The UK Life Sciences sector is growing but it must adapt to fulfil its potential.
As a global engineering firm Deerns has extensive experience in life sciences sectors around the world. Here’s where we share our thoughts on the UK market.
The agility shown during the pandemic demonstrated what the UK life sciences industry is capable of. And with the recent MedCity Life Sciences Global Cities Comparison Report 2024 ranking London’s life sciences ecosystem third in the world (behind Boston and New York) the potential of the UK market is clear.
A positive foundation for life sciences
The UK life sciences industry is underpinned by leading research facilities and universities. Three of the global top ten universities for life sciences are in the UK. Government commitments to research and development funding have been welcomed, private investment is helping early growth support programmes, and the industry has held up well during this challenging economic period.
Yet challenges remain. The need to adapt to new working practices and a skills shortage are in danger of resulting in the UK life sciences market being unable to fulfil its considerable capacity.
Engineering knowhow and domain knowledge
A consultant’s role is so often as a go between. A translator who understands the specific challenges facing clients in a sector and can offer up solutions from within or outside the sector to meet those challenges.
Throughout his career UK Life Science Lead, Rui Dinis, has pursued additional study opportunities to ensure he has the level of domain knowledge that clients need. He finds it helps get to the crux of the issue with clients and gives him confidence to ask, “what if?” and “why not?”. He also have a practical grounding that is often missing from undergraduate programmes today. Rui says: “There needs to be better investment and closer links between industry and education to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to help those starting out in our industry gain a solid foundation in industry language and key issues.”
The MedCity report acknowledges this skills gap and urges companies to support the UK talent pipeline through investment in training and in outreach programmes which raise the profile of the industry amongst young people. Deerns is already committed to this with our team frequently visiting schools and universities to share insights into careers opportunities.
But the UK’s low levels of investment in training will take time to rectify. To counter this our UK Life Sciences team, as part of Deerns’ global network, has access to colleagues around the world who can seamlessly integrate into project teams to meet any specialism requirements. This not only adds expertise and new perspectives to our approach but also provides training and exposure to real world projects for the next generation of Deerns engineers.
Life sciences as part of an innovation ecosystem
The UK government’s commitment to a £20.4 billion investment in research and development is welcome news for the sector. The Covid-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on life sciences, raising public awareness of the sector and showing what can be achieved under pressure. Of course, no one wants another pandemic but harnessing some of that energy, with the financial input to support it, is necessary if the industry is to continue that momentum.
Real estate has an important role to play here. The industry is demanding a move away from traditional workspaces. And developments in engineering technology are providing significant opportunities for smaller, more agile industry players to test the market and have a rapid impact. Co-location with other like-minded companies is a major draw for many but campus owners and operators must work to understand how to make their offer attractive to both life sciences companies and their teams. Finding ways to create thriving communities that become incubators for innovation is key and we are seeing significant appetite for this type of development within the sector – with some links to our other focus area of data centres.
Rising to the challenges for life sciences
There’s no doubt that there are huge opportunities within the life sciences sector, but the industry must recognise current brakes on development and seek to mitigate for them. Moving away from traditional workplaces and team structures is one way that they can adapt to ensure they are positioned to take full advantage of this exciting marketplace.
Get in touch to find out how Deerns can help your life science business take the next step in the UK.
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