“I Had 10 Years of Regulatory Experience — But I Couldn’t Get a Job in the UK. Here’s How I Changed That.”
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Part of the Entry to Regulatory Success Stories Series
Adeyemo Adebukola spent a decade building a regulatory affairs career in Africa before relocating to the UK. For three years, she applied for RA roles and kept reaching the interview stage — but never got the offer. This is the story of how she changed that, what she learned, and what it means for anyone in a similar position
Three Years. Countless Applications. Something Had to Change.
If you work in regulatory affairs and you’ve relocated internationally, you may already know the particular frustration that Adeyemo Adebukola — known as Bukky — describes.
She didn’t lack experience. By the time she moved to the UK from Africa, she had over a decade of regulatory affairs behind her. She understood the ICH framework, dossier structures, and regulatory strategy. She was, by any reasonable measure, an experienced professional.
And yet, for three years, she couldn’t land a UK regulatory affairs role.
She was getting interviews. She was reaching the shortlist. But she kept stalling at the same point — unable to provide the specific, UK-grounded examples that hiring managers were looking for. Not because the knowledge wasn’t there, but because the UK-specific regulatory context hadn’t been formally developed or documented.
“I get interviews but I don’t move on to the next stage. Maybe because I don’t have the self-confidence to say, I’ve done this, I have this experience. I couldn’t give a very detailed example of UK and EU markets.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
That changed in December 2025, when she called Entry to Regulatory to share some news: she had been offered a Regulatory Affairs Associate position at a pharmaceutical company specialising in generic medicines, sterile products, vaccines, and medical devices — starting January 2026.
📣 Are you in a similar position to Bukky — experienced, qualified, but struggling to break into UK or EU regulatory affairs? At Entry to Regulatory, we provide training to anyone looking to build a career in Regulatory Affairs. We offer job support, real-life work assignments to work on, expert CV review, mock interview preparation, and mentoring from ex-MHRA professionals — designed specifically to bridge the gap between where you are and where employers need you to be. |
What Was Actually Blocking Her — The UK Experience Gap
Understanding Bukky’s breakthrough requires understanding the precise nature of the barrier she was facing. It wasn’t a knowledge gap in the traditional sense. It was a context gap — one that is far more common than most people realise.
Regulatory affairs, while governed globally by ICH guidelines and a common CTD framework, is operationally distinct from market to market. The UK’s MHRA, the EU’s EMA, and the FDA each have their own administrative requirements, variation form structures, application procedures, and agency-specific expectations. A professional with ten years of African regulatory experience brings genuine scientific and strategic knowledge — but may never have encountered the specific MHRA variation application form, the particular requirements for UK-specific submissions, or the precise way that UK hiring managers expect regulatory experience to be framed and evidenced.
“In Africa we still use the ICH format, which is still the same with the UK, but in terms of the administrative detail, I didn’t have that experience.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
The gap wasn’t broad. It was specific. And because it was specific, it was fixable.
What the Course Gave Her — Practical, Deployable Experience
Bukky enrolled in the Introduction to Regulatory Affairs course at Entry to Regulatory. Her description of what it provided — and how she used it — offers one of the clearest articulations of what distinguishes genuinely useful regulatory training from theoretical qualifications.
The element she valued most was not the lectures. It was the work assignments.
“The work assignment was really good. That was what I was looking for — because I wanted more detail, more hands-on, more practical approach to responding to regulatory strategies.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
This matters enormously in the context of regulatory affairs hiring. When a hiring manager asks a candidate what type of quality variation they’ve submitted, they are not asking a theoretical question. They are asking for a specific, documented example — ideally one where the candidate can describe the product, the regulatory strategy, the variation type, and the outcome. A candidate who can answer that question concretely is a fundamentally different proposition from one who can answer it in abstract terms.
The course provided Bukky with exactly that: documented, structured work on real regulatory scenarios — including quality variations and SMPC-related safety variations — that she could reference directly in interview.
When her first-round Teams interview asked her to describe quality variations she had submitted, she used the course work assignment on a Hapi tablet — discussing the in-process addition of an in-process test and the regulatory strategy governing it. When they asked about safety variations and SMPC structure, she demonstrated hands-on familiarity with the dossier format. She used the STAR methodology to frame her answers — a technique reinforced throughout the course.
“What they asked was exactly what I got from the course.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
The interview panel was impressed. She was invited for a second face-to-face interview at the company’s site. The day after that meeting, she was told she had been successful. A contract was issued and signed.
How CV Support Made the Difference
Alongside the work assignments, Bukky highlighted the CV review she received through the course — an aspect that often gets underestimated when candidates weigh up whether structured support is worth pursuing.
A CV for a regulatory affairs role is not simply a list of previous positions. It is a document that signals to hiring managers — often within a 30-second scan — whether a candidate understands regulatory work well enough to articulate their experience in the language of the field. Keywords matter. Structure matters. The framing of individual contributions matters.
Bukky’s CV was reviewed by a course tutor, who identified specific gaps and made targeted adjustments:
• Added CMC-specific regulatory experience that had not been clearly surfaced
• Restructured the document to highlight the most relevant elements for RA hiring managers
• Framed her time working on assignments at Advance Regulatory as documented regulatory experience
“She made some slight adjustments, some restructuring of the CV and some key points about where I needed to put things. That really helped.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
This is worth unpacking for anyone thinking about what CV support actually means in practice. It is not simply proofreading. It is the work of someone who understands both regulatory affairs hiring criteria and how a candidate’s background translates into that language — and who can bridge the two in a way that most candidates cannot do alone.
The Confidence Factor — An Underrated Career Barrier
One of the most striking elements of Bukky’s story is her candid acknowledgment of how confidence — or its absence — was operating as a concrete career obstacle.
She had been reaching interviews. The knowledge was there. But without a specific, verifiable UK-grounded example to anchor her answers, she couldn’t project the certainty that interviewers were looking for.
In regulatory affairs specifically, where the work involves asserting regulatory positions to both internal stakeholders and external agencies, the ability to speak with authority and precision is not peripheral to the job — it is central to it. A candidate who hedges in an interview raises the question of whether they will hedge in a regulatory strategy meeting.
The course addressed this directly, not by teaching Bukky to project false confidence, but by giving her the substantive foundation that genuine confidence is built on. She had done the variation. She had written the regulatory strategy. She had engaged with the SMPC. The confidence followed naturally from the documented experience.
“The course helped because we had this work assignment that was really detailed, and I could use that as an example during the interview process.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
Business Insight: What Regulatory Training Must Actually Deliver
Bukky’s story contains a clear message for anyone evaluating regulatory training options — whether as a candidate, an employer, or a training provider. The question is not simply what a course covers. The question is what a course equips candidates to do in an interview room, and what it gives them to put on a CV.
For someone like Bukky — with ten years of existing experience and a specific, bounded gap to fill — a two-year postgraduate programme represents a significant over-investment of time and money relative to the outcome needed. The Introduction to Regulatory Affairs course is designed precisely for candidates in her position: experienced, knowledgeable, and needing documented UK-specific regulatory experience and targeted support rather than foundational academic training.
What Bukky’s New Role Looks Like
For context on the outcome of this journey: Bukky joined a pharmaceutical company specialising in generic medicines — a segment that accounts for a significant proportion of UK regulatory workload, given that generic applications rely on demonstrating equivalence to reference products rather than generating original efficacy data.
Her role spans a broad portfolio:
• Prescription-only medicines (POMs)
• Sterile injectable products including Co-amoxiclav
• COVID vaccines
• Medical devices (an expanding area for the company)
This breadth offers exactly the kind of cross-category regulatory exposure that builds a strong foundation for a long-term career — CMC quality, safety variations, labelling, and potentially device regulatory pathways all within a single role.
Rabiea at Entry to Regulatory offered her a reassurance worth sharing: real-world regulatory work is, in practice, more supported than the course. In a company setting, there are SOPs, example submissions, subject matter experts, a manager or buddy, and colleagues to draw on. The course deliberately operates without those scaffolds — because mastering scenarios without support is what builds the depth that employers need to see.
Ongoing Support — Beyond the Course
A detail from the transcript worth noting for anyone weighing up training options: Bukky asked whether she would be able to contact Entry to Regulatory once she started her new role, if she encountered situations she wasn’t sure how to approach.
The answer was straightforwardly yes.
This reflects something important about how Entry to Regulatory positions itself relative to the alternatives. The relationship doesn’t end at course completion, or even at job offer. The objective is to see candidates fully established in their new roles — and if questions come up in the early months of a new position, that support remains available.
For candidates transitioning into regulatory affairs from international markets, where the professional network is not yet established and the nuances of UK-specific practice are still being consolidated, this kind of ongoing access to experienced regulatory professionals has genuine practical value.
What This Means If You’re in a Similar Position
If you are reading this because you are internationally qualified, with regulatory experience outside the UK or EU, and you are finding that the same barrier Bukky described is blocking your progress — her story is directly relevant to you.
The good news is that the barrier is specific, not fundamental. You are not being told your regulatory knowledge is inadequate. You are being told that your documented UK experience is absent. That is a gap that can be closed — in months, not years — with the right structured training and support.
If you are a UK-based professional looking to move into regulatory affairs from an adjacent function — quality, clinical operations, analytical development, pharmacy — the same principle applies. The barrier is specific, and it is fixable.
Bukky’s advice to anyone considering the course was direct:
“I would say go for it. Make sure you’re focused and dedicated. Go through all the lecture modules and take it seriously because it’s real life and practical — it will help you during your interview process. Be focused, go through all. Don’t skip any module.” — Adeyemo Adebukola
Start Your Regulatory Affairs Career Today
At Entry to Regulatory, we provide training to anyone looking to build a career in Regulatory Affairs. We offer job support and real-life work assignments to work on. Speak to us and see how we can help you.
Whether you’re internationally qualified and navigating the UK regulatory landscape for the first time, a pharmacist or scientist ready to make the move into industry, or an RA professional looking to progress to the next level — the Introduction to Regulatory Affairs course is designed to close the specific gap between where you are and where employers need you to be.
Next cohort starts: 12th July 2026. Limited spaces available.
About the Author: Rabiea is an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL, former MHRA Health Authority reviewer, and CEO of Entry to Regulatory and Advanced Regulatory Consulting. After transitioning from retail pharmacy to regulatory affairs, she has dedicated her career to helping others make the same successful career change. Connect with her on LinkedIn for the latest regulatory affairs insights and career advice.
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