Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy: Are you fit for the future? - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy:

Are you fit for the future?

Alex Felthouse Managing Director, Eisai and Chair of SIP Futures Group

SIP and MMIP Shared Vision

Employers working in partnership with government to establish the skills needed to build a high value, competent scientific workforce to support future productivity and growth for British business.

Objectives

Grow: To have a pipeline of skilled people with the capability, drive and ambition to build a thriving and globally competitive science based industry in the UK Retain: To support the development of the workforce to acquire the skills it needs to adopt new technologies and innovations Attract: To promote STEM careers and improve the value and understanding of scientific knowledge and skills, increasing the supply of home grown talent Thrive: To ensure there is a sustainable talent pool available to the Medicines Manufacturing sector to enable it to thrive in the future. 32,000 new recruits into the industry by 2025

Project Background

• Helping to deliver the Government’s Life Sciences Sector Deal 2 -

identifying skills needs to 2030

• Building a clear evidence base of sector workforce to provide a forward-

looking strategy for current and future skills

• Collaboration between the Science Industry Partnership (SIP), Office for Life

Sciences (OLS), Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the BioIndustry Association (BIA)

• Labour market intelligence, workforce assessment and skills research

undertaken by Cogent Skills & Steer Economic Development

• Publication date: January 2020

Introduction

SIP Futures Group - representatives

• Comprises key Life Sciences employers, trade associations, stakeholders and

Government

Areas of Focus

2030 Strategy to consider key research themes in a matrix manner. Core workforce activities represented by vertical pillars against three cross-cutting horizontal skills issues.

Recent Stakeholder Workshop

• Recent SIP Workshop with over 40 attendees from key sector employers,

trade associations and training providers

• In-depth discussions around the following topics:
• Digital skills: Acute skills gaps and shortages around data science, AI, machine learning,

automation;

• Training provision: Inconsistent quality/content of degree level training across providers and

apprenticeship model not working optimally for the sector;

• Concerns around security of flow of international workers post-Brexit.
• Considered the following questions:
• What are the issues that need to be resolved?
• What would success look like?
• How might this be achieved?
• How would we know it is working?

Baseline Data and Emerging Findings

Life Sciences in the UK in 2018

Source: OLS (2019) Bioscience and Health Technology Sector Statistics

Routes into work in Life Sciences

• More routes into the sector

available using apprenticeship standards

• Specialist apprenticeships

available at Levels 2 through 7 (master’s equivalent)

• Establishing a ‘parity’ of

esteem with traditional, graduate entry routes

• SIP Ambassador scheme to

promote science career routes

• Local SIP Groups in North

East and Cambridge looking at regional skills issues

Science Industry Apprenticeships

• Increasing levels of participation

in apprenticeships, generally;

• More new standards for science,

small numbers, but increasing take-up.

80 210 910 892 1,376

• 200

400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 (to end Q2) 2018/19 (estimate)

Apprenticeship starts within science companies (any subject) Starts on science apprenticeship standards

Source: Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey

Consultations – what is working (and what isn’t)

Strengths

• Highly qualified workforce
• Global centre of excellence for innovative research
• Sector responded well to apprenticeship reforms
• Large numbers of well established, experienced staff
• Strong pipeline of talent from high quality Universities
• Big contributor to national GDP

Weaknesses

• Traditional degree courses not meeting industry

demands

• Digital skills not keeping up with technological

development

• Apprenticeships lacking parity of esteem with

academia

• Limited CPD, life-long training, re-skilling and upskilling

Opportunities

• Development of a strong, industry-wide CPD

framework

• Better careers advice at all stages with clear pathways
• Greater industry input into training curricula
• Further growth of apprenticeship training models
• More collaborative working to improve exchange of

skills

Threats

• Uncertainty of Brexit/UK immigration policy
• Ageing workforce, losing ‘time-served’ experience
• Lots of competition for staff within/from outside the

sector

• Disruption from new technologies – training for jobs

that don’t yet exist

• Traditional approach to recruitment, training and

workforce development

Key Findings from the Workshop

Issues that need to be resolved…

• Low level of computing skills being developed within education, particularly at younger years;
• Very strong competition for digital skills from other sectors, often paying higher salaries e.g. tech

sector, finance;

• Lack of awareness or careers or poor perception of the Life Sciences industry
• Loss of expertise and skills with return of EU nationals to their home countries;
• Requirement for an equal emphasis on manufacturing skills;
• Retaining the brightest talent and ability to recruit from the global talent pool;
• Small apprenticeship cohort means providers can’t always deliver
• Localised gaps in provision stymie sector pipeline
• Knock on effect as apprenticeships should be an effective route for diversifying workforce;
• Lack of collaboration between employers/providers currently delivering science apprenticeships

Key Findings from the Workshop cont.

How these issues might be resolved…

• Mandatory computer science studies from younger age to GCSE
• Universities/training providers to include data science within

science courses

• Stronger voice for employers in curriculum design
• Better showcasing of career options into sector, particularly re

digital skills

• Leveraging sector benefit to human health to help improve

attractiveness

• Align apprenticeships with existing professional standards –

e.g kite-marking for degree courses/apprenticeship providers

• More support available to smaller employers to supervise, support

and develop apprentices

• More support for SMEs to overcome barriers/hidden costs of

apprenticeships

• Widespread use of the apprenticeship model for re-

training/upskilling

Next Stages & Comms

Next Stages – Strategic Priorities

• Detailed review of the findings from workshop – finalise evidence base
• Labour force projection calculator to forecast workforce future growth by

role level, training type & gender

• Detailed analysis of availability of training provision for the sector

compared with the forecast demand

• Supplementary consultations to add further depth and clarity to

findings

• Next SIP Futures Group meeting – September
• Approval of strategic framework and key recommendations
• Draft report October/final report December – online, interactive report

published

• SIP Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy Launch Event – Thursday 30th

January 2020

• Communications strategy underway generated strong publicity across

key channels

Media Coverage

SIP and MMIP Shared Vision

Employers working in partnership with government to establish the skills needed to build a high value, competent scientific workforce to support future productivity and growth for British business.

Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy and the MMIP

SIP and MMIP Working in Partnership

• MMIP is represented on the SIP Board,

bringing the medicines manufacturing voice

• MMIP is part of the Futures Group and is

actively participating in 2030 Skills Strategy

• We are working together to develop

recommendations for medicines manufacturing in the Strategy

• Joint communications activities MMIP/SIP

messaging

MMIP / SIP Sector Deal 2 Proposal

Measure Proposal

Action

Increase in uptake of Medicines Manufacturing Apprenticeships and further education.

Analyse skills needs vs emerging technology required for established medicines (small molecule, Mabs, traditional vaccines and therapeutic proteins) and complex medicines (ADCs,

• liginuclotides, viral vectors and new

vaccines) manufacturing. We need to : (i) Prime the small molecule and complex medicine technologies of the future. (ii) Bring industry together to determine short, medium and long term demand for manufacturing training (iii) Ensure training providers are aware of requirements, so that they may be strategic in their curricula development/offering. Having a clearly defined ecosystems will encourage training providers and industry to recruit and train strategically for the long term and for the interest of a sustainable future medicines manufacturing workforce.

It’s about skills needed for new technologies (digital, advanced manufacturing, AI) in medicines manufacturing