The current demand for skills within the CGT industry has already exceeded 2024 projections
Following substantial growth of the UK advanced medicines manufacture market, the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult conducted their 2021 UK Cell and Gene Therapy skills demand survey across more than 90% of the industries biomanufacturing capacity – providing a picture of the anticipated skills challenges and opportunities over the next 5 years.
Catapult’s 2021 report explores the results of their survey and offers key recommendations to the industry to help minimize recruitment and retention barriers.
We’ve summarized the highlights below.
Growth forecast
Catapult’s 2019 UK Cell and Gene Therapy Skills Demand Survey Report predicted that the existing industry workforce would need to double (3,400+ roles) by 2024.
The 2021 report shows that current employment has already surpassed these predictions, and the industry is forecasting significantly higher growth – anticipating to grow by 117% by 2026 (8,100+ roles).
Skills Demand
Within bioprocessing, the forecast skills demand for 2026 is 10,000 jobs, a growth of 151%.
This rise highlights the opportunity to establish a robust and flexible biomanufacturing workforce in the UK. However, there is an urgent need to prioritise skills provision to sustain the substantial growth of UK companies and for the UK to be a global leader in advanced medicine manufacturing.
Challenges
Increasing employee numbers over the next 5 years and recruiting and/or retaining employees – particularly within manufacturing and quality control – were key challenges shared by the majority of respondents.
It is expected without the expansion of skills programmes, that the scale of growth will present an issue to the industry, as there will not be enough trained individuals to fulfil the demand.
To discover more about Catapult’s CGT Skills Demand survey, take a look at the full report.
Ori Biotech are always on the lookout for passionate driven people. Explore our latest career opportunities.