Tackling the life science skills gap
With life sciences facing a 70,000 staffing shortfall by 2035, Kate Barclay for the BioIndustry Association explains the sector’s skills priorities to Simon Penfold.
“The UK Life Sciences sector is on the brink of a transformative era,” according to a key industry report published this year.
But it will need to recruit 70,000 people to fill new jobs in order to keep pace with expected growth over the next decade, while a further 75,000 will be needed to replace those leaving the industry.
In the months following that report the Government published its Industrial Strategy, identifying life sciences as one of eight sectors with the greatest growth potential over the next decade.
And a Life Sciences Sector Plan published in July set out a 10-year plan to harness British science and innovation. The Government’s ambition is to make the UK the leading life sciences economy in Europe by 2030 and the third most important globally by 2035.
Against that background, it is clear UK life sciences faces a period of almost unprecedented opportunity, but also of substantial challenges.
Life Sciences 2035: Developing the Skills for Future Growth – published in March – recognised that the sector’s ability to advance will depend on how it addresses emerging challenges around workforce readiness.
It calls for increased investments in education and training, the promotion of lifelong learning, and the creation of more inclusive workplaces to attract and retain a diverse talent pool.
The report was produced by Life Sciences Futures Group, a collaboration between the Science Industry Partnership (SIP), the Office for Life Sciences (OLS), the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI), the BioIndustry Association (BIA), and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
Time for action
The BIA is the voice of more than 600 member companies across the sector. Their Skills Strategy Consultant, Dr Kate Barclay MBE, said: “The Government’s Sector Plan has highlighted the areas we need to address. I think it's now a case of putting that into action.
“Funding from Government and industry will be needed to be able to put those actions in place. Support from Government seems to be there and the industry is stepping forward and addressing the skills challenge.
“Life Sciences is a key sector within the industrial strategy, with more detail laid out in the Life Sciences Sector Plan. And we have our own Life Sciences Futures 2035 report. We've got a number of reports now that say this is where our gaps are. They're all based on the evidence that's out there. It's now time for action.
“I think the Life Sciences Sector Plan is the starting point for that action. We provided a lot of the analysis for it, whether it was job ad scraping, looking at the apprenticeship levy and take-up, looking at challenges with international visas or surveying the industry.
“Now the BIA is working with member companies to address the skills needs across the range of opportunities. This includes growing a highly skilled domestic talent pipeline for the sector, increasing the diversity and inclusion of our workforce, and reducing the barrier to access highly skilled global talent. There are actions that are being driven forward to address those.
“So for me, we’ve got the evidence and it is really very clear. It's now about ‘how do we start addressing that?’ Now we need action.”
The Government has underlined its commitment to working with the sector on skills. In his foreword to the Future Growth report, Lord Vallance, Minister for State for Science, Research and Innovation, said: “Developing the necessary skills requires time, resources, and dedication. The government is committed to working with the sector to meet these needs.
“We are targeting key Life Sciences skills gaps through initiatives like the UK Medicines Manufacturing Skills Centre of Excellence – RESILIENCE and the Industry Skills Accelerator.”
The next steps will require closely co-ordinated work between the industry, training organisations, the education sector and Government agencies such as the newly created Skills England – launched this summer to bring together the UK’s fractured skills landscape.
“Then it will be a case of looking at where those interventions have been effective and what skills gaps are left to address,” said Kate,
“There is definitely a coordination aspect needed for skills across the sector and there's also a bit of a gap analysis to do. We have to examine the return on investment of what is there to see what's being effective and then see what else is missing,”
Key focus areas
In terms of the skills challenges facing the life sciences sector there are, said Kate, three key areas to focus on.
“The first one is that skills shortage we face between now and 2035. 145,000 seems like an overwhelming number, but in terms of newly created jobs it breaks down to 7,000 a year over the next 10 years, which I think is an achievable number.
“We've talked about bespoke interventions to boost priority skills for the sector and we need to upskill our existing workforce in terms of digital skills and AI with the growth of fields such as data-driven drug discovery, the use of machine learning and the use of big data within clinical trials.
“At present we have some significant gaps around the use of digital skills in our workforce. That will require upskilling, as well as bringing in new people with a combination of the computational and scientific skills needed to advance innovations.”
Two years ago BIA launched its #BigImpact campaign to attract computational talent into the life sciences sector. Kate said: “Traditionally we have a talent pipeline of scientists coming into the sector and we're working on attracting computational skills to work alongside them, applying their skills to a sector that is rewarding and motivating for our next generation of talent.
“We are encouraging young people to apply those computational skills to delivery of new healthcare solutions, perhaps with some of our data-driven drug discovery companies. It’s about keeping up to date with the latest digital trends.
“The second area that we're looking at is building a more diverse workforce. Across life sciences, we've traditionally got a lack of women in leadership roles as well as a lack of scientists and industry leaders from black and minority ethnic backgrounds and issues with social mobility – we identified this in the BIA Diversity and Inclusion report last year.”
The report included four recommendations, including the collection of collection and benchmarking of data and the pursuit of inclusive recruiting and hiring practices
This year BIA published its Women in Biotech Leadership report, a sector specific first in comprehensively collecting and examining C-suite gender leadership data for UK biotech. It identified clear successes of female leadership at the same time as highlighting sustained challenges.
The report warned: “If we do not address the challenges that face females as companies mature to different stages, combined with life and career over time, we are in danger of losing an incredible swathe of female talent to conscious or unconscious bias and lack of support/backing – ultimately to the detriment of the sector and UK plc.”
Kate Barclay underlined the benefits to the sector of a more diverse workforce, not least in developing innovative healthcare solutions for all.
“There's a much deeper and broader understanding of unmet medical needs within diverse communities and innovation will come from those who understand those challenges, design incredible solutions and can access the investment to deliver for patients,” she said.
“Diversity for me is not just about reaching the talent, it's also about making sure that we've got those innovations in our healthcare system that are addressing unmet medical need.”
A huge global market
The third skills focus for the sector is around attracting top international talent, which takes in the political hot potato of immigration.
“We have some challenges within our immigration system around attracting top international talent. We have some of the best universities in the world and some great international students but we also face a challenge in retaining them. And we need founders to come and start/spin out their companies in the UK – the visa system should support this.
“We are operating in a hugely global market for life sciences, which relies on that porosity of international talent. And there are challenges in our visa system right now that we need to address if we're going to attract that top talent.
“The biggest is around our Global Talent visa, which has a heavy academic focus. Of course we want that top academic talent but we also need to attract top international business talent to build new companies and help develop our existing pharma sector.
“We require the knowledge and the skills of our global community so that for me is a concern. I wouldn't say it's at crisis point, but it certainly needs significant intervention right now. But I think we can address this, as we are addressing a number of these challenges.”
The Government has clearly stated its ambitions for the UK life sciences sector. The BIA and its partners in the industry will be intent on ensuring the Government follows through in terms of the recruitment and training that are vital in turning those ambitions into a reality.
Further Reading For more information on the topics discussed in this feature, please visit: • bigimpact.org.uk/p/1 • diversityinbiotech.org• resilience-skills.com/what-we-do/