diagnostics because it was something of regional centre, but that has changed dramatically. Of the activity and interest which we’ve seen in the past 12 months, almost all the enquiries we’ve had
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It’s difficult to identify anyone for a leadership role with higher-level technical requirements at less than £100,000 have been based here in the UK. Since May last year, 80% of people we have placed have been with new companies which didn’t exist five years ago. It’s also noticeable that there is a lot of new clients in companies of all sizes, none of whom we were working with two years ago. Activity remains heavily focused on the med tech clusters in Oxford, Cambridge, London, the North-East and North-West of England and Central Scotland.
NEW TECHNOLOGY: Around 80% of people placed by Snedden Campbell are with companies that didn’t exist five years ago
Healthy rewards Salaries in the medical technology sector have seen significant growth as the global Covid pandemic has boosted demand for top diagnostic recruits, says IVOR CAMPBELL
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igher level earnings in the medical diagnostics industry have risen significantly since the start of the Covid pandemic and some are now double what they were five years ago. Board level executives with technical, scientific, or engineering qualifications now routinely command salaries around £150,000-a-year. Experienced engineers involved in research and development and transfers to production are regularly employed on salaries of £120,000. The sudden expansion of the UK medical technology industry, particularly in the field of infectious disease diagnostics, in the past 12 months has led to companies offering significantly higher wages to attract the best
people. Government investment in Covid-related research and the higher public profile enjoyed by the diagnostics industry, have seen the launch of several new specialist firms, as well as established companies expanding their activities and product ranges. The Government has thrown hundreds of millions of pounds at diagnostics in the UK and that has had various knock-on effects. What we are seeing is a confident sector, whether it has anything to do with Covid or not, hiring more people, looking at hiring people and increasing their product ranges. It has also made for a scarcity in the number of qualified and experienced people who really know what they are doing in designing, developing and manufacturing these things and, as a result, we are seeing demand for their services grow,
with far fewer quibbles about salaries. Until 2018, salaries had remained virtually static since the 2008 financial crash. We are now at a stage where we are getting consistent, six-figure salaries with senior people in medical diagnostics businesses of all scales. They are catching up with those in equivalent positions in the pharmaceutical, finance and information technology industries in the south-east of England. We are working on an engineering production management project for which, five or six years ago, salaries would have been around £60,000 to £70,000 – now they are £100,000 to £120,000. Clients who would have put the phone down 12 months ago are now nodding through inflated salaries because they accept that rates have gone up. Engineers earning £120,000 a year ago would have been unlikely – now it’s the cost of doing business. For a board-level appointment, we are now in £150,000-a-year territory for someone with a technical, scientific or engineering qualification. Engineers and scientists, skilled in research and development with some product launches to their names and transfers to production, can expect to earn over £100,000.
It’s difficult to identify anyone for a leadership role with higher-level, technical requirements at less than £100,000. The UK diagnostic sector appears to be generally growing faster than other European countries, with some exceptions in Spain and Scandinavia, where there has been a rise in activity
since the start of the pandemic. It’s always been the case that the UK represented about half of what was going on in