Our latest Industry Analytics Report features Regulatory Affairs Trends, Yvette Cleland, CEO, Cpl Life Sciences comments:
The global regulatory affairs (RA) market size was valued at USD 10.97 billionin 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4% from 2020 to 2027. This growth can be attributed to the increasing demand for the faster approval process, changing regulatory landscape, growth in emerging fields, such as specialty therapies, orphan drugs, personalised medicines, and companion diagnostics.
To bring this down to a European perspective, RA vacancies within the biotech space alone grew by 48% in 2020.While the EU27 saw an overall growth in RA vacancies of 4.9% the UK saw a 6.4% rise year-on-year. Three years of back-data on RA job opportunities shows the UK to be consistently the busiest part of continental Europe in vacancy growth and therefore requiring talent in this space. While it is positive to see growth in the requirement for highly skilled talent in the RA pool, the question as an industry that we need to ask is “where is the new talent coming from?”
What we have established there is a year-on-year increasing skills shortage in RA and that, in general, the larger organisations that require these positions are doing very little in terms of development of new-to-industry talent in the regulatory field. As the UK science sector goes from strength to strength and ambitions grow, it seems foolhardy that companies that will benefit from investment in talent, fail to invest. By 2030 we know the life sciences sector will require 130,000-plus new highly skilled workers within this sector as a whole, and yet only 23% of the apprenticeship levy available has been utilised.
The University of Hertfordshire hosts an RA apprenticeship scheme. An apprenticeship scheme created by employers for employers. Currently uptake from industry has been too slow. Until the industry itself steps up and becomes accountable for the skills deficit and takes on board some of the solutions available, our place on the world stage of science will be compromised; not by the lack of innovation, the UK has already demonstrated an outstanding record here. It will in fact be compromised by the lack of skilled labour to grow.
For more details on how the RA apprenticeship scheme works and how it can support your growth, please do not hesitate to contact me on yvette.cleland@cpl.com for further guidance on how to play your part in making our industry more sustainable.
Read the full report here.
Yvette Cleland, Chief Executive Officer- Cpl Life Sciences