Job summary
- Main area
- Policy and Strategy
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8b
- Contract
- Fixed term: 15 months (until 31 October 2026. Secondment only for NHS employees)
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 990-ECC&D-16329-E-A
- Employer
- NHS England
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Wellington House/ Wellington Place
- Town
- London/Leeds
- Salary
- £64,455 - £74,896 per annum (exclusive of London Weighting)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 27/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading

Senior Strategy Manager
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Our Organisation
The NHS is building a culture that is positive, compassionate and inclusive – and we all have our part to play.
As employers we are committed to protecting and promoting the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all our colleagues. This underpins our values as set out in the NHS Constitution and supports us to be an Employer of Choice, while helping our colleagues to deliver high quality services for our patients and communities.
As a flexible employer, we want to support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern. In addition, although the role advertised may have a ‘home’ office base indicated, we remain committed to supporting flexibility around workplace locations. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.
We are an accredited Living Wage Employer which means that every colleague working for our organisation and third-party contractors will earn a real Living Wage. We are one of over 15,000 organisations, who voluntarily chose to pay the real Living Wage.
Job overview
Are you passionate about improving the lives of people with cancer? Do you want to ensure more people survive cancer than ever before? Working in NHS England’s Cancer Programme, that’s just what you’ll do.
Our goal is to diagnose cancer earlier, help more people survive it, and improve their quality of life and experience of care. We work with people affected by cancer, clinicians, charities, Regions, Cancer Alliances and trusts, and develop national policy and strategy to transform services for people across the country.
We are working closely with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on the development of the National Cancer Plan, anticipated for publication in the second half of this year.
Our work has been reshaping the experience of cancer patients across England. You will be instrumental in delivering our ambition to improve cancer outcomes.
The Cancer Programme takes its responsibility to promote equality and diversity seriously. We respect colleagues from different backgrounds and embrace different cultural preferences in everything we do.
Main duties of the job
Are you the right person for the job?
The Policy and Strategy team within the Cancer Programme has a broad remit for strategic policy development and implementing key strategic projects to support our ambitions on improved outcomes, from activities to understand and address inequalities in cancer to key enablers such as understanding and leveraging levers and incentives and opportunities for innovation. We work with colleagues across NHS England, DHSC and other major stakeholder organisations and partners from across the cancer community. We oversee people and communities engagement across the Cancer Programme.
We are looking for a Senior Strategy Manager to join the Policy and Strategy team. You will be responsible for the strategic development and delivery of specific policy and strategy projects, including those linked to the development and delivery of the National Cancer Plan.
If you have excellent policy, strategy, stakeholder and delivery skills, enjoy working in a fast-paced environment at the heart of NHS policy and have a strong commitment to diversity and equality, we would love to hear from you.
Working for our organisation
The NHS England board have set out the top-level purpose for the new organisation to lead the NHS in England to deliver high-quality services for all, which will inform the detailed design work and we will achieve this purpose by:
- Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities.
- Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential.
- Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
- Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
- Delivering value for money.
If you would like to know more or require further information, please visit https://www.england.nhs.uk/.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in-person.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
If you are successful at interview, we will run an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) in the Electronic Staff Record system (ESR). This transfer gathers valuable information from a previous or current NHS employer to support the onboarding process, including; statutory and mandatory competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You will have the opportunity throughout the recruitment process to inform us if you do not consent.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
You will be responsible for developing and testing national policy solutions that support improved outcomes in cancer. You will build and maintain an accurate understanding of the wider internal and external landscape and actively leverage opportunities to progress cancer priorities and policies with and through others. This includes leading delivery of complex, high profile and sensitive strategy projects and short term pieces of work, to enable and support programme delivery.
This a key role in our efforts to drive improved patient outcomes in cancer. Get in touch to find out more.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Secondments
Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to masters level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area.
Knowledge and experience
Essential criteria
- Experience in developing and delivering strategy and policy to develop services and improve patient experience and outcomes.
- Experience of project management in a large-scale organisation and operating within complex organisational structures.
Skills Capabilities & Attributes
Essential criteria
- Experience of successfully operating in complex, highly politicised environment.
- Highly developed communication skills with the capability to analyse, review and make sense of highly complex, sensitive or contentious information across a diverse range of subjects relevant to post portfolio.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Richard Brown
- Job title
- PMO manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
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