The Government has published its Life Sciences Jobs Plan, a three-year roadmap for building the domestic skills pipeline the sector needs to sustain growth. The Plan responds to the Life Sciences Sector Plan's commitment to create around 66,000 additional jobs in priority occupations between 2025 and 2035, and sets out actions across four pillars: improving sector coordination, skills, hiring, and good jobs.
Members of the Science Industry Skills Partnership (SISP), the employer-led network delivered by Cogent Skills, contributed directly to its development. Through sustained engagement over recent months and a dedicated webinar earlier this year, a broad range of employers shared first-hand evidence on employment and recruitment challenges, apprenticeship barriers, work-readiness gaps among graduates, and the emerging skills needed for AI, data and advanced therapies.
How SISP members helped shape the Plan
The webinar gave members a direct route into the evidence base behind the Jobs Plan, feeding into the Office for Life Sciences' wider engagement with the sector between February and June 2026. Issues raised by SISP members are visible throughout the final document, including:
- The gap between newly graduated BSc students and the hands-on lab skills employers need on day one
- The particular strain placed on SMEs with limited HR and training capacity
- The need for flexible, modular training that fits around existing careers, not just new entrants
- The importance of clear, coordinated careers outreach to widen the talent pool
Head of Life Sciences Skills at Cogent Skills Fay Treloar, said:
'Today's Plan reflects what our members have been telling us for a while: that the ambition for this sector is only achievable if we fix the practical, everyday barriers to training and hiring. SISP members didn't just respond to a consultation, they helped write the evidence base. We're pleased to see that evidence carried through into a national plan, and we'll keep pushing to make sure the actions in it are delivered.'"
Sector coordination and next steps
The Plan is substantial, covering 28 actions, spread across the four pillars: improving sector coordination, skills, hiring, and good jobs. Employers across the sector are likely to want to pay attention to a stated preference to use existing structures – rather than create a new body – to coordinate activity and gather evidence on skills challenges across the sector. In its role as a member of the Futures Group, coordinated by Cogent Skills, SISP will continue dialogue on behalf of employers.
Cogent Skills is also developing a major employer survey of the Life Sciences sector, co-designed with the Office for Life Sciences, to build detailed, industry-wide evidence on workforce composition, apprenticeship experiences, and employer priorities for government action over the next 2–3 years. Findings from the survey will inform the ongoing delivery of the Jobs Plan and the development of future skills interventions..
Get involved
SISP members who want to feed into that ongoing conversation, or employers not yet part of the network who want a direct line into how this Plan is delivered, can contact [email protected] or visit https://cogentskills.com/life-and-industrial-sciences/
