The Life Sciences sector is expected to demand an extra 133,000 skilled scientific jobs through to 2030 – according to the Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy.
The report, published by Science Industry Partnership (SIP) in collaboration with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the BioIndustry Association (BIA), with support from the Office for Life Sciences (OLS), indicates the jobs will be in highly specialised roles across the sector.
The research forecasts 133,000 jobs across the entire Life Sciences sector to replace retirees and achieve growth ambitions, of which:
- 43,000 jobs in Biopharma
- 90,000 jobs in Medtech
- 55,000 workers to replace retirees across the Life Sciences Sector
Each of the functional areas of the workforce are anticipated to require up to:
- 19,300 jobs in Biopharma R&D
- 6,400 jobs in Biopharma manufacturing
- 8,000 jobs in medtech R&D
- 46,500 jobs in medtech manufacturing
- 52,400 Service & Supply jobs across the Life Sciences
The Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy highlights that a number of sector-wide skills issues need to be addressed to fulfil the sector’s full potential, including:
- Computational skills
- Statistical literacy
- Leadership
- Effective communication
- Inter-disciplinary working
- Translation and commercialisation skills
- Holistic sales and marketing skills
Key recommendations include:
- Producing, implementing and monitoring a Life Sciences Skills Action Plan to oversee and coordinate the delivery of the recommendations, through a partnership approach with key sector stakeholders.
- Developing and funding a sector-based skills policy that joins up the skills and business agendas and meets the ambitions of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy.
- Continuing to promote, encourage and incentivise the take-up of apprenticeships in all parts of the sector to establish parity of esteem with academic routes.
- Maintaining the UK’s position in the Life Sciences sector, by supporting the facilitation of the transfer and exchange of a global workforce.
- The recommendations are being taken forward in a Skills Action Plan which is currently being finalised in collaboration with key partners and will set out activity, milestones and targets.
Success Factors:
The measure of success will be the extent to which this Strategy and the subsequent Action Plan deliver on the skills priorities highlighted in the UK Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and the Sector Deal 1 and Sector Deal 2, particularly:
- Attracting and retaining globally mobile talent;
- Increasing the take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects;
- Understanding, anticipating, and responding to skills gaps across key occupations;
- Supporting mobility between sectors;
- Supporting training for migration of academic scientists into industry;
- Developing apprenticeships and facilitating take-up of apprenticeships, particularly by SMEs;
- Accelerating convergence at the interface between Life Sciences, computer science, mathematics, statistics, engineering and chemistry in the fields of diagnostics, personalised medicine and data science.
Business and industry minister Nadhim Zahawim, said: “We want the UK to be a science superpower. The creation of new cutting-edge jobs in life sciences will help the UK make rapid progress in areas like early medical diagnosis and manufacturing, as well as helping level up every part of the UK with new opportunities.”
Alex Felthouse, managing director, Eisai Manufacturing and chair, SIP Futures Group, added: “This piece of work represents an important and strategic collaboration between the Life Sciences industry and key trade associations, supported by the Science Industry Partnership. It sets out the recommendations to take skills forward out to 2030 in support of our Life Sciences Industrial Strategy.
“To meet the demand that we have for the future we need to ensure that our industry is attractive to those who are considering joining the sector. We need to make them aware of all of the fantastic opportunities there are across a diverse and exciting range of activities – from research and development through to medicines manufacturing. We also need to ensure we have parity of esteem between different educational routes whether it be traditional academic routes, apprenticeships, vocational studies or ongoing Continued Professional Development.”
