Associate Consultant - London

Have you ever wondered how the world's top healthcare and life sciences companies make informed strategic and commercial decisions?

Are you looking for an opportunity to apply your life sciences experience in a consulting environment to advance the healthcare industry?

We are now recruiting for life sciences graduates to join our team in London and take the first step in building an exciting and rewarding consulting career, working with some of the world's leading healthcare and life sciences companies to help them tackle their most significant challenges.

Who We Are

Solici is the strategic competitive intelligence division of Cambridge Healthcare Research [CHR]. Founded in 2013 and having grown to over 130 staff today, CHR gives healthcare decision makers the power of knowing by providing critical insights, analysis and interpretation that informs pivotal decisions that advance healthcare.

Our vision at Solici is to help the brightest ideas reach patients. We achieve this by combining research and insights excellence with deep subject matter expertise in a range of therapy areas and a passion for enabling our clients to deliver innovative products and services to those who need them.

Our values enable us to embed considered and curious teams at the heart of any client challenge:

• Collaboration - We build strong connections to achieve more together
• Excellence - We aim for greatness in everything we do
• Community - We deliver beyond work for our people, our clients, and wider society
• Courage - We embrace challenges as opportunities for growth
• Integrity - We always do the right thing

Our opportunity

Associate Consultant is the entry-level role of the Solici consulting career path and provides an opportunity for you to build a strong foundation for a successful career in consulting.

You will be part of integrated project teams spanning research and analysis, consulting and client leadership, developing your expertise in competitive intelligence to support our clients to better understand their competitive environment and make key strategic decisions for their assets.

Solici's consulting career path provides opportunities for Associate Consultants who have mastered their role to progress into more senior roles providing greater opportunities in client and project management, leadership and business development.

Our comprehensive onboarding and training programme will be delivered in person during your first four weeks, helping you build the knowledge, skills, and connections you'll need to succeed in your role. This is complemented by on-the-job learning, regular feedback and coaching to ensure you are set up to succeed from the day you start and at every stage of your career.

What You Will Do

As an Associate Consultant, your key responsibilities will include:

• Research planning - Partnering with colleagues to develop robust research plans, including key milestones and deliverables in line with the client brief.
• Briefing researchers - Briefing research colleagues clearly to help them identify and access relevant data sources for updates on competitive landscapes relevant to assigned projects and conduct primary research according to agreed terms. Providing honest constructive feedback to help researchers improve the quality of their outputs.
• Formulating client-ready output - Understanding therapeutic areas to authoritatively review [e.g. quality control], evaluate and develop primary and secondary research output into insightful client-friendly slide decks and email notifications, covering key findings and actionable implications.
• Project team and client interaction - Coordinating [e.g. building agendas and taking minutes] and participating in internal and external meetings with project teams and clients.
• Conference coverage - Attending conferences in the UK and overseas to deliver high quality coverage, engaging with key opinion leaders and commercial sources to drive conversations that address the key intelligence questions, and writing up daily research outputs into clear, concise and client-ready summaries.
• Workshop support - Supporting workshops by contributing to the development of materials [such as client briefing packs] and assisting facilitators with transcribing discussions.
• Commercial awareness - Developing an awareness and understanding of project scoping and profitability. Building a broad understanding of the external market, key client challenges, and industry and therapy area trends.
• Business development - Researching and contributing to the creation of proposal materials and pitches. Representing the company in external settings [e.g. at industry events or publishing thought pieces].
• Continuous improvement - Using expert knowledge and experience from past projects to proactively contribute towards the development of more effective and efficient ways of working that support CHR business strategy and culture

Requirements

About you

At CHR, it is our team that makes us successful. We hire exceptional individuals and provide them with the training, support and opportunity to excel.

You will need to have either a:

• Master's or PhD degree in a life sciences discipline; or
• Bachelor's degree in a life sciences discipline with at least one year of post-study professional experience in either a life sciences or consulting environment

We welcome applications from candidates with a diverse range of specialisms, including but not limited to: Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Biotechnology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Drug Discovery, Immunology, Medicine, Pharmacy, Pharmacology and Public Health. We will consider other disciplines if you can articulate how your skills, experience and aspirations will enable you to succeed in this role.

What you will need to demonstrate:

• Written and verbal communication skills [including excellent English] to collaborate effectively with others and develop impactful and user-friendly materials with a clear narrative and logical flow.
• Planning, organising and prioritisation skills to successfully complete deliverables and achieve milestones in a timely manner
• IT skills across the Microsoft suite [especially Excel and PowerPoint].
• Primary and secondary research skills to identify appropriate data sources and information.
• Analytical skills to convert gathered research into relevant client-friendly outputs
• Attention to detail to ensure outputs are accurate and of the highest quality
• A growth mindset with an openness to accepting and acting on constructive feedback to improve your own capabilities
• A collaborative and solution-focused attitude to achieve success as part of a team
• An inclusive, empathetic and encouraging attitude to constructively challenge and get the best out of others
• Drive, ambition and self-motivation. Our work requires perseverance, proactivity and personal accountability
• Proactivity and using your initiative to deliver beyond expectations

Essential requirements - You must be:

• Able to participate in all stages of our selection process [see below for dates]
• Available to start in October 2025 or January 2026
• Based in the UK and able to commute to our London office on a regular basis each week
• Willing and able to travel to conferences and other events in the UK and overseas throughout the year

Please also see the section on Right to Work and Visa Sponsorship below.

Benefits

With an opportunity to work in a truly hybrid working environment, we offer a flexible and supportive atmosphere as well as a competitive salary and benefits package that includes:

• Annual salary of £40,000
• 25 days holiday per year (with an additional day per year of service, up to 30 days) plus all bank/public holidays and Christmas/New Year closure
• Contributory pension scheme
• Private health insurance
• Employee assistance programme
• Mind & Body allowance to support activities that proactively support your health & wellbeing (such as gym membership or wellbeing apps)
• Annual bonus
• Cycle to work scheme
• Flexible [including hybrid] working
• Life assurance

The Recruitment and Selection Process

Round 1: Online Application

• When you register your details and submit your CV, you will be asked to complete our application questionnaire. These questions are designed to give you the chance to tell us why you will thrive at CHR
• The deadline for applications is 23:59 on Sunday 20th July 2025 and early application is recommended

Round 2: Online Assessment

• If you are shortlisted after the online application, we will invite you to complete an online psychometric assessment

Round 3: Video Interview

• If you are successful in the online assessment, you will be invited to speak about your skills and experience with our team between Monday 11th August - Friday 22nd August 2025.

Round 4: Assessment Day

• The final stage is to attend an assessment day in London on either Tuesday 2nd September, Thursday 4th September or Tuesday 9th September 2025.

How to stand out from the crowd - our top tips:

Our campaign earlier this year attracted over 800 applications and those who succeeded excelled in the following:

• Did their homework on who we are and what we do for our clients
• Clearly articulated skills and behaviours that will enable them to thrive in the role
• Provided thoughtful and evidence-based answers throughout the process
• Provided authentic and unique responses in their application form - we recognise and embrace the discerning use of AI but are ultimately looking to recruit you. We are looking for genuine insights into your skills and motivations, and originality will help you stand out amongst a large field of high-quality applicants

Right to Work and Visa Sponsorship

CHR's ability to make an offer of employment is subject to the prevailing UK immigration rules. Under those rules, visa sponsorship for this position is currently only available for applicants who either i) have already been awarded a PhD or ii) meet the UK government's criteria for a New Entrant Skilled Worker visa applicant (which are subject to change by the UK government at any time). However, please also note that CHR has a limited number of Certificates of Sponsorship that can be issued each year. If you require sponsorship and this limit is reached and/or UK immigration rules are not capable of being met, we will be unable to progress your application. For this reason, all applicants are required to provide details of their right to work status and conditions on application.

CHR is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes all employment decisions objectively on merit without regard to age, national origin, race, ethnicity, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please note that New Minds Resourcing Ltd are acting as our retained consultants for the recruitment of this role. All applications will be shared with both New Minds and CHR.