Career Grade/Lead Clinical Scientist

Job overview

The Radiotherapy Physics Group at the Northern Centre for Cancer Care (NCCC) is looking for an experienced registered radiotherapy Medical Physics Expert to join our team.

NCCC runs services at both the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle and Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle and provides a highly specialised clinical service for the treatment of cancer patients. The successful candidate will be based primarily at the Freeman Hospital but would be required to work occasionally in the Carlisle site.

• Interview Date Friday 13 November 2026
• 37 Hours 30 Minutes/Week
• You will be redirected to Trac to apply for the vacancy. Please expand the job details section and read all of the information before applying for the vacancy.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

Main duties of the job

As the successful candidate you will contribute to the whole range of our clinical service but will play a major role in leading the scientific computing and scripting service within Radiotherapy physics. You will be able to demonstrate leadership skills, including leading on a major project and show that you can provide clinical, scientific and technical advice to a wide range of other professional groups including clinical, technical and managerial staff both within and outside of NCCC. Significant software development expertise, together with proven experience of contributing to a robust software development lifecycle and maintaining a current understanding of relevant legislation, standards, and best practice, is essential.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The NCCC is one of the leading radiotherapy centres in the UK. Our current equipment fleet includes 10 Varian TrueBeams, 3 Siemens CT scanners, a dedicated MR scanner, Flexitron HDR brachytherapy unit and a superficial unit. We have an additional Varian TrueBeam being installed in January 2027. Our range of advanced treatment methods includes SRS, SABR, VMAT, IMRT, TBI, TSEI and SGRT. We have recently introduced HyperSight imaging on our newest linacs and are developing our on-line adaptive radiotherapy processes across a range of treatments, with the computing team playing a leading role.

As a national leader in automation, the NCCC radiotherapy computing group develops and maintains over 30 clinical scripts within the treatment planning system, RayStation, which are run clinically over 3000 times a month. The group supports Python applications inside and outside the TPS, along with a small number of web applications. With the recent start of a CSC STP trainee based in the team, we have ambitions to develop and expand the role of the team.

NCCC is a reference site for advanced SRS practices with Brainlab Elements and we have an excellent culture of clinical trials involvement. We have a strong teaching pedigree linked with Newcastle University, delivering the national STP academic MSc course, oncologist FRCR teaching and local STP and Route-2 physicist training.

• You will have a significant role in managing the radiotherapy physics scientific computing team to ensure a high quality delivery of the computing service, including the development of the software lifecycle, management of all in-house software change requests and the skill development of the team.
• You will be responsible for ensuring adherence to legislation and best-practice including items such as the Medical Device Regulations, the in-house exemption, standards for lifecycles and risk management and DCB0129/0160.
• You will work closely with the senior physics team to ensure that the computing service meetings the needs of the radiotherapy service and that sufficient resources are allocated.
• You will take a lead in negotiating and collaborating with Trust IT, Information Governance and Clinical Safety teams in order to be able to provide a high standard computing service.
• You will take a leading role in the supervision of a CSC trainee who will be based within the team.
• You will contribute to a wide range of radiotherapy physics clinical and scientific services, including planning, imaging, brachytherapy, radiobiology and radiation protection.
• You will be required to report and explain scientific & technical issues to the senior physics, radiographic, medical and managerial team using language suited to each.
• You will work closely with teams at both the Carlisle and Newcastle sites and will occasionally spend time at both sites.
• You will provide scientific and technical leadership in your area of expertise.
• You will maintain and develop high standards of service provision throughout your area of responsibility.
• You will assist the service lead in developing and monitoring strategies, procedures and practices, to ensure that quality is maintained and information is stored and communicated appropriately.
• You will develop and deliver research and development activities for healthcare advancement across a range of specialist areas and lead major project involving multiple team members from a range of disciplines.
• You will line manage and mentor individuals and contribute to the management, development and training of other staff.
• You will be required to teach on our Clinical Scientist and FRCR academic training courses and train and coach on our STP teaching programme.

If you do not have recognition as a Medical Physics Expert, we may consider your application if your submission is imminent. In this case you could be appointed at a lower grade/band until MPE recognition is achieved. To take advantage of this option, you must contact Michael Trainer in advance to discuss.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.