science, genomics and data.
Road casualties continue to fall in Wales
What changed: New figures show 20% fewer road casualties across Wales in April to June 2026 compared with the same period last year. On 20mph and 30mph roads combined, casualties were 35% lower than the same quarter in 2023.
Why it matters: Public health is not limited to healthcare. Transport policy, housing, planning and the environment can all have measurable effects on population health.
Read the Welsh Government update
🎓 Learning Opportunity
Faculty of Public Health: Curriculum Review Webinar
4 November 2026 | 11am | Online
The Faculty of Public Health is holding an open webinar on the draft Public Health Specialty Training Curriculum 2027.
Why it matters: Even if you are not planning to enter specialty training, the curriculum is a useful way to understand the skills and knowledge expected across public health practice.
💡 Career Insight
Look at skill combinations, not just job titles
This week’s vacancies combine:
Public health + programme delivery Epidemiology + machine learning Statistics + cancer prevention Modelling + policy
You do not need to develop every skill.
Instead, think about the type of work you want to do and ask:
What practical skill would make me stronger in that area?
That could be R, Power BI, evaluation, project management, community engagement, GIS or another skill that fits your target roles.
✍️ Application Tip
Build an evidence map before you start writing
Before writing your supporting statement, take the essential criteria from the person specification and put your strongest example next to each one.
Essential criterion → strongest evidence
Then check:
• Have I covered every essential criterion? • Have I used a specific example? • Is my own contribution clear? • Have I shown what happened as a result?
Then start writing.
This makes it much easier to spot gaps before you submit.
📄 PHCH Resource of the Week
Interview Preparation
Got an interview coming up?
PHCH Interview Preparation is built around the actual role you are interviewing for. It includes an interview strategy session, personalised preparation guide and role-specific mock interview.
Useful if you know you have strong experience but need help deciding which examples to use and how to structure your answers clearly.
Explore PHCH Interview Preparation
Public Health Careers Weekly is published every Friday to help you find relevant opportunities and make more informed career decisions.
Until next week.
Public Health Careers Hub