Geography of Existing U.S. Life Sciences Research Talent

The largest pools of existing U.S. life sciences research talent are still in the Northeast Corridor (Boston/Cambridge to Washington, D.C./ Baltimore), as well as in California.

Some of the fastest growing markets for life sciences research talent include major population centers, such as Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Phoenix and Miami/Fort Lauderdale. Some smaller markets, such as Salt Lake City, Kansas City and Richmond, are showing impressive growth rates.

Most life sciences researchers are in the nation’s most populous metro, New York/New Jersey. However, the next three regions (Boston/Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C./Baltimore) each have less than half of New York/New Jersey’s population but have a comparable number of life sciences researchers. The significantly higher amount of life sciences researchers per capita demonstrates the intensity of life sciences research activity in these metros.

Philadelphia, a generally slower-growth metro, has the fifth most life sciences researchers and continues to achieve above-average rates of growth.

Figure 9 illustrates select U.S. markets’ concentration of life sciences researchers (researchers per capita) and growth in the number of researchers in the past five years.

Figure 9: Most Concentrated Life Sciences Research Clusters (% of Labor Force) & Select High-Growth Markets

Source: Lightcast CBRE Research, Q2 2023.

In terms of concentration of life sciences research talent, Boston/Cambridge leads all U.S. markets with 1.3% of its labor force employed in this sector. The next tier of markets with high concentrations includes the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego and Raleigh/Durham, all having between 0.8% and 0.9% of their labor force employed as life sciences researchers. Philadelphia, Washington, D.C./Baltimore, Seattle and Denver/Boulder also have high concentrations of life sciences talent, as do smaller markets like Salt Lake City, Sacramento and Pittsburgh.

In terms of five-year life sciences researcher growth, most markets with the highest concentrations of researchers also exhibited among the highest growth of researchers. Various emerging life sciences research hubs highlighted in Figure 9 also have some of the nation’s highest growth of life sciences researchers. These markets range from large metropolitan areas, such as Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta and Miami/Fort Lauderdale, to smaller metros, such as Kansas City and Salt Lake City. Each metro contains a leading research institution.