Do I need to be a doctor or pharmacist to work at EMA?

Not necessarily. Many scientific officer roles require a life-sciences PhD or MSc rather than a clinical degree. MDs and PharmDs are over-represented in some areas (clinical pharmacology, pharmacovigilance, paediatrics) but are not a requirement across the board. Statisticians, biostatisticians, biochemists, toxicologists, microbiologists, and epidemiologists are all visible in the staff body.

How does EMA work with national medicines agencies?

Through the European Medicines Regulatory Network (EMRN). For each centralised marketing authorisation, two co-rapporteurs from national agencies lead the scientific assessment alongside an EMA project team; CHMP and PRAC opinions are decided by the Committees, on which national agencies sit. The National Experts Programme brings national agency staff to EMA for placements, and informal secondments and exchanges are continuous.

Is EMA recruiting in the wake of COVID-19 and the new emergency mandate?

Yes. The Office of Emergency Preparedness (created under Regulation (EU) 2022/123) has been a steady growth area, recruiting public-health, crisis-management, and shortages-monitoring specialists. The Emergency Task Force model has also strengthened the agency's accelerated-advice work. Both areas continue to recruit at AD7–AD9.

What is the National Experts Programme and how does one apply?

It is a structured secondment from a national medicines agency to EMA for typically one to two years. Applications go through the candidate's home agency, not directly to EMA. The agency must agree to second the staff member and continues to pay the home-agency salary plus a Brussels/Amsterdam per diem. The programme is a major feeder into later EMA permanent posts and is the most common entry route for staff with national-agency backgrounds.

Are pharmacovigilance roles different from scientific assessment roles?

Yes. Pharmacovigilance is post-authorisation: monitoring adverse events, signal detection in EudraVigilance, periodic safety updates, and risk-management plans. Scientific assessment is pre-authorisation: dossier review, CHMP opinion preparation, scientific advice. The two career tracks are quite separate, although mobility between them is possible mid-career.

Is the Amsterdam relocation finalised — could the agency move again?

Yes, the relocation is finalised. The purpose-built Amsterdam Zuidas campus opened in 2019 and is the agency's permanent home. Future relocations would require political agreement at the level of the Council and a Treaty-based decision, neither of which is in prospect.

EMA Jobs 2026 — 5 Open Positions

HQ Amsterdam, Netherlands

Est. 1995

Staff ~900

Official Website

About EMA

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the EU's regulator for human and veterinary medicines, responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision, and safety monitoring of medicinal products across the European Union. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (relocated from London after Brexit in 2019), EMA was established in 1995 and employs approximately 900 staff drawn from across Europe. The agency runs the centralised authorisation procedure for innovative medicines, biosimilars, and orphan drugs, coordinates the EU pharmacovigilance system, and works closely with national medicines regulators through the European Medicines Regulatory Network. EMA played a high-profile role during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing vaccines and therapeutics for use across the EU.

Working at EMA

EMA recruits scientific officers, regulatory affairs experts, statisticians, pharmacovigilance specialists, IT professionals, and corporate-services staff. Scientific roles span clinical pharmacology, biostatistics, quality assessment, and inspections. The agency offers a high-impact regulatory environment where staff influence the safety and availability of medicines for over 440 million Europeans. English is the working language. Amsterdam offers excellent quality of life, world-class transport, and a large international community. EMA's modern campus in the Zuidas business district sits next to Amsterdam Zuid station, with direct rail links to Brussels and London. EMA primarily offers temporary agent contracts (typically 5 years, renewable) plus contract agent and seconded national expert positions.

How to Apply

EMA recruits directly through its own vacancy portal at careers.ema.europa.eu — most permanent staff are temporary agents rather than EPSO-recruited officials. Scientific positions usually require a relevant advanced degree (MSc, PhD, MD, PharmD) and several years' experience in regulatory affairs, pharma R&D, or academic clinical research. The selection process includes an eligibility check, written tests or case studies, and a competency-based interview. EMA also offers a National Experts Programme for staff seconded from EU national medicines authorities.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the EU's regulator for human and veterinary medicines. From its Amsterdam Zuidas headquarters it runs the centralised authorisation procedure for innovative medicines, biosimilars, and orphan drugs; coordinates EU pharmacovigilance; oversees inspections; and works through the European Medicines Regulatory Network (EMRN) with the 27 national competent authorities. It is the EU's most operationally consequential health agency — its scientific opinions translate directly into Commission decisions binding across the EU and EEA — and it employs about 900 staff drawn from across Europe. EMA relocated to Amsterdam in 2019 after Brexit forced a move from Canary Wharf in London, and the regulation that authorised the relocation (Regulation (EU) 2018/1718) was a pragmatic salvage operation that kept the agency operating without interruption.

Mission and mandate

EMA's mandate sits in Regulation (EC) No 726/2004, which replaced Regulation (EEC) No 2309/93 and consolidates the centralised authorisation procedure. The 2004 regulation has been amended repeatedly — most consequentially by the 2010 pharmacovigilance package (Regulation (EU) No 1235/2010 and Directive 2010/84/EU) which restructured EU-wide adverse-event monitoring, and more recently by Regulation (EU) 2022/123 which gave EMA an explicit role in shortages monitoring and the management of medical countermeasures during public health emergencies — a direct response to lessons learned during COVID-19.

EMA's core outputs are the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) opinions on marketing authorisations, the corresponding Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP) opinions, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) safety reviews, and the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP), Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT), and Committee for Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC) opinions. Each opinion is the product of an EMA scientific assessment team working with two co-rapporteurs from national competent authorities — a structure that knits EMA staff into the EMRN as their day-to-day operating environment.

The agency does not authorise medicines on its own. Final authorisation decisions are taken by the Commission on the basis of EMA opinions. EMA also runs a substantial pharmacovigilance system (EudraVigilance), the European clinical trials register and CTIS portal under Regulation (EU) No 536/2014, and a network of inspections of GMP, GCP, and GVP.

Structure and divisions

EMA is organised into five divisions reporting to the Executive Director. Human Medicines is the largest, covering scientific evidence generation; oncology, neurology, infectious diseases, and other therapeutic areas; biologics, advanced-therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), and orphan drugs; and the Committee secretariats for CHMP, COMP, CAT, and PRAC. Veterinary Medicines runs the CVMP secretariat and supports the implementation of the Veterinary Medicines Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/6) which introduced harmonised EU-level rules in 2022. Inspections, Quality, Manufacturing, and Pharmacovigilance Reporting covers the inspections work, EU-wide pharmacovigilance monitoring, and the EudraVigilance database. Stakeholders and Communication runs patient and healthcare-professional engagement and the agency's external communication function. Information Management covers IT, data, and the agency's substantial digital infrastructure.

A notable cross-cutting pillar is the Office of Emergency Preparedness, set up after Regulation (EU) 2022/123, which manages shortages, the emergency task force (ETF) for accelerated scientific advice, and the agency's role in HERA-supported public-health-emergency work. Another is the Big Data Steering Group, coordinating EMA's investments in real-world evidence and federated data analytics across the EMRN.

The agency has no field offices; all staff are based in Amsterdam Zuidas at the agency's purpose-built campus next to Amsterdam Zuid station, which has direct rail links to Brussels (under 2 hours), Paris, and a one-stop train transfer to London. The campus design is open-plan and intentionally collaborative, reflecting the agency's heavy reliance on multi-team scientific assessment work.

Hiring landscape over the last 12 months

The current snapshot shows 2 active EMA vacancies — a smaller cross-section than the agency's typical hiring volume, which typically runs 80–120 hires per year across TA, CA, and traineeships. By contract type, one is a traineeship and one is a contract agent (FG IV). By grade, the FG IV post is in IT (Business Analyst) and the traineeship is the agency's annual cohort intake. Both are based in Amsterdam.

The FG IV IT Business Analyst post sits in the Information Management division and supports the agency's IT modernisation programme, including the replacement of legacy systems supporting EudraVigilance and CTIS. EMA's IT estate is one of the larger ones in the EU agency landscape — handling submissions and ongoing post-authorisation reporting from manufacturers across thousands of products — and the agency runs structured business-analyst and product-owner career tracks within FG IV. The traineeship cohort is paid and runs annually; trainees rotate through scientific or operational divisions for typically twelve months and the cohort is one of EMA's primary feeders for later FG IV recruitment.

The small snapshot understates the agency's true hiring volume. Outside the snapshot, EMA continuously recruits Scientific Officers, Senior Scientific Officers, Project Managers in CHMP/CVMP/PRAC support, pharmacovigilance specialists, clinical-data analysts, and inspection coordinators. The Office of Emergency Preparedness has been a particular growth area since 2022, recruiting public-health and crisis-management specialists who often combine clinical or pharmacy backgrounds with regulatory or emergency experience. Three notable recurring posting types worth flagging: the AD7 Scientific Officer in oncology (the highest-volume therapeutic area), the AD9 Senior Scientific Officer with a sub-specialty in advanced therapies (cell and gene therapies), and the AD7 Pharmacovigilance Officer in the EudraVigilance support team.

Salary realism by grade and the Amsterdam coefficient

EMA pays under the EU Staff Regulations grid. Step 1 of the 2024/2025 grid: AD5 €6,153, AD7 €7,876, AD9 €10,083, AD12 €14,604; FG IV €4,449. The Netherlands correction coefficient for Amsterdam is 109.9, the same as The Hague — so an AD7 step 1 in Amsterdam grosses approximately €8,656 monthly basic; an AD9 step 1 is approximately €11,081; an FG IV step 1 is approximately €4,889.

Add the standard allowances: expatriation (16% if applicable), household, dependent-child, and education. For an AD7 expatriate scientific officer with a partner and two school-aged children the on-paper monthly remuneration in Amsterdam typically lands €11,000–€13,500 gross monthly before Community tax. The 30% Dutch tax ruling does not apply to EU staff (whose income is exempt from Dutch national income tax under the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the EU), but the EU's own Community tax applies and effective net pay is broadly comparable to a Brussels equivalent.

The practical constraint on take-home purchasing power in Amsterdam is housing. The Amsterdam private rental market is tight; a family-sized apartment in expatriate-friendly Amsterdam South or in nearby Amstelveen typically runs €2,500–€4,500/month, with new arrivals frequently advised to expect 6–9 months in temporary or short-term housing before securing a long-term lease. The 109.9 coefficient compensates partially. EMA offers comprehensive relocation support and many staff cluster in Amstelveen and the southern Amsterdam neighbourhoods near international schools.

Languages and competition profile

English is the working language. Other EU languages are valued for engagement with national competent authorities and for reading regulatory submissions in their original language, but operational work — committee discussions, scientific assessments, written opinions — is in English. Knowledge of a second EU language is the regulatory minimum for AD posts.

EMA does not recruit through EPSO. All vacancies are advertised directly on the agency's careers portal at careers.ema.europa.eu, with cross-listing on the EU Careers portal. Scientific Officer roles at AD5–AD7 typically require a relevant advanced degree (MSc, PhD, MD, PharmD) and 2–6 years of experience in regulatory affairs, pharmaceutical R&D, academic clinical research, or a national medicines agency. Selection includes a written test (often a scientific case study with a regulatory question) and a competency-based interview. The agency draws heavily on national medicines agencies and on EU-trained academics with regulatory exposure; private-sector regulatory affairs professionals are well represented in mid-career hires.

A distinctive profile: many EMA staff have national-medicines-agency backgrounds before joining, often through the National Experts Programme (a structured secondment scheme) which brings national agency staff to EMA for one to two year placements. The programme is a major feeder into later FG IV and AD permanent posts.

Application paths

Three routes into EMA. Temporary agent: respond to a vacancy notice for an AD or AST post; the typical scientific officer post is at AD5–AD7 with a five-year renewable contract; PRAC, CHMP, CAT, COMP, or CVMP secretariat posts are at AD7–AD9. Contract agent: register on CAST Permanent in FG III or FG IV and apply to specific notices that reference the CAST pool — most IT, finance, HR, and a portion of scientific support posts are recruited this way. Seconded national expert / National Experts Programme: national-medicines-agency staff are seconded to EMA for typically one to two year placements; this is the principal cross-cutting feeder for the EMRN.

The traineeship programme runs in two cohorts per year (typically October and April), pays a stipend, and lasts twelve months. Trainees rotate through scientific or operational divisions and frequently progress to FG IV CA or AD5/AD7 TA posts at later vacancy openings.

A practical note: scientific posts at EMA are competitive but the candidate pool is comparatively narrow (people with both regulatory experience and the relevant scientific specialty are not abundant). Candidates with strong regulatory affairs experience but without an EMA or national-agency-internal track are particularly competitive when applying via TA notices for therapeutic-area-specific posts, where deep clinical or scientific expertise outweighs prior EU-institutional exposure.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be a doctor or pharmacist to work at EMA?: Not necessarily. Many scientific officer roles require a life-sciences PhD or MSc rather than a clinical degree. MDs and PharmDs are over-represented in some areas (clinical pharmacology, pharmacovigilance, paediatrics) but are not a requirement across the board. Statisticians, biostatisticians, biochemists, toxicologists, microbiologists, and epidemiologists are all visible in the staff body.
How does EMA work with national medicines agencies?: Through the European Medicines Regulatory Network (EMRN). For each centralised marketing authorisation, two co-rapporteurs from national agencies lead the scientific assessment alongside an EMA project team; CHMP and PRAC opinions are decided by the Committees, on which national agencies sit. The National Experts Programme brings national agency staff to EMA for placements, and informal secondments and exchanges are continuous.
Is EMA recruiting in the wake of COVID-19 and the new emergency mandate?: Yes. The Office of Emergency Preparedness (created under Regulation (EU) 2022/123) has been a steady growth area, recruiting public-health, crisis-management, and shortages-monitoring specialists. The Emergency Task Force model has also strengthened the agency's accelerated-advice work. Both areas continue to recruit at AD7–AD9.
What is the National Experts Programme and how does one apply?: It is a structured secondment from a national medicines agency to EMA for typically one to two years. Applications go through the candidate's home agency, not directly to EMA. The agency must agree to second the staff member and continues to pay the home-agency salary plus a Brussels/Amsterdam per diem. The programme is a major feeder into later EMA permanent posts and is the most common entry route for staff with national-agency backgrounds.
Are pharmacovigilance roles different from scientific assessment roles?: Yes. Pharmacovigilance is post-authorisation: monitoring adverse events, signal detection in EudraVigilance, periodic safety updates, and risk-management plans. Scientific assessment is pre-authorisation: dossier review, CHMP opinion preparation, scientific advice. The two career tracks are quite separate, although mobility between them is possible mid-career.
Is the Amsterdam relocation finalised — could the agency move again?: Yes, the relocation is finalised. The purpose-built Amsterdam Zuidas campus opened in 2019 and is the agency's permanent home. Future relocations would require political agreement at the level of the Council and a Treaty-based decision, neither of which is in prospect.

Browse by Location

Amsterdam (The Netherlands) (5)

5 positions found

Closing Soon Data Intelligence And Technology