Scottish Government

Business Enterprise Research and Development in Scotland 2002

4 Employment in Business R&D in Scotland

4.1 This section looks at the role of the people employed in R&D in Scotland. The 901 enterprises identified as performing R&D activities in Scotland in 2002 employed 10,808 staff in R&D, 42% more R&D employment than in 2001.

4.2 The staff can be analysed by their type. Chart F shows the employment by type in R&D for Scotland. The 6,600 scientists and engineers account for the majority of total employment.

4.3 Surprisingly few scientists and technicians in employment actually work in R&D: 9% in Scotland, 11% in the UK - Table 11. Apart from research, these occupations may find employment in production and service and consulting activities not classed as research. However, many people who classify themselves as scientists and engineers do not have a degree. One third of the 19,000 degree qualified scientists and engineers working in Scotland in the private sector work in R&D. See Table 15 for further labour market data on occupational groups relevant for R&D.

Table 11: Percentage of scientists and engineering occupations ¹ working in R&D: Scotland & UK 1995-2002

Source: ONS/SE Analysis Table 6 and Labour Force Survey
1. Overall employment of Scientists & Engineers and Techicians etc comes from LFS Autumn quarter for each year.
2. R&D employment taken from ONS Scottish Analysis of R&D 1994 - 2002 Table 6
3. UK figures are rounded to thousands

Expenditure per R&D Employee

4.4 Table 12 shows the Scotland and UK expenditure per R&D employee for 1995-2002. It shows that expenditure per R&D employee in Scotland has been consistently below the UK figure, by 19,300 in 2002.

4.5 Expenditure on salaries and wages as a proportion of total BERD has been similar in Scotland and the UK, just under half in 2002. The gap in expenditure per employee on salaries and wages between Scotland and the UK is 7,600; this is larger than in the past few years.

Table 12: Total Scotland and UK Expenditure per R&D Employee 1995-2002

thousands

Source: ONS/SE Analysis Table 10 and ABI
1. Excluding public administration, education and health(SIC 75, 80, 85)

Product Groups

4.6 The first column of Table 13 shows that R&D into pharmaceuticals products employed 29% of the Scottish R&D workforce, considerably more than in the UK (17%). R&D for service sector products on the other hand employed a higher proportion in the UK than in Scotland (23% compared to 13%). The percentage of scientists and engineers in the R&D workforce varies depending on the product group. Scotland has a smaller share of scientists and engineers employed in pharmaceuticals than the UK, but in the electrical machinery sector the proportion of scientists and engineer is higher in Scotland.

Table 13: R&D employment by product groups and type: Scotland & UK 2002

Source: ONS Scottish analysis Tables 7 and 7A

4.7 Table 14 compares the employment in R&D with the total employment by product group. This follows a similar pattern as BERD expenditure, described in Section 3. Pharmaceuticals and electrical machinery account for the majority of R&D employment and expenditure in Scotland. In the UK these, plus services and the transport sector (including aerospace) are large in terms of R&D expenditure and employment. Although small compared to total services employment, the share of R&D employment in services is three times as high in the UK than in Scotland.

Table 14: Percent of R&D employment compared to overall employment 2002

Source: ONS/SE Analysis and Labour Force Survey
1. Excludes Public Sector

Labour market and skills

4.8 Table 15 collates some labour market indicators for the main occupational groups employed in R&D.

4.9 The first section of the table shows that of all those that describe their occupation as scientist, engineer, IT professional or scientific technician in the private sector, a higher proportion in Scotland work in the energy and water sector while the UK proportion working in finance and business services is higher. This might reflect employment in the R&D services sector (a sector too small to isolate) but more likely it indicates that a proportion of the occupational groups that might work in R&D actually have found employment in non research intensive sectors in the UK.

4.10 The percentage of this group with a degree is the same in Scotland and the UK, however in Scotland more have other higher educational qualifications (SVQ levels 4 to 6), such as HNCs.

4.11 The second block of the table looks at people in the workforce who describe themselves as scientists or engineers: Again a higher percentage of Scots have higher educational qualifications including HNCs.

4.12 The following parts of the table show the jobs done by people who have relevant qualifications. Employees with science degrees as their highest qualification are more likely to work as scientists/engineers if they live in Scotland than in the UK as a whole. However the reverse is the case for the broader group of occupations (scientists, engineers, IT professionals and private sector teachers) which in the UK absorbs a larger percentage of people with science degrees. One possible explanation here is that in Scotland there are fewer alternative jobs (outside science and engineering) for people with science degrees.

Table 15: Some labour market data for key occupations and qualifications

Source: SE analysis of the LFS

4.13 Further data were obtained from Futureskills Scotland from the Employers Skill Survey 2002. In research intensive industries ⁷ the vacancy rate was only half of the overall rate. Virtually no hard-to-fill vacancies have been identified in Scotland in these sectors and the skill gap in existing staff is half the overall rate. In computer services and research services however, the vacancy rate, the hard-to-fill vacancy rate and the skill gap are all higher than in the economy as a whole. For professional and associate professional occupations the three values are generally lower than in the economy as a whole, with the exception that vacancy rates are higher for associate professional occupations.

4.14 Table 16 compares the number of scientists and engineers in R&D in each year to the number of university leavers in scientific and engineering subjects in that year. Scotland has about 10% of the UK University leavers in scientific and engineering subjects and about 6% of the UK employment as scientists and engineers in R&D.

Table 16: Scotland as a percentage of UK R&D employment and university leavers in science and engineering subjects: 1995 - 2002

Source: ONS/SE (Table 6) and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

4.15 The factors examined in this section suggest that from a labour market and skills perspective Scotland is certainly not worse placed than the UK as a whole for undertaking R&D:

• In terms of qualifications Scotland fares slightly better
• Scotland share of students graduating in scientific subjects is far greater than its share of R&D employment. This can be due to a combination of:

• • Science graduates leaving Scotland,
  • Scottish science graduates not working in their direct field (this seems to be the case less in Scotland than in the UK as a whole - Table 15)
  • Scottish scientists and engineers working in their field but not in R&D (Table11).