Career pathway
Clinical Trials & Real-World Evidence
Run trials on the data the NHS already collects.
Data-enabled trials and real-world evidence are reshaping how treatments get tested and approved - and creating one of the most established career routes in health data.
Register freeAround 18 hours, at your own pace
About this pathway
Every GP visit, prescription and hospital admission leaves a record. Data-enabled trials use those routine records to answer questions that once needed years of bespoke data collection - following up trial participants through the data the NHS already holds, and generating the real-world evidence that regulators increasingly expect alongside classic trial results.
This pathway takes you through the discipline in order. What data-enabled trials are and why the field is moving to them; how routine NHS data is used in trials and how public trust is earned and kept; the research governance that health-systems-data trials must meet - the regulations, how to implement them and how to audit them; how to judge whether a dataset can actually answer a trial question - the day-to-day skill of an RWE analyst; a set of short applied topics; and the research-partner perspective, so you understand what patients and the public bring to a data-enabled trial. You will finish with a practitioner's view of trials running on healthcare-systems data today.
The work sits in pharma medical-affairs and RWE units, contract research organisations, academic trials units and regulators, in roles that run from RWE analyst through biostatistician and trial manager towards RWE lead. It is among the most established health data career routes, and it is growing.
What you'll be able to do
- Explain what a data-enabled trial is and when to use one
- Use routine NHS data in trial design, recruitment and follow-up
- Implement and audit research governance for a health-systems-data trial
- Assess the utility of a dataset against a specific trial question
- Communicate clearly and honestly with the public about data use in trials
What's in this pathway
6 steps
Who this pathway is for
Trial coordinators and data managers moving into data-enabled methods; analysts and statisticians who want to work with routine data; researchers and clinicians involved in trials who need to understand what the data can and cannot do. Start with Health Data Fundamentals if governance and data access are new to you.
Ready to work towards this career?
Data-enabled trials and real-world evidence are reshaping how treatments get tested and approved - and creating one of the most established career routes in health data.
