San Francisco Bay Area Ranks in Top Five Markets for Life Sciences Talent

The San Francisco Bay Area is among the top five markets for life sciences talent, according to CBRE’s third-annual U.S. Life Sciences Talent Trends report. Degree completions of biological and biomedical sciences in the Bay Area are up, but securing top talent remains a challenge.

This year, CBRE’s new analysis examines life sciences employment by subsector, mapping out the top markets and employment trends across the research & development, manufacturing and medical technology fields. CBRE also expanded its report to 100 U.S. markets from 74 last year, thus including up-and-coming markets such as Madison, Wis., and Trenton, N.J.

The San Francisco Bay Area was in the top five across all three subcategories: second in R&D subsector, fifth in manufacturing and fourth in medtech. The Bay Area is one of three markets to rank within the top five of all three subsectors.

The region’s life sciences talent pipeline has steadily grown. Degree completions in biological and biomedical sciences (bachelor’s and higher) totaled 3,340 in 2022, up from 3,205 in 2021.

Even so, demand for life sciences talent in the Bay Area outpaces supply. Among the top 25 R&D life sciences markets, the San Francisco Bay Area ranked 25th in the ratio of R&D graduates-to-employees, suggesting the region is possibly undersupplied with new graduates. However, Sacramento’s graduate-to-industry ratio is about five times that of the Bay Area, which may enable new graduates to relocate from Sacramento to the Bay Area.

Nationally, the industry’s job growth – specifically in biotechnology R&D and pharmaceutical/medicine manufacturing – amounted to 0.2% since June 2022 after gaining 15.8% in the same period prior to June 2022. Meanwhile, unemployment in the sector is below 2%, compared to roughly 4% for all professions.

“Life sciences saw a significant slowdown in mid-2022, however venture capital and public funding has returned in earnest this year. Northern California life sciences companies are in growth mode now, with several in late-stage clinical trials and primed to grow exponentially in the coming years – meaning more jobs and demand for top tier talent,” said Gregg Domanico, vice chairman with CBRE’s Life Sciences Practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.

CBRE evaluated the largest 100 U.S. life sciences labor markets against multiple criteria for each of the three specialties. For the R&D subsector, that included the number and concentration of life sciences researchers; number of new graduates, and specifically with doctorate degrees in that field; concentration of all doctorate degree holders; and concentration of jobs in the broader professional, scientific, and technical services professions.

For the manufacturing and medtech sectors, the analysis covered the number and concentration of key professions in the markets.

The San Francisco Bay Area stood out in the report in several other key areas:

• The University of California, Berkeley produced 1,341 life science graduates in 2022, the seventh highest number in the U.S.
• The San Francisco Bay Area has the second highest number of biological/chemical technicians (6,560) and the eighth highest concentration of these technicians.
• San Francisco Bay Area issued the fourth highest number of biomedical/biotechnology/biology technician certificates in 2022, behind LA/Orange County, St. Louis and Chicago.
• The San Francisco Bay Area has 10% of the medtech talent among the top 100 markets. There are 50,210 medtech occupations in the Bay Area, most of which are concentrated in electrical assembly and architectural and engineering managers.

To read the full report, click here.