Chapter 3
Life Sciences Manufacturing Talent
U.S. Life Sciences Talent Trends 2024
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Identifying the appropriate talent pool for a company’s manufacturing needs can be complex, with a variety of extremely specific needs and skills. For example, a large pharmaceutical company’s high-volume production facility might have different needs compared to a smaller cell and gene therapy organization.
Our top 25 life sciences manufacturing markets ranking aims to accommodate various users and needs, based on occupations most commonly supporting life sciences manufacturing operations. The ranking considers the depth and density of biological and chemical technicians, along with more generic manufacturing roles such as industrial production managers, inspectors and testers, and packaging operators.
The leading life sciences manufacturing markets range from historic leaders in pharmaceutical, medicine and chemical manufacturing, like New York-New Jersey, Chicago and Philadelphia, to markets with a greater biotechnology presence like Boston-Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego. Markets offering abundance talent with transferable skills, like Houston, and large distribution markets like Dallas-Fort Worth, are also notable.
Several smaller markets, such as Greenville, SC, Buffalo and Detroit might surprise industry observers, but data shows they offer an abundance of many occupations with skills needed for life sciences manufacturing.
Figure 16: Top 25 Ranked Markets for Life Sciences Manufacturing Talent
An adequate amount and density of biological and chemical technicians are essential for an appealing life sciences manufacturing market. Figure 17A shows the markets with the most technicians, all of which are among the U.S.’s leading life sciences clusters. Figure 17B reveals the strongest concentrations of these technicians among the top 100 markets. As expected, leading life sciences markets like Boston-Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego and Raleigh-Durham are featured, but so are unexpected markets like Madison, WI. Worcester, MA and Albany, NY likely benefit from being in the larger ecosystems of Boston-Cambridge and New York-New Jersey, but Reno and Buffalo may surprise observers.
While less central to life sciences manufacturing, other occupations such as industrial production managers, inspectors and packaging operators are still crucial for any manufacturing platform. Figure 17C shows these roles are abundant in some of the nation’s largest industrial and distribution markets.
Figure 17A: Number of Biological/Chemical Technicians
Figure 17B: Number of Biological/Chemical Technicians as % of All Occupations
Figure 17C: Employees in Other Manufacturing Occupations Traditionally Used in the Life Sciences Industry
Emerging biotechnologies and gene therapies require increasingly skilled manufacturing employees to meet growing demand. A variety of public and private workforce development programs are addressing this need in many markets.
Figure 17, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, reveals where the greatest number of certificates (up to 2-year programs) for biomedical/biotechnology/biology technicians were issued. This supports growing manufacturing operations in these markets, making them potentially attractive places for companies seeking manufacturing locations.
Figure 18: Biomedical/Biotechnology/Biology Technician Certificates Issued (2022)
*San Francisco Bay Area includes Vallejo and Santa Cruz MSAs. Atlanta includes Athens MSA.
Emerging biotechnologies and gene therapies require increasingly skilled manufacturing employees to meet growing demand.
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