By Matt Crawcour, Vice President, EMEA Sales, KellyOCG
The promise of innovation in life sciences has never been stronger. Cell and gene therapy investment surged from $7.2 billion in 2023 to an estimated $27 billion in 2025. Investment in AI is projected to grow from $4.5 billion in 2026 to $13.6 billion by 2031.
Beneath these impressive numbers, organizations struggle with two fundamental questions: “Who can do the type of work we now have to do?” and “How do we identify, attract, and retain this talent?”
These questions highlight major challenges. Worker shortages remain critical, and the pace of change in the sector is faster than ever. Procurement, HR, and talent solutions providers face a must-win situation as they navigate workforce issues amid ongoing transformation.
The workforce supply fluctuates, with emerging skills and persistent shortages.
Thanks to advances in biotech, clinical trials, personalized medicine, and digital technologies, life sciences are defined by innovation and opportunity. Yet talent shortages persist — especially in roles requiring emerging or hybrid skills.
While education is catching up in some areas, critical skills in fields like bioinformatics, lab technology, and AI-focused research remain elusive. The result: lost revenue and escalating costs. Slow hiring can lead to $500,000 in unrealized revenue and $40,000 in clinical trial expenses per day. At a glance, the issue boils down to keeping up with skills :
What’s driving the ongoing talent shortage?
Expanding demand from booming biotech and increased clinical trial volume intensifies the need for specialized talent.
How does education respond?
Educational programs are adapting, producing more candidates with skills in bioinformatics and some AI-related research. But new roles continue to emerge, requiring hybrid expertise.
Which roles are hardest to fill?
Roles in high demand often involve emerging technologies, demanding both scientific knowledge and functional expertise in legal, management, or sales. Roles in short supply, requiring both technical and hybrid skills, include:
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Regulatory affairs specialists
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Clinical research associates (CRAs)
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Biostatisticians
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Quality and validation professionals
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Manufacturing and good manufacturing practice (GMP) technicians
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AI/data scientists in drug discovery
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Sales-related technical roles
Even as education adjusts to workforce needs, many positions remain difficult to fill. Organizations must step up to secure the talent they need or face significant financial and strategic setbacks.
The pace of change accelerates, making agility a talent imperative.
The life sciences sector is defined by constant change impacting both operations and workforce requirements. Static talent strategies rarely keep pace with shifting market conditions, evolving project timelines, and new skillset demands.
How does rapid change affect talent strategies?
Last year’s approach may not match today’s needs. Volatility in drug pipelines, funding, and organizational structures means worker types and volumes shift constantly.
Why do traditional workforce planning methods fail?
Static approaches can’t adapt to rapidly changing demands for research, development, manufacturing, or marketing talent.
How do flexible talent solutions help?
Contract staff, contingent clinical workers, and project-based experts enable companies to scale efficiently and secure specialized skills as needed.
What are the risks to continuing with current hiring strategies?
Many organizations continue to predetermine whether they want a contractor or a permanent hire to fill a role before they even begin planning the recruiting strategy. Limiting hiring to only permanent or only contract talent may exclude large workforce segments, making it harder to fill positions with the best candidates.
The sector has long relied on flexible talent pools. Today’s challenge lies in recalibrating workforce strategies for agility. Rigid hiring — defaulting to only permanent or contract hires — slows progress. A balanced, agile approach is needed to remain competitive as demands evolve.
Procurement and HR feel pressure to adapt.
Talent leaders, including procurement and HR, face heightened challenges in securing workers and meeting an organization’s demands. They must navigate complexity in talent competition, geography, data access, diverging workstyles, and supply and demand trends. Key concerns include:
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Scalability, especially in manufacturing
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Specialization, often for research and development roles
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Data-driven forecasting for cost, timing, location, and resourcing
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Compliance, including misclassification risks, audit exposure, and changing global regulations
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Performance transparency, whether for talent acquisition or contingent workforce suppliers
- Visibility into the workforce
Raising expectations for workforce solutions providers.
Workforce solutions providers offer advanced practices and technology to stay ahead of new challenges. But no two providers are the same. Legacy “order-taking” solutions create more risk than value, as companies depend on providers for expertise and partnership, with the breadth of service to add, change, expand, or reduce services anytime, anywhere.
- Strategic contingent workforce management begins with managed services provider (MSP) capabilities that can move with the client. Expect a provider to help expand spend under management, deliver data visibility, navigate compliance, and actively nurture and optimize the supplier network.
- In hiring permanent talent, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is expected to flex with the client, bring predictive analytics and decision-making data, and adapt to both high-volume and hard-to-fill roles seamlessly.
- AI functionality and predictive analytics integrate data sources and deliver decision-ready intelligence. If a provider only offers standard reporting, the client is likely to work with outdated assumptions — resulting in long vacancies and high costs.
- Total talent capability is now a practical expectation. Bringing permanent and flexible workers under one framework enables complete workforce visibility, and empowers the use of best-fit, best-cost talent.
Looking ahead: agility remains the priority
Our experience with successful clients confirms that understanding and agility are essential. Technology must fuel decisions, not just report data. Recruiters, talent advisors, consulting and technology experts, and program managers should be available anytime, anywhere.
Whether you’re ready for a workforce transformation or just need to complete an urgent project, your provider should meet you where you are. That’s where real value begins.
