Apply for the Health Data Science Black Internship Programme

Key dates for our 2026 programme: 

• Virtual open day (Zoom): Thursday 23 October 2025 11:00-12:30
• Deadline for applications: Sunday 4 January 2026
• Information on reasonable adjustments call: Thursday 22 January 2026
• Interview windows with host organisations: February – March 2026 

The internship will be for 8-weeks on the following fixed dates: 

• Internships: Monday 29 June – Friday 21 August 2026
• Minimum working week: 35-40 hours (full-time), 20 hours (part-time)
• Opening ceremony: Wednesday 24 June 2026
• Closing ceremony: Thursday 27 August 2026

Register your interest for 2027

There are two stages of application to us and both will need to be completed within the specified deadline for your application to be eligible for the programme. 

Stage 1: Deadline – Sunday 4 January 2026 23:45 

Through our Applied portal, where you will be asked about the following:

• Your eligibility to work in the UK 
• An up-to-date CV (this MUST be uploaded in PDF format only)
• Three personal-statement style questions on your experiences, skills and motivation 

Please ensure that your details (phone, email, university name, course name and dates) are up-to-date. 

Stage 2: Deadline – Sunday 11 January 2026 23:45 

After your application has been successfully screened in Stage 1, you will be invited to provide further academic & skill set details, plus logistics and location details via a Microsoft Forms. This information helps us to facilitate matches to host organisations.  

After submitting your application, it will be screened for eligibility and anonymised. HDR UK staff and members of the Advisory Board will then review applications before sharing them with host organisations for shortlisting.

Host organisations invite shortlisted candidates to interview, typically within 1-2 months of the application deadline.

If you are not shortlisted or unsuccessful at interview, your application may be shared with other host organisations for consideration.
Successful candidates will receive an offer and complete an induction with their host organisations and HDR UK.

Once the interview period has concluded, we will contact all unsuccessful candidates to confirm the outcome of their application.

We don’t expect you to have developed all these skills just yet or have previous experience, but some of the skills you should have include: 

• Passion for solving health data problems, no matter how big or small; and are strongly motivated to get things done.
• Sound quantitative skills and the ability to conduct analysis using data.
• Competent pattern recognition and predictive modelling skills. 
• Appreciation for our mission and values as the UK’s national institute for health data science to unite the UK’s health data to enable discoveries that improve people’s lives, and balance this with a collaborative mindset to prioritise work. 
• An interest and willingness to learn and develop new skills within health data. 

We will look for these and your authenticity primarily in the answers to the personal statement-style questions in your application to us. 

Diversity data from across the health sector shows that in comparison to the wider UK population, Black people are severely underrepresented in STEM roles – and in particular health data science.  As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion we wanted to address this issue head on and in 2020 we made a commitment to create an internship programme that would offer early career Black scientists the opportunity to participate in a paid internship programme and give them access to training and networking opportunities. The HDR UK Black Internship Programme was set up working in collaboration with the wider 10,000 Black Interns programme.

You can read more about the aims the 10,000 Black Interns programme here and more on the widely reported challenges around under representation of Black People within STEM and health data science in some of the listed articles here and here.

The programme uses the principles of positive action as set out within the Equality Act 2010.  It is not unlawful discrimination to take proportionate, specific action aimed at alleviating disadvantage or underrepresentation experienced by groups who share any protected characteristics.

Providing internships, work placements and access to training are all accepted forms of taking proportionate positive action to address the 3 areas identified above.  The EHRC also recommends internships as a form of positive action in its guidance to employers here.

Interns who go on to apply for employment or further educational opportunities following the Black Internship Programme are subject to an individual organisation’s standard recruitment or application process and are not given any preferential treatment.

We advertise nationally and through a range of avenues to reach Black students and recent graduates from universities across the UK.

61% of our interns are women. Our interns have a range of subject background expertise and are based all across the UK, in different universities – 58% of our interns are from non-Russell Group universities – and at different career stages (undergraduate, early career, PhD, post-PhD, returning students, working professionals).

We work with a range of host organisation partners who are based across the UK. We work hard to match host organisation requirements on a range of internships (in-person, online or hybrid) with local interns.

Interns must have the Right to Work in the UK for July-August 2026 and be based in the UK throughout their internship. This also applies to remote-based internships.

We understand that circumstances change and for different reasons.

Please let us know by sending us a short email to blackinternprog@hdruk.ac.uk and we can update your application status.

This programme will be for eight weeks in July and August 2026. Candidates looking for longer placements or subject-specific areas should speak to their university course tutors about alternative options.

No. We will match eligible applications with host organisations within local areas.

Internship formats are entirely at the discretion and capacity of our host organisation partners, and the policies they have in place for their own staff. Applicants should be prepared to go into the office daily for their internship if successful, unless told otherwise.

All interns on our programme are automatically eligible for our HDR UK Alumni community which provides ongoing support through:

• A dedicated mentorship scheme
• Exclusive training opportunities delivered by HDR UK
• Access to a curated experience on our Futures platform
• Posts about job opportunities within health data
• Networking opportunities with other Alumni
• Guidance on PhD applications
• Opportunities to shape future training delivered by HDR UK
• Signposting for other training programme opportunities