Last updated: November 5, 2026
By Dave Manchester, Scientific Recruiting, KORE1
What goes in a clinical research coordinator job description? Five things: the study or therapeutic area, the trial tasks the investigator will delegate, an education and experience floor, certification as preferred rather than required, and a posted pay range. A copy-ready template is below.
KORE1 recruits clinical research staff, so I benefit if you call us after reading this. Take the template without calling. It works either way, and every number here comes from a public source you can open yourself.
This page is written for whoever posts the seat, whether that’s a site manager, a research operations director, or a hiring lead at a contract research organization (CRO) that places coordinators at sites. Our life sciences staffing group fills these seats on contract and direct hire (KORE1’s twelve-month retention across placements is 92%), and the clinical research staffing page covers the wider bench of monitors, research nurses, and trial managers.
What Does a Clinical Research Coordinator Actually Do?
A clinical research coordinator (CRC) runs a clinical trial’s day-to-day work at a research site. That means screening and consenting participants, scheduling visits, collecting protocol data, recording adverse events, and keeping the regulatory binder ready for inspection, all under a principal investigator who stays responsible for the trial.
The rulebook behind all of it is Good Clinical Practice, or GCP, the international ethics and quality standard for trials on human participants. If your posting never says GCP, a careful candidate will notice.
For a neutral list of duties, start with the U.S. Department of Labor. Its O*NET page for Clinical Research Coordinators lists 33 tasks and scores each for importance. The top three are scheduling participants for protocol visits (87), performing protocol procedures such as vital signs and electrocardiograms (86), and assessing eligibility through screening interviews and record review (85). Informed consent oversight scores 83. Adverse event recording scores 84.
Look at what leads that list. Scheduling. Not statistics, not strategy. The job is mostly logistics done under a very strict rulebook, and a good posting says so. Say it.
Before you write a word, decide which seat you’re filling. O*NET files coordinators, clinical research managers, and clinical trial managers under the same occupation code, which is how a single posting can end up asking for a coordinator’s hands and a manager’s judgment at once.
| Title | Usually employed by | What the seat owns |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical research coordinator | Research site (hospital, academic center, private site) | Participant visits, source records, data entry, study files |
| Clinical research nurse | Research site | Trial tasks that need a nursing license, often dosing days |
| Regulatory coordinator | Research site | IRB submissions and the regulatory binder |
| Clinical research associate (CRA) | Sponsor or CRO | Monitoring visits to sites and source data review |
| Clinical trial manager | Sponsor or CRO | Oversight of the whole study across sites |
Row one is this page. The rest live on our clinical research staffing page.
Clinical Research Coordinator Job Description Template (Copy and Edit)
Everything in brackets is yours to fill. Delete any task your investigator will not delegate, because a posting that promises consent duties to a hire who won’t get them is a retention problem waiting for its first quarter.
Job title: Clinical Research Coordinator [I / II / Senior]. Location: [site, city, state]. Schedule: [full time, on site, visit-day hours].
Job summary
[Organization] is hiring a clinical research coordinator for [therapeutic area, such as oncology or cardiology] studies at [site or department]. You will run day-to-day activity on [number] active protocols under [principal investigator or “our investigators”]. That covers screening, consent, visits, data entry, and regulatory records. You begin each protocol with training and take on tasks only once the investigator has signed your name on the study delegation log.
What you’ll do
- Screen potential participants against each protocol’s eligibility criteria, then confirm every enrollment with the investigator before it becomes final.
- Carry out informed consent as delegated, on the current IRB-approved form, and document it right the first time.
- Schedule visits inside protocol windows. Dosing days, labs, imaging. All of it has to line up.
- Perform the protocol procedures delegated to you, such as vital signs and electrocardiograms. [List only what applies.]
- Record adverse events. Route each one to the investigator, who decides what gets reported.
- Enter data in [EDC system, such as Medidata Rave or Veeva Vault EDC]. Answer the sponsor’s queries fast.
- Process, store, and ship specimens according to the lab manual. [Keep this one only if your coordinator really runs the centrifuge.]
- Keep the regulatory binder and study files ready for a monitoring visit or inspection on any given day.
What you need
- [Education: bachelor’s degree in a life science, health science, or related field, or an associate degree plus [number] years of research experience.]
- [Experience: number of years coordinating studies, with therapeutic area or phase if it matters.]
- Working knowledge of Good Clinical Practice and human subjects protections, or completion of that training within [30] days of hire.
- Comfort with [EDC and clinical trial management system names].
Nice to have
- ACRP Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC) or SOCRA Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP), or eligibility to sit for either.
- Experience in [therapeutic area].
Pay and conditions
Pay range: $[low] to $[high] per [year or hour]. [Benefits, bonus, and any on-site or travel requirement.] [Your standard equal opportunity statement.]
Posting a coordinator seat this month? Send me the therapeutic area, the number of active protocols, the site city, and whether you want contract or direct hire. I’ll go through your draft with you. Let’s Connect.
How Should the Requirements Change by Level?
They should climb in steps. Most free templates don’t. One posting asks a first-year coordinator for the certification, three studies of experience, and phase I knowledge. Then the employer wonders why nobody applies. Nobody can.
There is outside support for leveling a research role. The Joint Task Force for Clinical Trial Competency, a group of investigators, educators, and research professionals, publishes a core competency framework that sets out what a person should know at Basic, Skilled, and Expert levels, and employers have used it to define roles and performance reviews. The ladder below is my own suggestion in the same spirit. A recommendation, not a standard. And I’m drawing those lines with a thick marker, so your site may need a thinner one.
| Level | Education | Experience | Certification | Tasks to expect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRC I | Bachelor’s preferred; associate degree plus related work accepted | 0 to 1 year in research or a clinical setting | None required | Scheduling, data entry, specimen handling, supervised screening |
| CRC II | Bachelor’s | 1 to 3 years coordinating studies | Preferred; eligible to sit for the exam around the two-year mark | Consent, eligibility review, adverse event capture, one to several protocols |
| Senior CRC | Bachelor’s | 3 or more years, with the phase or therapeutic area named | Preferred, or required within 12 months of hire | Protocol start-up, training junior coordinators, hosting monitoring visits |
| Lead or manager | Bachelor’s; advanced degree optional | 5 or more years, including supervising staff | Required at many employers | Staffing the team, study budgets, sponsor and IRB relationships |
On the education column, O*NET puts the occupation in Job Zone Four, where “most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor’s degree, but some do not.” I’d write “bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience” and mean it. A pharmacy tech with five years in a hospital infusion center may beat a new biology graduate for a CRC I seat.
Should the Posting Require CCRC or CCRP?
No, not at the early levels. The exam asks for more experience than the seat does.
The Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) says applicants for its CCRC exam need 3,000 hours of verifiable work experience, and the count excludes internships, work done as part of a degree program, and anything older than ten years. At 40 hours a week that is about 17 months of full-time work. ACRP may grant one 1,500-hour waiver to applicants who hold another ACRP certification or finished an accredited clinical research education program.
SOCRA, the Society of Clinical Research Associates, sets a different bar for its CCRP exam. The main route wants two years full time inside the past five, or 3,500 hours if the work was part time. A second route swaps part of that for a clinical research degree and one year on the job in the past two.
Now set the two side by side. “CCRC required” on a first-year posting asks for a credential the candidate can’t yet sit for. Different story at Senior level, or as a condition within twelve months of hire. Plenty of employers do that.
What Should the Posting Say About Pay?
Here is a trap worth knowing about. The O*NET page for Clinical Research Coordinators shows a 2025 median wage of $167,220. Read the fine print above that number and the wage data is for Natural Sciences Managers, a broader group of manager occupations. That’s not a coordinator’s pay. A posting built on it would break your budget or your applicant pool, whichever blinks first.
Coordinators don’t get their own line in the government’s wage tables, so every figure below comes from a salary aggregator. And they disagree. Widely.
| Source | Title they price | Figure | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salary.com | Clinical Trials Specialist / Research Coordinator | $65,251 average; typical range $57,663 to $72,839 | November 2026 |
| PayScale | Clinical Research Coordinator | $54,992 average base; 10th to 90th percentile roughly $41,000 to $70,000 (497 profiles) | Last updated March 2025 |
| Glassdoor | Clinical Research Coordinator (modelled estimate) | About $97,000 median total pay | 2026 page |
| O*NET | Natural Sciences Managers (the parent group, not coordinators) | $167,220 median | 2025 |
Two of the four land in the same neighborhood, $55,000 to $65,000 on average. Glassdoor runs about $32,000 above Salary.com and about $42,000 above PayScale. Its own page says the figures come from a model that mixes user reports with government data. Whether that explains the gap, I can’t tell you, and I’m not going to guess. I wouldn’t anchor on it.
My advice is dull. Start from your own pay band and your metro, check it against two sources instead of one, and write the range in the posting. In California the range isn’t optional for most employers. Labor Code section 432.3 requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale in a job posting. If you’re building a band from scratch, our salary benchmark assistant is a place to start.
Does the Template Change for a Contract Coordinator?
Barely. Same duties, same tasks. What shifts is who has to prove what in week one, before the contractor goes near a participant.
ICH E6(R3), the current Good Clinical Practice guideline, tells the investigator to make sure delegated staff are qualified and informed about the protocol, and section 2.3.2 says that includes staff provided by other parties. Section 2.3.3 asks the investigator to keep a record of who has been delegated what. So a contract coordinator gets the same training and the same line on the delegation record as an employee. Start date and delegation date are not the same day. Plan for it.
That has a practical effect on the posting. For a contract seat, add a line saying your site will train the coordinator on each protocol before tasks are delegated, and ask the staffing firm how many days of unbillable lead time that adds. Our page on contract staffing explains how we handle the first weeks, and direct hire is the better fit when the studies behind the seat will run for years.
One more split. If the seat is really an EDC build or a clinical trial management system administrator, you’re not hiring a coordinator at all. O*NET flags clinical trial management software as in demand for the occupation, but configuring OpenClinica or a sponsor’s system is an IT search, and our life sciences IT staffing group runs those. Different candidates. Different pay. Different search.
What Do You Ask Before the Offer?
Ask what they want. Before the offer, not after the resignation.
Think of a great house on the market. More than one buyer shows up, and the one who drags or lowballs goes home empty. A strong coordinator works the same way, and they’re people, not requisitions. Someone worn out by early dosing visits will leave your study halfway through, and you’ll only see it coming if somebody asked.
Four questions do most of the work. How many protocols can you carry at once? Which therapeutic area do you want more of, and which less? What does a good visit day look like? What would make you leave in a year? Write the answers down.
For the general craft of a posting that candidates finish reading, Samantha Litman’s job description blueprint is worth ten minutes.
Before You Post the Role
Does a coordinator need a bachelor’s degree?
Not always, though most employers ask for one, and O*NET’s job zone for the occupation says most positions of this type require a four-year degree but some do not.
Write “bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience” and define equivalent. Two years of hospital research or clinical work is a fair stand-in for the degree on a CRC I seat.
CRC or CRA: which one am I posting for?
A CRC works at the research site every day, and a CRA visits the site on behalf of the sponsor or CRO to check the work.
If your title says coordinator but half the duties are monitoring visits and source data review, you’re describing two jobs. Split them.
What should I budget for a coordinator?
$55,000 to $65,000 is where two national averages land, Salary.com at $65,251 and PayScale at $54,992, before metro, employer type, and experience move it.
Your own recent offers beat any aggregator. Use the published figures to check yourself, not to set the number.
Why can’t a new hire consent participants on day one?
Because the investigator hasn’t signed for it yet.
ICH E6(R3) section 2.3.3 asks the investigator to keep a record of delegated activities, and 2.3.2 asks them to confirm the person is qualified and informed about the protocol first. Our clinical research staffing page walks through a sample delegation log.
Can a staffing firm supply a coordinator for a single study?
Yes, and ICH E6(R3) section 2.3.2 expressly covers staff provided by other parties, as long as the investigator trains and delegates them like any other team member.
Build the training days into the schedule and the budget, and expect the contractor’s first productive week to be your second.
Tell Me the Study
Send me the study. Therapeutic area, visit schedule, site city, contract or direct hire. Every coordinator seat I’ve scoped started with what the protocol needed, and never with a title copied from the site down the road. I’ll tell you what the seat should say and what it should pay. Expert in finding you the right talent, right away.
Let’s Connect. You can also find me on LinkedIn.
