A lot of clinicians know they want to do something different, they just do not know what that something is.

Healthcare professionals often know they want to build things, work on products, have more impact and be more creative. But the language of healthtech feels foreign. Product manager, medical affairs, clinical safety officer, what do these roles actually mean? Who does them? And could I do one?

I have spent the last three years answering those questions, first for myself and then for the 800+ clinicians who have come through BiteLabs and moved into roles across the UK healthtech sector. Some went to Flo Health, Accurx, Skin Analytics, Doccla and Numan. One had his company acquired by Heidi. Others are consulting, advising, or building their own things.

Here is the honest guide to what is actually available, what each role involves, what it pays, and what you need to get there.

The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, the Topol Digital Fellowship and the NHS Clinical AI Fellowship all exist to support clinicians develop digital health skills to one degree or another. They are excellent in their own ways, and worth knowing about. We have written a full comparison of these programmes versus BiteLabs if you want to see how they differ.

But none of them are truly built to help people actively develop careers in the digital health space.

That is what this article is for.

This is the role a lot of BiteLabs UK alumni end up in. It is also the one with the clearest career path in the sector.

A clinical product manager owns a product or a feature within a product. They sit between the engineering team who build it, the design team who shape the user experience, and the commercial team who sell it. Their job is to decide what gets built, in what order, and why.

Your clinical background is directly relevant here. You understand the user, the doctor, the nurse, the patient, at a depth a product manager who has never worked in a hospital simply cannot replicate. You know what a ward handover actually feels like. You know why a 30-second extra step per patient is a dealbreaker. That knowledge is genuinely valuable.

You do not need to be able to code. You do need to be able to think clearly about problems, communicate across disciplines, and make decisions with incomplete information. Which, if you have worked an on-call shift, you have been doing for years.

What it pays: £50,000 to £90,000 depending on seniority and company stage. Senior PM roles at well-funded companies can exceed £100,000 with equity on top. See our full salary guide for a detailed breakdown.

Real examples: Dr Yath Prem came through the BiteLabs fellowship and is now a Product Lead at Flo Health, one of the world's largest women's health apps. As he put it in our Built to Scale UK session: "The beauty of being uncomfortable is that when you're uncomfortable, you're going to learn."

How to get there: Get hands-on experience working on a real product problem. A fellowship, a QI project framed as a product problem, or a side project all count. If you want to go directly, look for Associate PM or Junior PM roles at early-stage healthtech companies where clinical background is explicitly valued.

This is the engine room of a healthtech company. Clinical ops sits between product and the real world, making sure that what the company has built actually works when it lands in a hospital ward, a GP surgery, or an ICU.

The role varies by company but typically covers clinical implementation, governance, quality assurance and regulatory compliance. You might be managing the rollout of a product across ten NHS trusts simultaneously, writing clinical safety cases, overseeing post-market surveillance, or ensuring the company stays on the right side of MHRA guidance as the product evolves.

Clinicians are well suited here because the job requires someone who can spot the gap between how a product is designed to work and how it actually gets used at 2am on a busy medical take. That instinct is hard to teach, and it comes from having been there.

As AI products move from pilots to procurement at scale, clinical operations has become one of the fastest-growing functions in UK healthtech. Companies need people who understand clinical risk, not just product risk.

What it pays: £45,000 to £70,000 at the junior to mid level. Head of Clinical Operations roles at growth-stage companies typically sit between £80,000 and £110,000, usually with solid equity / EMI options.

How to get there: Look for titles like Clinical Implementation Manager, or Clinical Operations Lead. A CSO background is increasingly valued. If you have led service improvement projects or managed clinical governance in the NHS, you are closer than you think.

This role sits between a healthtech company and the NHS organisations it works with. Your job is to build and manage relationships with NHS trusts, integrated care boards, GP surgeries and commissioners, helping them understand, adopt and sustain the company's product.

It is one of the most natural first roles for clinicians moving out of the NHS because it uses skills you already have. You know how the NHS works from the inside. You understand procurement cycles, clinical governance, the difference between a CCIO and a CIO, and why a product that adds 30 seconds to a GP consultation will not get adopted regardless of how good it is. Most importantly (and controversially), just because a product can improve patient outcomes, unless the CFO sees that it saves money or makes money, it is unfortunately unlikely to be adopted.

This role is increasingly important as AI products enter the NHS at scale. Companies need people who can have credible conversations with medical directors and clinical leads.

What it pays: £45,000 to £75,000 at the junior to mid level. Director of Clinical Partnerships roles at larger companies can reach £100,000 or above, usually with solid equity / EMI options.

How to get there: Your existing NHS network is your biggest asset. Start identifying which companies are trying to sell into trusts you have worked in and reach out directly. Clinical partnership roles are often not advertised, they go through referrals and warm introductions.

Pretty much every software product used in a clinical setting in the UK is required by law to have a Clinical Safety Officer under DCB0129 and DCB0160, the MHRA's clinical safety standards for health IT. And there is a significant shortage of qualified CSOs.

As AI products flood into the NHS, every company building anything clinical needs someone who can take on this role. It requires a clinician with registration, so a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, who can assess clinical risk, write safety cases, and take legal responsibility for the clinical safety of a product.

It is not the most glamorous role in healthtech. But, if you are UK-based, this is one of the most in-demand roles in the market right now. One of our alums, Dr Tom Bradshaw, has actually gone on to develop one of the UK’s most successful CSO consulting firms, BMS Digital Safety, directly due to this demand. Many CSOs do it as a fractional or consulting arrangement alongside other work.

What it pays: £500 to £1,000 per day as a contractor or consultant. Some companies hire in-house at £60,000 to £90,000. See our salary guide for more detail.

How to get there: Get familiar with DCB0129 and DCB0160. Take a clinical safety course - there are several available online. The NHS course has reasonable reviews but there is a long waitlist. We’ve consistently heard good things about Dean Mawson’s CSO course. Then reach out to early-stage companies that are building clinical products and do not yet have a CSO. There are more of them than you think.

Many clinicians start consulting before committing to a full-time role. This means working with healthtech companies on specific problems, clinical validation, regulatory strategy, market access, stakeholder engagement, evidence generation. I’m not talking about big healthcare consulting (i.e. McKinsey, Bain, BCG, although several of our fellows have made that transition), I’m talking about part-time consulting for tech companies.

The advantage of consulting is flexibility. You can keep clinical sessions running while building a portfolio of work. The disadvantage is that it takes longer to get established and the income is less predictable early on.

Rinki Varindani Desai, a speech and language pathologist and founder of digital health consulting firm Theratactics, described the pull in our Clinic to Consulting session: "Identifying problems and trying to fix them or improve processes made everyone's life easier because it's hard to be in healthcare to begin with."

Katie Seaver, who left clinical practice to join Google and later founded the Babel Group connecting clinical experts with companies, made the point about LinkedIn in the same session: "LinkedIn's been the pivotal space for me. It's where I learn about new innovations and contact founders directly."

And Derek Khor, founder of the Medical Consulting Group which has placed around 300 clinicians in ad hoc consulting roles, gave one of the most useful pieces of advice in our healthtech consulting session: "80% of the healthtech roles are never really advertised. They actually go through internal referrals."

What it pays: £500 to £1,500 per day depending on seniority, specialism and the company's funding stage. Some consultants build retainer arrangements with two or three companies which creates more stability.

How to get there: Start by identifying one specific problem you are well-placed to solve. Regulatory experience, NHS procurement knowledge, a particular clinical specialism, pick something specific rather than positioning yourself as a general clinical advisor. Then reach out to companies working in that area. Your network will be so valuable here.

This is an underused entry point. Every healthtech company needs clinical content - patient-facing materials, clinician education, product documentation, regulatory submissions, medical affairs communications. Most of them do not have enough clinicians who can write.

If you are a clinician who can write clearly, quickly and creatively (without relying on AI heavily) this is a legitimate way into the industry. Several BiteLabs alumni have used medical writing as a stepping stone into product or medical affairs roles.

What it pays: £35,000 to £55,000 for in-house roles. Freelance rates range from £300 to £700 per day.

How to get there: Build a portfolio. Write one or two pieces on healthcare topics, publish them on LinkedIn or Medium, and use them as evidence when you apply. The bar is lower than you think because most clinicians do not bother.

This is the senior end of the spectrum. A CMO at a healthtech company is responsible for the clinical strategy of the organisation, setting the clinical direction, managing relationships with medical regulators, representing the company externally to NHS bodies and the press, and ensuring the product actually does what it claims clinically.

Most people do not go straight to CMO. It tends to come after several years in senior clinical or medical affairs roles within the industry.

Dr CK Wang, Chief Medical Officer at Cota Health, described the path in our Physician to CMO session. He spent twelve years as a medical oncologist before joining IBM Watson Health and eventually becoming a CMO. His advice was simple: "I believe most clinicians, especially if you've made it through your training into practice, you've done a lot, seen a lot. You have a valuable set of skills that very few people possess."

He also made a point that most clinicians miss: "Be open-minded to ideas and challenges from folks even if they have no clinical background. I've often found that some of the most provocative questions have come from people outside of my specialty."

What it pays: £100,000 to £200,000 at growth-stage companies. Equity is often a significant part of total compensation at this level.

How to get there: This is a long game. Build expertise in medical affairs or clinical strategy first, get visible within the sector, and take on advisory roles at companies to build relationships before you are ready for a full CMO position.

This deserves its own section because it is increasingly not the outlier it used to be.

A growing number of NHS clinicians are not joining healthtech companies. They are starting them. And the barriers to doing so have fallen significantly. I like to call this ‘the season of the idea person’, because it’s finally easier than it’s ever been to build tech products. Ideas are certainly no longer ‘cheap’. Tools like Lovable, Claude Code and others, allow clinicians with no coding background to build functional prototypes in days. AI models can help with everything from market research to regulatory strategy.

Dr Ben Turner was a surgical trainee completing a PhD at Imperial when he joined BiteLabs in 2024. Within two years he had built Automedica, navigated the MHRA AI Airlock regulatory sandbox, and had his company acquired by Heidi, the clinical AI platform valued at approximately £500 million. His full story is here.

Dr Emma Dyson, another BiteLabs alumna, co-founded Mana Medical, company building a precision operating system for autoimmune diseases using wearable technology and machine learning after coming through the fellowship. As she said in our Built to Scale UK session: "If you don't ask, you don't get. If I don't put myself out for opportunity, I'm not going to get it."

Dr Paul Jewell has had profound success scaling Assuric following his time with us at BiteLabs, a tool used to improve regulatory and compliance across the NHS.

Dr Jay Park left BiteLabs in 2023 and founded a remarkable computer vision start-up as a spin-out from Stanford in the intraoperative computer vision space. Current fundraising amount undisclosed.

The list of BiteLabs founders is long, and these are just a few examples.

What it pays: Nothing at first, usually. Founders typically take no or minimal salary in the early stages. The upside is equity, which can be significant if the company grows. Several BiteLabs alumni have raised funding in the last 12 months after founding companies through the network.

How to get there: Start with a specific problem you have seen up close in clinical practice. Validate it by talking to other clinicians who share the frustration. Read the Mom Test (my favourite book on this topic). Build the simplest possible version of a solution and test it. Our article on how to build a healthtech startup as a clinician covers this in more detail.

This is less common but a reasonable option for clinicians, although it is highly competitive and small subset of the financial sector.

VC firms investing in healthtech need people who can assess whether a product actually does what it claims, whether the clinical evidence is credible, and whether the regulatory pathway is realistic. That is clinical expertise applied in a new context and an important form of due diligence.

A couple of BiteLabs alumni, such as Melika Moghim, have moved into venture capital roles after the fellowship.

What it pays: Analyst and Associate roles in UK VC typically start between £60,000 and £90,000. Partner-level roles can be significantly higher, with carry (a share of the fund's profits) being the main driver of long-term compensation.

How to get there: Build a network in the venture and startup ecosystem. Start by angel investing small amounts if you can. Write a thesis on a specific area of healthtech you find interesting and publish it. Reach out to VCs who are active in the space. It is a relationship-driven industry.

If you are an NHS clinician thinking seriously about this, here is what I would suggest.

Pick one role from this list that appeals to you most. Read three or four job descriptions for that role at different companies. Notice what keeps coming up in terms of skills and experience.

Then take one concrete step this week. Apply for a fellowship like BiteLabs. Start a side project and start building. Reach out to a few people doing the role you want.

Our UK fellowship is specifically designed for this. It is part-time, runs over eight weeks, and gives you hands-on project experience with a real company alongside a network of 250+ clinicians and industry leaders. You do not need to leave clinical work to do it.

If you already know what you want and just need help getting there, our career coaching service works with clinicians one-to-one on CV translation, interview preparation and role targeting.

And if you want to keep reading, our guide on how to actually get a job in healthtech as a clinician covers the practical steps in more detail.