Official Statistics

Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023 to 2024

Published 2 October 2025

1. Main points

The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) estimates that in 2023/2024:

• there were 6,170 businesses operating in the UK life sciences industry across 7,320 companies. These businesses employed 359,600 people and generated £146.9 billion in turnover
• the largest subsector in terms of employment and the number of companies was medical technology, which accounted for 60% of companies and 55% of employment. Meanwhile, biopharmaceutical companies accounted for 40% of companies and 45% of employment. In these statistics, the life sciences industry is split into these 2 main subsectors
• the subsector that generated the highest turnover was the biopharmaceutical subsector, accounting for 67% of turnover across the life sciences industry
• the international territorial level (ITL) 1 region with the highest share of employment and turnover (based on registered addresses of companies) was the South East, accounting for 24% of employment and 27% of turnover
• 25% of life sciences companies reported manufacturing as their primary activity
• 19% of life sciences companies reported research and development (R&D) as their primary activity.

Due to a methodology change, these findings are not directly comparable to past estimates of the life sciences sector relating to 2021/2022 or earlier.

2. Introduction

The bioscience and health technology sector statistics (BaHTSS) publication provides estimates of the size and composition of the UK life sciences sector.

The definition of the life sciences industry used in this publication covers businesses operating within the biopharmaceutical or medical technology subsectors in the UK.

The 3 main metrics used in this series are:

• employment

• turnover

• number of businesses and companies

Please see the terminology section for the definitions of the subsectors and metrics used in this report.

This report is the latest edition in the annual BaHTSS publication series, covering data relating to 2023/2024 and was first published on 2 October 2025. This report is also accompanied by:

• Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: user guide – this provides guidance on how these statistics can be used, how they were compiled and the underlying quality behind them. This also documents changes from past publications and how data can be compared to previous reports in the series
• Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables – a set of accompanying Excel data tables providing the figures used in this report, as well as further aggregations of the data for users

3. Estimates of the life sciences sector   

The estimates in this report are derived from a dataset of life sciences companies collected by the Office for Life Sciences (OLS).The dataset includes information on an extensive number of companies that meet the criteria set out in section 2 of the accompanying user guide. The companies in this dataset have been included as a result of either:

• manual identification based on information provided by data partners. Data partners are organisations with expertise in the life sciences sector and provide OLS information on companies they know to be operating in the sector
• automated identification based on the descriptive text content of their website. Large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing is used to identify life sciences companies out of a wider cohort of company websites

Neither of the above methods offer a comprehensive way of identifying all companies across the sector. As a result, the dataset does not contain a full population of all life sciences companies operating in the UK and therefore any figures in this report should be treated as an estimate. More information on the quality and coverage of the dataset can be found in section 4 of the accompanying user guide.

4. Publication changes

4.1 Methodology changes

This publication covers the latest estimates of the life sciences sector, relating to 2023/2024. The data collection for this edition has undergone substantial methodological changes compared to past reports (which are available to view on the BaHTSS collection page).

A detailed explanation of these methodological changes is available through the user guide accompanying this report. This covers how the data for 2023/2024 was constructed, how this has changed compared to past publications and what the subsequent impact is.

4.2 Reporting changes

The timeseries of key metrics in the publication has been impacted by the methodological changes. In particular, it is important to note that:

• this report covers data for 2023/2024 and is not directly comparable to past estimates of the life sciences sector relating to 2021/2022 and before. Data for 2022/2023 is not available due to the time taken to implement the new methodology
• estimates of the sector between 2008/2009 and 2021/2022 are still referenced in this report where the metric remains unchanged. This is to allow users to view data on estimates for past years, but it should be noted these figures are not directly comparable and the scale of change in the sector between 2023/2024 and earlier time periods cannot be determined

The BaHTSS series also contains breakdowns of these metrics by various characteristics of life sciences companies. Breakdowns that were previously available in past publications and are continued in this report are listed below:

• the biopharmaceutical and medical technology subsectors
• manufacturing activity: please note that the metric to measure this has changed, see the section on manufacturing for more details
• research and development (R&D) activity: please note that the metric to measure this has changed, see the section on R&D for more details.
• international territorial level (ITL) 1 regions and local authority districts (LADs)
• business size
• business ownership

Due to changes in the methodology and OLS’s decision to undertake a review of the suitability of the previously used segmentation scheme, the following breakdowns are not available in this publication:

• core and service and supply companies
• segments
• genomics activity

For the first time in this publication, OLS have used ONS’s Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) as the source for economic data. The ONS instructs users of the IDBR to adhere to strict disclosure control rules when publishing data, meaning that the granular company-level dataset that was published as part of previous publications is no longer available.

4.3 Revision notices

It has not been possible to backdate or revise previous estimates of the life sciences sector (relating to 2021/2022 and earlier) using the new methodology. This means that estimates for 2023/2024 are not directly comparable to past estimates. Past estimates for the years 2008/2009 to 2021/2022 are still referenced in this report and in the data tables where the metric remains unchanged. Turnover values relating to 2021/2022 and earlier have been adjusted into 2023/2024 prices using GDP deflators.

5. Official Statistics designation

The BaHTSS publication series was previously labelled as Official Statistics. The 2023/2024 report has been designated as ‘official statistics in development’. This is defined by the UK Statistics Authority as a ‘subset of official statistics that are undergoing a development; they may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.’

This change in designation is being implemented whilst OLS:

• explore further ways to improve the quality of the new methodology
• consider users’ feedback on the new approach
• explore ways to reintroduce some breakdowns of the life sciences sector which were temporarily removed due to the change in methodology

A description of planned methodological developments intended for future BaHTSS publications is provided in section 4 of the user guide accompanying this report.

Any feedback on the new methodology and statistics is welcome from users. Please contact analysis@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk to provide any comments or suggestions.

6. Size and economic activity of the sector

Due to a methodological change in data collection, sector estimates relating to 2023/2024 are not directly comparable to past years. For this reason, it is not possible to accurately assess the scale of the sector’s change between 2021/2022 and 2023/2024. Past estimates are still referenced as they reflect the best estimates of the sector for the relevant years.

In the 2023/2024 publication ‘companies’ are the lowest reporting unit (please see the terminology section. In past publications the lowest unit was sites (the physical addresses that companies operate out of). Since counts of sites and counts of companies are different metrics, the company-level data relating to 2023/2024 has been presented independently of previously reported figures from past BaHTSS reports.

In 2023/2024, there were 6,170 businesses operating in the UK life sciences industry across 7,320 companies. These companies employed 359,600 people and generated £146.9 billion in turnover. Previously it was estimated that in 2021/2022, there were 6,850 businesses operating in the UK life sciences sector, employing 304,200 people and generating £122.9 billion (in 2023/2024 prices). This turnover figure was reported in the 2021/2022 publication as £108.1 billion in 2021/2022 prices.

6.1 Life sciences industry by subsector

In 2023/2024, there were 2,960 companies operating in the biopharmaceutical subsector, and 4,360 in the medical technology subsector. Biopharmaceutical companies accounted for 40% of all life sciences companies in 2023/2024, whilst medical technology companies accounted for 60%.

Employment in companies operating in the biopharmaceutical subsector was 163,600 in 2023/2024, which accounted for 45% of all life sciences employment. In 2023/2024, employment in companies operating in the medical technology subsector was 196,000, which accounted for 55% of employment in the life sciences industry. Previously, in 2021/2022, biopharmaceutical companies were estimated to employ 150,000 people, whilst medical technology companies were estimated to employ 154,200 people.

Figure 1: Employment at life sciences companies by subsector, UK, 2008/09 to 2023/2024

Notes:

• the y axis does not start at 0
• data from figure 1 can be found in table 3 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

Companies operating in the biopharmaceutical subsector generated £98.9 billion in turnover in 2023/2024, which accounted for 67% of the life sciences industry total. The medical technology subsector generated a lower value of turnover compared to the biopharmaceutical subsector in 2023/2024, despite accounting for a higher number of companies and higher employment. The medical technology subsector generated £48.0 billion in turnover in 2023/2024, which accounted for 33% of the life sciences sector total.

Figure 2: Turnover generated by life sciences companies by subsector (£ billions), UK, 2008/09 to 2023/2024

Note: data from figure 2 can be found in table 4 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

7. Variation across the UK

Due to a methodology change, companies are now the lowest level reporting unit in this publication, rather than sites. As site-level data is unavailable in this publication, the geographical analysis of the sector presented in this report is now based on registered company address. This is not comparable to the analysis based on the addresses of sites in past publications. Employment and turnover are allocated to the location where the company is registered (which may just be an address that serves an administrative function), rather than the physical sites that companies operate from.

This section provides geographical analysis at the following levels:

• International territorial level (ITL 1) regions of the UK
• Local authority district (LAD) boundaries of the UK

7.1 UK life sciences industry employment

Companies registered in the South East had the highest employment of all ITL 1 regions in the UK at 84,800 in 20232024, accounting for 24% of all employment in the industry. Companies registered in London had the second highest life sciences industry employment in 2023/2024, accounting for 56,900 (or 16%) of total employment.

Companies registered in the local authority district of Cambridge, in the East of England ITL1 region, had the highest employment of all local authority districts across the UK in 2023/2024, with 13,100 employees (4% of the national total). The local authority districts with the second and third highest life sciences employment in 2023/2024 were Westminster and City of London, each with 3% of all life sciences employees.

Figure 3: Employment at life sciences companies by ITL 1 region, UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• data from figure 3 can be found in table 7 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’
• company employment figures are allocated to ITL 1 regions based on the location of the company’s registered address

Figure 4: Employment at life sciences companies by local authority district (LAD), UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• data from figure 4 can be found in table 32 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’
• company employment figures are allocated to LADs based on the location of the company’s registered address

7.2 Biopharmaceutical employment

Companies registered in the South East had the highest employment of all ITL 1 regions in the biopharmaceutical subsector with 40,200 employees in 2023/2024, accounting for 25% of all employment in the subsector. Companies registered in London and the East of England also accounted for a notable percentage of employment in the biopharmaceutical subsector, at 19% and 18% respectively.

7.3 Medical technology employment

Companies registered in the South East had the highest employment of all ITL 1 regions in the medical technology subsector at 44,600 in 2023/2024, accounting for 23% of all employment in the subsector. Companies registered in London and the East of England also accounted for a notable percentage of employment in the medical technology subsector at 13% and 11% respectively.

7.4 UK life sciences industry turnover

Similar to employment, companies registered in the South East had the highest share of life sciences industry turnover, at 27% (or £39.4 billion) in 2023/2024. Companies registered in London and the East of England accounted for the second and third largest shares of turnover at £33.9 billion (23% share) and £30.3 billion (21% share) respectively.

Companies registered in the local authority district of Cambridge generated the highest value of turnover within the life sciences industry in 2023/2024, with £16.7 billion. This accounted for 11% of the total UK life sciences turnover in 2023/2024. The local authority districts with the second and third highest life sciences turnover in 2023/2024 were Westminster and City of London, accounting for 6% and 5% of life sciences turnover generated.

Figure 5: Turnover generated by life sciences companies by ITL 1 region, UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• data from figure 5 can be found in table 8 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’
• company turnover figures are allocated to ITL 1 regions based on the location of the company’s registered address

Figure 6: Turnover generated by life sciences companies by local authority district (LAD), UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• data from figure 6 can be found in table 33 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’
• company turnover figures are allocated to LADs based on the location of the company’s registered address

7.5 Biopharmaceutical turnover

In 2023/2024, companies registered in London accounted for the highest share of turnover in the biopharmaceutical subsector. This ITL 1 region generated £28.5 billion in turnover, which accounted for 29% of all UK turnover generated from the biopharmaceutical subsector.

Companies registered in the South East and the East of England also accounted for a notable share of turnover generated in the biopharmaceutical subsector, with 26% and 25% respectively.

7.6 Medical technology turnover

In 2023/2024, companies registered in the South East accounted for the highest share of turnover in the medical technology subsector. This ITL 1 region generated 28% (£13.6 billion) of the total UK turnover from the medical technology subsector.

Companies registered in the East of England and London also accounted for a notable share of turnover generated in the medical technology subsector, at 13% and 11% respectively. Despite being the highest ITL 1 region in terms of turnover from the biopharmaceutical subsector, London was only the third highest ITL 1 region in terms of medical technology turnover in 2023/2024.

8. Life sciences industry segments

Previously, alongside a subsector classification, an associated taxonomy for defining more granular subsectors and activities carried out by these companies (segmentation) was provided. However, this level of detail is not available for this year’s publication due to the methodology change. Please see section 4 in the accompanying user guide for further information about future development plans for the statistics.

9. Manufacturing and research and development (R&D) activity  

In this section of the report, figures relate to companies whose primary activity is manufacturing or R&D, as defined by their Standard Industry Classification (SIC). This is a mutually exclusive categorisation, meaning that a company that undertakes both activities will be categorised based on the self-reported dominant activity.

Some of these companies will undertake other types of work in addition to manufacturing or research, and therefore employment and turnover figures from these companies includes contributions from non-manufacturing or non-research activities. Similarly, some companies that undertake manufacturing or R&D activities won’t have a primary SIC code that relates to this activity, so the manufacturing and R&D data reported here will not fully cover all the manufacturing and R&D activity that takes place across the sector.

Manufacturing and R&D activity has been identified using a different methodology to that used in previous publications, where sites were categorised based on any manufacturing or R&D activity occurring within the company, regardless of whether it was necessarily the ‘primary’ activity. This means that this year’s estimates are not comparable to those of previous years.

9.1 Manufacturing

There were 1,860 life sciences companies in 2023/2024 across the UK that had manufacturing as their primary activity (referred to in this section as ‘manufacturing companies’). Manufacturing companies accounted for 25% of the total number of life sciences companies.

Figure 7: Proportion of companies, turnover and employment by manufacturing status, UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• a manufacturing company is defined as a company where manufacturing is the primary activity
• data from figure 7 can be found in tables 2-4 and 12-14 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

The proportion of life sciences companies that were manufacturing companies varied substantially between subsectors. 16% of biopharmaceutical companies were manufacturing companies in 2023/2024 compared to 32% of medical technology companies.

The ITL 1 region with the highest share of manufacturing companies was the South East, with 17% of all manufacturing companies registered in the region in 2023/2024. The South East also had the highest share of all life sciences companies nationally. Other ITL 1 regions which also had a substantial share of the UK’s manufacturing companies were the East of England (13%) and London (11%).

In 2023/2024, employment at life sciences manufacturing companies was 130,300, which was 36% of total life sciences employment. Manufacturing companies registered in the South East ITL 1 region had the highest share of employment, accounting for 21% of all manufacturing employment in 2023/2024. This was notably higher than other ITL 1 regions, with the second and third highest regions for manufacturing employment being East of England and North West England (12% and 10% respectively).

Manufacturing companies generated £46.5 billion in turnover in 2023/2024, which accounted for 32% of all turnover generated by the life sciences sector. The South East ITL 1 region accounted for the highest share of manufacturing turnover out of all UK ITL 1 regions, at 21% in 2023/2024, followed by London with 18% and East of England with 13%.% and East of England with 13%.

9.2 Research and development (R&D)

There were 1,400 life sciences companies in 2023/2024 across the UK that had R&D as their primary activity (referred to in this section as ‘R&D companies’). This was 19% of the total number of life sciences companies.

Figure 8: Proportion of companies, turnover and employment by R&D status, UK, 2023/2024

Notes:

• a R&D company is defined as a company where R&D is the primary activity
• data from figure 8 can be found in tables 2-4 and 15-17 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

The proportion of life sciences companies that were R&D companies varied substantially between subsectors. 32% of biopharmaceutical companies had R&D as their primary activity in 2023/2024 compared to 10% of medical technology companies.

The ITL 1 regions with the highest share of R&D companies were the South East and London, with these regions each accounting for 21% of R&D companies in the UK in 2023/2024.  

In 2023/2024, employment across all companies where R&D was the primary activity was 41,200. R&D companies registered in the South East accounted for the highest share of employment across all UK ITL 1 regions, accounting for 30% of R&D employment in 2023/2024. The second and third highest ITL 1 regions by employment at R&D companies were East of England (22% of R&D employment) and London (16% of R&D employment).

R&D companies generated £14.0 billion in turnover in 2023/2024, which accounted for 10% of all turnover generated by the life sciences sector . R&D companies registered in London generated the highest turnover value across all UK ITL 1 regions in 2023/2024, accounting for 34% of total turnover from R&D companies. Similar levels of turnover were observed for companies registered in the East of England, which generated 32% of turnover from R&D companies.

10. Genomics

In previous publications, this report contained data and commentary on companies with genomics activity. However, this level of detail is not available for this year’s publication due to the methodology change. Please see section 4 in the accompanying user guide for further information about future development plans for the statistics.

11. Size and ownership of life sciences businesses

11.1 Business size

Companies in this publication’s dataset are categorised as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or large companies using the European Union standard definition of SMEs.

In 2023/2024, there were 6,880 SME companies in the UK, which accounted for 94% of all life sciences companies. Despite making up the majority of companies, SMEs accounted for a smaller fraction of the life sciences sector employment and turnover generated. In 2023/2024, SMEs employed 177,600 people (49% of total turnover generated by the life sciences sector) and generated £46.5 billion in turnover (32% of total turnover generated by the life sciences sector).

The proportion of life sciences companies that were SMEs in 2023/2024 was broadly consistent by region and subsector.

Figure 9: Proportion of companies, employment and turnover by SME status, UK, 2023/2024

Note: data from figure 9 can be found in tables 24-26 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

11.2 Company ownership

This section reports on the ‘global ultimate owners’ of life sciences companies and whether they are based in the UK or overseas.

In 2023/2024, 27% of companies were identified as being owned by overseas companies. However, it is important to note that the global ultimate owner’s country location was unknown for 28% of companies in the dataset. The companies that were identified as having overseas ownership accounted for 55% of employment and 60% of turnover in 2023/2024.

Figure 10: Proportion of companies, turnover and employment by company ownership, UK, 2023/2024

Note: data from figure 10 can be found in tables 27-29 of the ‘Bioscience and health technology sector statistics 2023/2024: accompanying data tables’

12. Terminology

Sector: used when referring to life sciences as a whole (biopharmaceutical and medical technology subsectors combined)

Employment: people working for a business, including owners and partners.

Turnover: the income received by life sciences businesses from the sales of goods and/or services charged to third parties. This excludes value-added tax (VAT).

Subsector: used to describe the 2 component subsectors of the life sciences industry (biopharmaceuticals and medical technology)

Biopharmaceutical subsector: this subsector includes:

• core companies that develop and/or produce their own pharmaceutical products. This includes companies working on small molecules, vaccines and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs)
• service and supply companies that offer goods and services to core biopharmaceutical companies including, for example, contract research and manufacturing organisations (CRMOs), and suppliers of consumables and reagents for research and development (R&D) facilities

Medical technology subsector: this subsector includes:

• core companies that develop and produce medical technology products, ranging from single-use consumables to complex hospital equipment, including digital health products
• service and supply companies that offer services to core medical technology companies including, for example, CRMOs, and suppliers of consumables and reagents for R&D facilities

Genomics: an interdisciplinary field focusing on the study of the human genome and the application of resulting knowledge to human health. It has not been possible to include data on companies with genomics activity in the 2023/2024 publication due to the change in methodology.

Business: an entity that is the legal owner of one or more companies. Companies are considered part of the same business when they are part of the same enterprise group structure, as defined by the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR).     

Company: a company is a legal entity which may have a distinct identity from the broader organisation that owns or runs it. A company in the BaHTSS publication is defined as an entity registered with Companies House that has an assigned company registration number (CRN).

SME status: based on the European definition of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and refers to businesses with fewer than 250 employees and which either have annual turnover up to and including €50 million and/or have an annual balance sheet total up to and including €43 million.