We are hiring a Health Data Innovation Lead - Challenge Works

Challenge Works is world-leading in the development and delivery of high-impact challenge prizes that bring together innovators, experts and communities to solve some of society’s most pressing problems.

Owned by the innovation foundation Nesta, Challenge Works has delivered more than 100 challenge prizes worldwide, using our unique model to identify opportunities, mobilise diverse communities of innovators and accelerate solutions to complex global challenges.

Our challenge prizes shine a spotlight on specific problems where innovation can make a meaningful difference, providing the support, resources and incentives needed to help the most creative and ambitious teams develop new solutions.

Increasingly, advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science are transforming what is possible across many areas of society. In many cases, access to high-quality, well-curated and responsibly governed data is critical to unlocking new discoveries and enabling innovation.

Challenge Works has significant experience designing and delivering data-driven innovation programmes. In 2018, we created the largest financial services data sandbox through our Open Up prize series, supporting innovators to develop new approaches to personalised finance. More recently, we launched the Smart Data Challenge with the Department for Business and Trade to address cross-sector data challenges, and we currently deliver the Manchester Prize, the UK government’s flagship prize for breakthrough AI innovation.

Building on this expertise, Challenge Works is expanding its work at the intersection of health, data and artificial intelligence. We are delivering the £8 million Longitude Prize on ALS, a global innovation challenge bringing together AI researchers, biotech experts and ALS specialists to accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic approaches using one of the world’s largest harmonised ALS datasets.

Through this work, Challenge Works is developing deep expertise in enabling responsible access to complex health datasets, supporting innovators to use data effectively, and building the partnerships and infrastructure required to accelerate data-driven breakthroughs. We are now applying this experience to new programmes focused on neurodegenerative diseases, including exploring how health, genomic, lifestyle and environmental data can be harnessed to improve prevention, early detection and treatment.

The Role

Challenge Works is looking for an experienced health data specialist with strong technical expertise and programme delivery skills to support the delivery of innovative health data programmes focused on neurodegenerative diseases.

Working within a team of innovation specialists at Challenge Works and alongside data and technology partners, the role will support the delivery of data components across a portfolio of health innovation programmes. These include the £8 million Longitude Prize on ALS, which is using advanced data and AI approaches to accelerate discovery in ALS, as well as new programmes exploring how health, genomic, lifestyle and environmental data can be used to support the prevention and early detection of neurodegenerative diseases.

The role will focus on ensuring that health datasets are prepared, supported and accessible for innovators, enabling them to use complex data effectively in the development of new research and technology solutions. This will include supporting data readiness activities, improving dataset documentation and usability, coordinating access processes, and working directly with innovation teams to understand their data needs and provide technical guidance.

The successful candidate will act as a technical bridge between innovators, data providers and programme teams — helping to translate data requirements, troubleshoot challenges and ensure that datasets and supporting resources enable successful challenge delivery.

We are looking for a candidate who combines technical expertise in biomedical and health data with excellent communication skills and an ability to support the practical delivery of data-driven innovation programmes. They will have the technical understanding to assess, prepare and improve health datasets for research and innovation, while being able to work closely with innovators to understand their requirements and provide appropriate support.

The candidate should have experience working with complex health datasets and an understanding of the processes required to make data accessible, well-documented and fit-for-purpose. This may include data harmonisation, metadata development, data quality assessment, data linkage approaches, and preparing datasets for AI and computational research applications.

The role requires a broad understanding of biomedical, healthcare or health data research environments. Experience working with neurodegenerative disease, genomics, clinical datasets, AI applications in healthcare or research data infrastructures would be beneficial.

This is a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of health data and innovation, supporting researchers and technology developers to access and use high-quality datasets to develop solutions with the potential to transform how we understand, prevent and treat disease.

Main responsibilities

Supporting innovators and data users

• Act as a technical point of contact for innovators participating in Challenge Works’ health data programmes, helping them understand and effectively use available datasets.
• Support onboarding of innovation teams, including guidance on data access processes, documentation, technical requirements and appropriate use of health data.
• Respond to data-related queries, troubleshoot challenges and coordinate solutions to enable innovators to make progress.
• Gather feedback from innovators on data availability, usability and infrastructure, helping to improve the overall data experience.

Data readiness, harmonisation and quality

• Assess and support the preparation of health, genomic, clinical and population datasets for research and innovation use.
• Work with data providers and technical teams to improve dataset quality, documentation, metadata and usability.
• Support data harmonisation and linkage activities across multiple datasets to enable meaningful analysis and comparison.
• Contribute to the development of AI-ready datasets and data resources suitable for benchmarking, discovery and challenge prize activities.
• Identify data limitations, gaps and opportunities for improvement to support effective innovation.

Health data infrastructure and access

• Support the operation and continuous improvement of secure data environments used within health data innovation programmes.
• Help coordinate data access workflows, user requirements and technical processes to ensure innovators can access the resources they need.
• Work with technology partners to support the delivery, maintenance and improvement of data platforms and research environments.
• Contribute to the development of user guidance, technical documentation and supporting materials.

Technical programme delivery

• Provide technical expertise across Challenge Works’ health data innovation programmes, including initiatives focused on ALS and neurodegenerative disease prevention and early detection.
• Translate scientific and technical requirements into practical data solutions that support challenge delivery.
• Contribute technical input to the design and development of future health data challenges and programmes.

Data governance and responsible innovation

• Support responsible approaches to the use of sensitive health data, including considerations around privacy, security, ethics and governance.
• Work with data custodians and programme teams to ensure datasets are appropriately managed and used.
• Help communicate technical, governance and data access requirements between different stakeholders.

Experience

Essential

• Degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, data science, health informatics, genomics, epidemiology, biomedical sciences, or a related discipline.
• Experience working with complex health, clinical, genomic, biomedical or population-level datasets.
• Experience supporting data preparation, quality assessment, harmonisation, integration or linkage workflows.
• Understanding of the processes required to make health data accessible, well-documented and fit-for-purpose for research and innovation.
• Experience working with data users, researchers or technical teams to understand requirements, resolve data-related challenges and support effective use of datasets.
• Ability to interpret and communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong organisational skills and experience managing technical deliverables within complex projects.

Desirable

• Experience working with neurodegenerative disease, neuroscience, genomics, rare disease or biomedical research datasets.
• Familiarity with AI and machine learning applications in healthcare or life sciences research.
• Experience supporting users of research data platforms, secure data environments or Trusted Research Environments (TREs).
• Knowledge of health data infrastructure and initiatives such as UK Biobank, Our Future Health, HDR UK, NHS datasets, Genomics England or similar resources.
• Experience developing data documentation, metadata standards or approaches to improve data usability and interoperability.
• Experience working in collaborative research, innovation or challenge-based programmes.

What we offer

Salary: Circa £66,800 plus an array of benefits including private medical insurance, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more

Location: Hybrid, with two days per week in the London office. We ask that our team attend the office on Tuesday and Thursday.

Term: Permanent

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Flexibility: We offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do.

Making an application

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 8am on the 3rd August 2026.

Interviews will commence W/C 17th August 2026

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results.

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.