A new report from the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) has demonstrated the rise of employment in the sector, showing that the industry currently supports over 3,000 jobs, with 1,700 roles in manufacturing and bioprocessing.
Further, the report shows that the UK is set to more than double its cell and gene employment by 2024, as more therapies are moving towards commercialisation. This means that in the last seven years, the industry has expanded from 500 jobs in 2012 to over 3,000, and is predicted to reach over 6,000 jobs by 2024.
In addition to its skills demand report, the CGT Catapult has released a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) manufacturing report, which shows that in addition to the successful employment figures, the manufacturing sector in academia and industry is still growing for the fifth consecutive year, with facilities rapidly becoming operational.
Specifically, the manufacturing capacity in the UK is due to increase even further with 6,000m2 becoming available in 2020 – principally from Oxford Biomedica and the expansion of the CGT Catapult.
The progress has been hailed as “encouraging” by the catapult’s chief executive officer, Keith Thompson, who said “Advanced therapies are progressing from research into becoming commercial products. Thanks to the continuous support from Innovate UK and UK Research and Innovation, we have been able to accelerate the growth of the UK ecosystem, the infrastructures and the systems that can enable companies to grow and for their therapies to reach patients.”
He went on to express that “To keep growing, the industry will need many more skilled people and the expansion of programmes such as the Advanced Therapies Apprenticeship Community (ATAC) are an essential part of this.”
