Her script for the unproduced science fiction thriller Aether made the 2014 Black List and led to a staff writer role on the television show Penny Dreadful.
[7][8] Wilson-Cairns had initially aspired to study physics and become an engineer but her on set experiences as a runner fostered her interest in working in the film industry.
[11] She then spent a year working at the BBC Comedy Unit, before moving to London where she gained an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in 2013.
[9][12] While studying at the NFTS, she worked as a bartender in The Toucan, an Irish pub in Soho, and developed script ideas during her downtime.
[15] It was for the science fiction thriller project Aether, which provided her breakthrough after it made the top ten of the Black List.
[16][17][18] The script was read by screenwriter John Logan who hired her as a staff writer on his television show Penny Dreadful in 2015.
[19] After this, her first writing commission was for a potential film adaptation, to be directed by Tobias Lindholm, of Charles Graeber's non-fiction book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder.
[23] The film follows two young British soldiers on a mission to warn a fellow battalion of a German ambush, and is shot to appear as if it is one continuous take.
Wilson-Cairns spent a fortnight working in a burns unit in a hospital in Connecticut to learn about the American healthcare system to develop the script.