US rules world for top life science hubs and salaries as Cambridge shares third place for lead locations
Cambridge alone steals one particular slice of the ratings glory: It leads the rankings overall in terms of research intensity – measured as patent-filing activity and article publication in relation to size of workforce.
The report from Savills hands the US dominance in the world’s locations for pay: San Francisco leads with an average $180k total annual earnings for a senior clinical research associate.
Zurich breaks a near-total US monopoly ($145k) followed by Boston, San Diego, the US Research Triangle, New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, another Swiss interloper in Basel, then back Stateside to Denver and Seattle – all between $110k-$140k.
Copenhagen equivalent grade employees hit $100k salary, Singapore $85k, then the UK Golden Triangle, Dublin, Oslo, Munich,Toronto, Berlin-Potsdam and Sydney all at between $60k-$80k.
For the best global locations, Savills says that in Europe, the UK’s Golden Triangle is the highest-ranking non-US market, taking third in the global index.
The report says: “This cluster – consisting of London, Cambridge and Oxford – is home to exceptional multidisciplinary talent which is comparatively lower cost than US counterparts, global leading academia, a deep funding environment, and attractive lifestyle for talent.
“It also benefits from the UK recently rejoining Horizon Europe, the €95.5bn ($103bn) collaborative research programme created by the European Union. Of note is that Cambridge leads our rankings overall in terms of research intensity, measured as patent-filing activity and article publication in relation to size of workforce.”
Savills, an international real estate adviser, examined locations based on the depth of their life science talent pools (including cost of talent), R & D investment and output, fundraising levels, business environment, cost of living and lifestyle factors, and property affordability.
While established US cities, particularly Boston and San Francisco, perform well overall across all categories, Savills says that beyond the top 30 locations many more developing life science hotspots are emerging to offer greater cost advantages to occupiers without sacrificing access to a highly skilled workforce, with these often centred around academic institutions.
In the US they include Houston, Atlanta and Tampa; in Europe the Randstad cluster of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht in the Netherlands, Leuven in Belgium, Warsaw in Poland, Milan in Italy, and Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland; and in Asia Pacific, Bengaluru and Pune in India and Melbourne in Australia.
• For more detail, read Savills’ Spotlight on the Life Sciences Sector report in full.
