Why was the Clinical Trials Specialist apprenticeship course developed?
The pharmaceutical industry, a major contributor to the economy of the UK, is bringing life-saving and life enhancing medicines to patients. For some time, we have been experiencing a shortfall of skilled young scientists entering the profession. It is essential that the sector continues to have access to highly skilled research and development roles that command premium wages to continue to achieve it’s potential, maintaining the UK’s position at the forefront of the sciences and helping meet the challenge of our potential productivity gap. We expect this initiative to aid in recruiting industry leaders of the future.
Developing skills in tomorrow’s industry is critical to delivering a robust business sector. Across the whole of the life sciences industry, over a quarter of employment involves highly skilled research and development roles that command a wage premium. We hope that this initiative is recruiting future industry leaders.
Recognising the scale and depth of the challenge ahead and wanting a thriving pharmaceutical sector in the UK, a group of representatives of the pharmaceutical industry came together to develop the Clinical Trials Specialists Degree Apprenticeship. Our aim has been to create a long term, cross sector platform for the future delivery of clinical study practitioners to the industry. Our consortium is built up of partners in the industry who are committed to maximising the opportunities and rewards which can be gained from engaging young people in the fortunes of medicines development in the UK.
The Clinical Trials Specialist Degree Apprenticeship (Level 6) takes advantage of the UK governments new route into vocational education combining the best aspects of higher education and on-the-job training over a period of 4 – 5 years while studying for a BSc Hons qualification. The Clinical Trials Specialist works in both public and private research organisations, generally in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industries.