Pre Award Development Officer

A Pre-Award Development Officer helps researchers win funding. They work in the research office of a university, NHS trust, research institute or charity, supporting academics and clinicians to find suitable grant calls, build budgets, prepare the paperwork and submit applications before the funder's deadline — "pre-award" means everything up to the point a grant is awarded, as opposed to "post-award", which is managing the money once it arrives. The job is part administration, part project management and part internal advice service.

Starting salary: £26k–£33k
Live graduate jobs: Search all jobs
Main way in: Direct entry from a bachelor's or master's degree into a…
They usually ask for: A degree is usually expected

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £26,000–33,000 to start, though this varies widely — universities pay on published national pay spines, London and the South East attract weighting, and posts in NHS trusts, charities or large research-intensive institutions can sit higher or lower than this range.

What you'd actually do

Reading funding calls from bodies such as UK Research and Innovation councils, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, charities like Wellcome or Cancer Research UK, and EU or international schemes, then flagging relevant ones to academics in your assigned departments.
Building and checking grant budgets in a costing tool — working out staff time, salary increments, overheads (the institution's indirect costs), equipment, travel, consumables and the difference between what something costs and what the funder will actually pay.
Reading draft applications for eligibility and compliance: page limits, font sizes, required annexes, whether the applicant is eligible for that scheme, whether the ethics or data management sections are present.
Submitting applications through funder portals (for example UKRI's Je-S/TFS systems or funder-specific systems) and chasing internal sign-off from heads of department, finance and the institution's authorised signatory, often in the last hours before a deadline.

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Collecting letters of support, collaborator details and partner costings from other universities or companies, and keeping track of who has sent what.
Maintaining records of applications in a research information system, and producing simple reports on what has been submitted, by whom, to which funder.
Running or contributing to internal workshops and drop-in sessions on how to apply for a particular scheme, and answering a steady stream of email questions from academics.

How graduates get in

Direct entry from a bachelor's or master's degree into a research administration or research support assistant post, then moving up into a pre-award officer role — this is a common route and the subject of the degree usually matters less than the administrative competence.
Internal moves within a university: starting in departmental administration, finance, student services or a school office and transferring into the research office. This is probably the single most common way people end up in these jobs.
From a PhD or postdoc background, where researchers who have written grant applications themselves move into supporting others. Common in research-intensive institutions, and sometimes preferred for roles embedded in a faculty, though a PhD is rarely a formal requirement at officer level.
Occasionally via a university graduate scheme or professional-services trainee scheme, where these exist — they are not offered everywhere, so do not count on this route.

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From a funder, charity or research institute, where someone has worked on the grant-giving side and crosses over to the applicant side.
Temporary or fixed-term cover is a realistic way in: research offices often recruit short-term to cover deadline peaks, parental leave or large bid rounds, and those posts frequently become permanent or lead to a permanent vacancy.

What employers ask for

A degree is usually expected, but the subject genuinely does not matter for most posts. Science, social science and humanities graduates all do this job. A science background can help if you support STEM departments with technical budgets, but it is rarely essential.
Grade requirements are generally looser than in graduate schemes — many adverts ask for a degree or equivalent experience rather than a 2:1 and specific A-level grades. Some posts will accept relevant administrative experience in place of a degree.
Demonstrable administrative or coordination experience, ideally somewhere with deadlines and multiple stakeholders. University or NHS experience is often listed as desirable rather than essential.
Comfort with numbers and spreadsheets. You are not expected to be an accountant, but you will build budgets, so employers look for evidence you can handle financial detail accurately.

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No professional exams are required. Some people later take relevant qualifications or join a professional body for research managers and administrators, but this is for development rather than entry.
Knowledge of the UK funding landscape (UKRI, NIHR, charities, Horizon Europe) is often listed as desirable. If you do not have it, say clearly in the application how quickly you pick up complex rule-based systems.

Skills that matter

Reading and applying detailed rules

Every funder has its own guidance running to dozens of pages, and a bid can be rejected unopened for breaking a formatting or eligibility rule you were supposed to catch.

Spreadsheet and costing accuracy

You build budgets where a mistake in salary inflation or overhead recovery can cost the institution real money for years if the grant is won.

Working to immovable deadlines under pressure

Funder deadlines do not move, and a large proportion of applications arrive on your desk very late, so you need to triage and keep calm in the final 48 hours.

Diplomatic persistence with senior people

Much of the job is chasing professors, heads of school and external partners for documents and signatures, and doing it firmly without being brushed off.

Translating technical jargon into plain requirements

You need to understand enough of an academic's research to check it fits the call's remit, and explain funder rules back to them in terms they will act on.

Record-keeping and systems discipline

Institutions report on their whole application pipeline, and that only works if every bid is logged correctly as it goes out.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Start as a research administrator, grants assistant or pre-award officer, usually supporting one faculty, school or set of departments.
Move to senior pre-award officer or research facilitator / research development manager, where the emphasis shifts from processing applications to shaping them — advising on strategy, reviewing narrative quality, running internal peer review and targeting large collaborative bids.
Move sideways into post-award (managing awarded grants, reporting to funders, audits), contracts and research governance, or research policy and impact. Many people deliberately collect both pre- and post-award experience because it makes you much more employable.
Progress to Research Grants Manager, Head of Research Operations or Director of Research Services, leading a team and owning institutional funding strategy.
Timelines vary a great deal. In a large research-intensive university with many layers you might move up within a few years; in a small institution with a two-person research office you may have to move employer to progress at all.

What people get wrong

“It is basically form-filling admin.”

The strong part of the job is advisory: deciding whether a bid is eligible and competitive, spotting a budget that will not survive scrutiny, and telling a senior academic their application is not ready. Experienced officers shape what gets submitted, not just how.

“You need a science PhD or a research background.”

Most pre-award officers do not have a PhD. You need to understand the funding system, not the science. A humanities graduate who is meticulous with rules and budgets is often a better fit than a subject expert who is not.

“You write the grant applications.”

The academic writes the science. You handle eligibility, costings, compliance, submission and coordination — though in research facilitator roles further up, you may do substantial editing and critical review of the narrative.

“The workload is steady all year.”

It is intensely cyclical. Major funder deadlines create very heavy peaks with long days, followed by quieter stretches, so the role suits people who can handle uneven pressure rather than a flat routine.

Where this varies

Practice differs a lot by employer size and structure. In a large research-intensive university the pre-award team is big and specialised, so you may only do costings, or only handle one funder family such as EU schemes, and you will be embedded in a faculty. In a smaller university, NHS trust or charity the same person often does pre-award, post-award, contracts and governance, which is broader but less specialised. The research-active disciplines also shape the work: supporting medicine and engineering means large, complex, multi-partner budgets and clinical trial costings, while supporting arts and humanities means smaller fellowship and project grants where the competition and the narrative matter more than the financial complexity. Job titles are inconsistent across the sector — research administrator, grants officer, research facilitator, research development officer and pre-award officer can all describe broadly similar work, so read the duties rather than the title.

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General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.