Portfolio Assistant

Cancer Research UK; Babraham; Hybrid; GBP 25,000 - 28,000; Full time

Job summary

Cancer Research Horizons (CRH) is seeking a Portfolio Assistant (Therapeutic Innovation) to support governance, reporting and portfolio management activities at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge. You will coordinate meeting materials, track actions, and help maintain consistent portfolio documentation within a high-flex environment, with the average 2 days per week in the office.

The role requires strong organisation, MS Office 365 proficiency, and experience in project/portfolio settings,

Qualifications

• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail.
• Previous administrative experience, ideally in a project, programme or portfolio environment.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office 365, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint and Teams.
• Excellent written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently on clearly defined activities while seeking guidance when appropriate.
• Ability to maintain accurate records and handle information appropriately.
• Proactive approach to supporting colleagues and resolving routine administrative issues.
• Desirable experience supporting project or portfolio governance activities.
• Experience working within a scientific, research, healthcare or biotechnology environment.
• Experience maintaining trackers, action logs or structured project information.
• Experience with project or portfolio management systems.

Responsibilities

• Share agendas & meeting packs and manage attendee communications.
• Organise deadlines to receive and collate presentation materials from contributors.
• Work with Portfolio Lead to manage meeting invite lists.
• Coordinate with operations teams to manage scheduling and permissions.
• Circulate meeting outputs & produce summaries of outstanding actions.
• Document & Information Management: ensure portfolio documents are stored consistently.
• Manage consistency for portfolio & project documents with current templates.
• Support preparation and formatting of reports, presentations and meeting materials.
• Support implementation of new templates, trackers and ways of working.
• Support portfolio tracking and reporting.
• Coordinate data collection for portfolio reporting.
• Generate routine reports and status updates using agreed templates.
• Support maintenance of accuracy and completeness of portfolio information.
• Handle routine portfolio administration activities and triage helpdesk requests.
• Identify opportunities to improve administrative processes.
• Ad hoc duties as required

Skills

Strong organisational skills

Administrative experience

MS Office 365 proficiency

Written communication

Independent working

Record keeping

Proactive approach

Governance experience

Science/healthcare/biotech exposure

Trackers / action logs

PM systems experience

Tools

SharePoint

Teams

Outlook

Word

Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

Portfolio Assistant (Therapeutic Innovation) Salary: £25,000 - £28,000 plus benefits Reports to: Portfolio Lead (Therapeutic Innovation) Directorate: Research & Innovation Contract: Permanent Hours: Full-time, 35 hours per week Location: Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge (high-flex with an average of 2 days per week in the office). Closing date: Friday 6th November

Recruitment process: Initial screening call followed by a competency-based interview. Interview dates: From the w/c 9th November

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer. We are looking for a proactive and organised Portfolio Assistant to join our portfolio team at Cancer Research Horizons. This is an exciting opportunity to join Cancer Research Horizons (CRH) at a time of significant innovation and growth As Portfolio Assistant, you'll be at the heart of our Therapeutic Innovation (TI) portfolio team, helping to coordinate governance, reporting and portfolio management activities that support the development of ground-breaking cancer treatments. If you're highly organised, detail-oriented and enjoy working collaboratively across teams, this role offers the chance to make a meaningful impact and develop skills across portfolio management.

About Cancer Research Horizons

As the world's biggest medical research charity, we've helped bring eleven new cancer drugs to market. However, there is still an urgent need to bring more effective treatments to patients faster. We have recently developed a new approach to driving therapeutic innovation through the creation of Cancer Research Horizons (CRH). We have brought together Cancer Research UK's established drug discovery teams under one organisation and leadership team, combining our unique pipeline of cancer biology expertise and access to CRUK's world-class academic network, cutting edge technology platforms and clinical expertise to 1) Bring new treatments to patients faster and 2) Tackle the biggest challenges in discovering cancer drugs by seeking out more radical ideas and embracing risk in our bid to achieve success. Based at sites in Cambridge, the CRUK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, and Newcastle University, you'll be joining over 180 staff from both industrial and academic backgrounds, all dedicated to bringing forward the day we cure cancer and making real life impact.

What will you be doing?

• Share agendas & meeting packs and manage attendee communications.
• Organise deadlines to receive and collate presentation materials from contributors.
• Work with Portfolio Lead to manage meeting invite lists
• Co-ordinate with operations teams to manage scheduling and permissions.
• Circulate meeting outputs & produce summaries of outstanding actions.
• Document & Information Management Ensure portfolio documents are stored consistently and can be easily located.
• Manage consistency for portfolio & project documents with current templates.
• Support preparation and formatting of reports, presentations and meeting materials.
• Support implementation of new templates, trackers and ways of working.
• Support portfolio tracking and reporting
• Co-ordinate data collection for portfolio reporting.
• Generate routine reports and status updates using agreed templates.
• Support maintenance of accuracy and completeness of portfolio information.
• Handle routine portfolio administration activities and triage helpdesk requests.
• Identify opportunities to improve administrative processes.
• Ad hoc duties as required

What are we looking for?

• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail
• Previous administrative experience, ideally in a project, programme or portfolio environment
• Proficient in Microsoft Office 365, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint and Teams.
• Excellent written communication skills
• Ability to work independently on clearly defined activities while seeking guidance when appropriate
• Ability to maintain accurate records and handle information appropriately.
• Proactive approach to supporting colleagues and resolving routine administrative issues.
• Desirable Experience supporting project or portfolio governance activities.
• Experience working within a scientific, research, healthcare or biotechnology environment.
• Experience maintaining trackers, action logs or structured project information.
• Experience with project or portfolio management systems.

Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do.

• Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination
• Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism
• Human: Act to have a positive impact on people
• Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively

What will I gain?

We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals. You can explore our benefits by visiting our careers web page.

We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented.

We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen.

Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18, so that we can protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.

We're the world's leading cancer charity, dedicated to saving and improving lives with our research. We work to reduce the impact of cancer on people's day-to-day lives through our research, influence and information. We are beating cancer – step by step, day by day. Our work means that people with cancer live better lives through earlier diagnosis and kinder, more effective treatments. Find a purposeful career that will empower you to grow and collaborate with like-minded experts.