Pittsburgh Emerges as Destination for Life Sciences Research Talent

A new analysis conducted by CBRE identifying the 25 top U.S. life sciences labor markets ranks Pittsburgh 25th for life sciences research talent due to its density of researchers, graduates in life science-related disciplines and rapid increase in venture capital funding.

Nationally, job growth in life sciences professions—from bioengineers and biochemists to microbiologists and data scientists—expanded by 79 percent since 2001 to roughly 500,000. In comparison, the overall U.S. job growth rate in that span was 8 percent.

Between 2016 and 2021, Pittsburgh’s pool of life sciences researchers rose more than 10 percent, adding 392 positions for a total of 4,258. The metro’s growth in talent was the 18th highest among the top 25 markets in the report.

CBRE assessed each market against multiple criteria, including the number of life sciences jobs and graduates, share of overall job and graduate pool, number of life sciences doctorate degree holders, and concentration of jobs in the broader professional, scientific and technical services professions. The analysis produced CBRE’s inaugural ranking of the leading markets for U.S. life sciences talent.

CBRE analyzed a pool of 74 U.S. cities in selecting the top 25.

Rank	Market	Score
1	Boston/Cambridge	138
2	Washington, D.C./Baltimore	129.8
3	San Francisco Bay Area	126.2
4	New York/New Jersey	124.3
5	San Diego	120.3
6	Raleigh-Durham	114.8
7	Los Angeles/Orange County	113.8
8	Philadelphia	113.5
9	Seattle	109.4
10	Chicago	107.6
11	Denver/Boulder	106.9
12	Minneapolis/St. Paul	106.4
13	Houston	104.1
14	Atlanta	103.5
15	Worcester, MA	102.6
16	Dallas/Fort Worth	102
17	Sacramento	101.8
18	Austin	101.5
19	Salt Lake City	101.4
20	New Haven, CT	100.8
21	Portland, OR	100.7
22	Miami	100.7
23	Nashville	100.6
24	Albany, NY	100.3
25	Pittsburgh	100

“Pittsburgh’s laboratory science community is growing and maturing. Out-of-town investors are exhibiting strong interest in owning life science real estate here, while national firms are increasingly acquiring and expanding the younger companies that use our lab space,” said CBRE’s Andrew Miller. “The region’s talent pool has a lot to do with both of those trends. Investor, company and employee interest in Pittsburgh is expected to drive our ascendance as an emerging life sciences cluster in the years to come.”

Pittsburgh is in company with the larger markets like Sacramento, Austin, Salt Lake City, and Portland, Ore., which ranked among the top 25 due in part to high concentrations of researchers and a highly educated talent pool.

The metro has a significant density of biological technicians (1,670 total) and, between 2015 and 2020, the number of medical scientists in Pittsburgh rose 47.8 percent to 1,180. The cluster’s strong number of biological and biomedical sciences graduates is also fueling its density of talent. In 2020, Pittsburgh-area universities conferred 1,242 of the nearly 164,000 degrees in the discipline issued nationally. Of those degrees, 8.7 percent were PhDs.

Above-average venture capital (VC) research funding in recent years is also driving Pittsburgh’s emergence as life sciences talent cluster. The metro saw a massive increase in VC funding from roughly $50 million in 2020 to $150 million in 2021, or 123 percent. In the last five years, VC funding grew by 801 percent, compared to the national average of 345 percent. Meanwhile, National Institutes of Health Funding rose steadily in that timeframe, culminating in approximately $110 million in 2021.

Another unexpected finding likely is relevant for expanding companies; Life sciences wages don’t vary geographically as much as those of other industries. Yet the market-to-market variance of cost of living means some markets are more affordable for life sciences workers than others.

In Pittsburgh, the average annual salary of biochemists, biomedical engineers, chemists and biophysicists is $84,758 while the annual cost of living is $51,965, making it more beneficial from a financial standpoint for scientists and researchers to live there.

Largest Gaps Between Average Life Sciences Wages and Cost of Living

Market	Ratio of life sciences wages to cost of living
Houston	2.04
Raleigh-Durham	1.99
Atlanta	1.90
Dallas/Fort Worth	1.86
Philadelphia	1.79
Minneapolis/St. Paul	1.79
Nashville	1.78
Chicago	1.76
Austin	1.76
Sacramento	1.76
Pittsburgh	1.73
Albany	1.73

“Quality and availability of labor are key considerations for any expanding industry, and that’s certainly the case for life sciences,” said Ian Anderson, CBRE’s Americas Head of Life Science and Healthcare Research. “Lab vacancy rates are tight in most markets, even amid strong construction activity. Expanding life sciences companies can choose from dozens of U.S. markets depending on their labor and real estate needs.”

To read the full report, click here.