Science and technology industries need a wide range of occupations, some requiring high levels of skills and others more administrative. There isn’t a singular definition of the occupations most important to all science and technology industries though it is widely accepted that Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs are critical to the sector.
STEM occupations
This publication uses the Royal Society’s definition of STEM occupations to define the workforce. This definition was developed by the Royal Society’s STEM Workforce Classification Group in collaboration with industry and policy experts. It uses the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020 at 4-digit.
The Royal Society “STEM Medicine and Health (M&H)” list encompasses five groups: ‘Science’; ‘Technology and Engineering’; ‘Mathematics’; ‘Medicine and Health’ and ‘Other’ with occupations allocated to the groups based on role tasks. For this report, the ‘Medicine and Health’ occupation group is excluded as it is covered by the NHS Workforce Strategy. The ‘Other’ group is predominantly teachers and is out of scope as teaching staff are a derived demand of other groups and are mainly covered by DfE workforce planning. We refer to the three remaining groups (‘Science’; ‘Technology and Engineering’ and ‘Mathematics’) as “STEM” throughout the publication and dashboard. STEM is a broad group covering a wide range of occupations and skills.
Note Web Designers were originally excluded from the Royal Society STEM definition and are therefore not included in our analysis. This has now been updated by the Royal Society.
As with analysing any large diverse group, assessing all STEM workers at once can hide contrasting trends within the group. To begin to mitigate this risk, the report also looks specifically at the jobs deemed most important across five critical technologies: Artificial Intelligence, Engineering Biology, Quantum Technologies, Future Telecommunications and Semiconductors.
Occupations most relevant to the critical technologies
This publication also looks in detail at a group of occupations most relevant to the five critical technologies set out in the Science and Technology Framework as having strategic importance to the UK. These are Artificial Intelligence, Engineering Biology, Quantum Technologies, Future Telecommunications and Semiconductors.
Through this work, both a long list and short list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies were created. This report looks at the short list of the occupations identified as most relevant to each of the critical technologies. These lists were created with expert technology policy leads in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Each established a long list of occupations relevant to their priority technology, forming a total combined list of 91 relevant occupations to the critical technologies. The most relevant occupations to each technology were then assigned by the technology policy leads, forming a short list of 32 occupations most relevant to the critical technology occupations. Shortlists were identified using expert internal advisors, stakeholder engagement across sector and skills leads and the existing published and unpublished evidence base.
The combined short-list is what is referred to as “Critical Technologies” throughout the publication.
Occupations most relevant to the critical technologies are not exclusively relevant to the critical technologies: workers in these occupations will be in roles across the whole UK economy, not just in critical technology industries. Furthermore, critical technology industries will require skills and knowledge to be developed in a broader selection of both non-STEM and STEM jobs not included in the list of jobs most relevant to the critical technologies.
Occupations most relevant to digital and computing
This publication also looks in detail at a group of occupations most relevant to digital and computing. This list of fourteen occupations was identified by the Digital and Computing Skills Education Taskforce in 2023.
Note: full occupation classifications are available to download in supporting files of the publication.
Detail on the critical technology definitions
| Critical Technologies | |
| AI | Artificial intelligence (AI) - is one of the five critical technologies of strategic importance to the UK as stated in the Science and Technology Framework. It refers to machines that perform tasks normally performed by human intelligence, with machines demonstrating autonomy to operating in fast-moving environments by adapting and automating complex cognitive tasks. AI policy leads at DSIT identified 18 occupations of relevance to AI which fed into the long list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies. They then identified 10 occupations from this long-list which are most relevant to AI – these form part of the short list of occupations most relevant to AI and to the critical technologies. |
| Engineering Biology | Engineering Biology is one of the five critical technologies of strategic importance to the UK as stated in the Science and Technology Framework. This is the application of rigorous engineering principles to the design of biological systems. Engineering Biology policy leads at DSIT identified 29 occupations of relevance to Engineering Biology which fed into the long list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies. They then identified 12 occupations from this long-list which are most relevant to Engineering Biology – these form part of the short list of occupations most relevant to Engineering Biology and to the critical technologies. |
| Quantum | Quantum technologies is one of the five critical technologies identified by quantum policy leads at DSIT. These mechanics are used to unlock new technological advances in areas such as sensing, imaging, communications, timing and computing. Quantum policy leads at DSIT identified 25 occupations of relevance to Quantum which fed into the long list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies. They then identified 11 occupations from this long-list which are most relevant to Quantum – these form part of the short list of occupations most relevant to Quantum technologies and to the critical technologies. |
| Semiconductors | Semiconductors is one of the five critical technologies of strategic importance to the UK, as stated in the Science and Technology Framework. These are a class of electronic materials with unique properties that are used to create the hardware which underpin electronic devices. Semiconductors policy leads at DSIT identified 66 occupations of relevance to Semiconductors which fed into the long list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies. They then identified 10 occupations from this long-list which are most relevant to Semiconductors – these form part of the short list of occupations most relevant to Semiconductor technologies and to the critical technologies. |
| Future Telecommunications | Future Telecommunications is one of the five critical technologies of strategic importance to the UK as stated in the Science and Technology Framework. This involves evolutions of the infrastructure for digitised data. Future Telecommunications policy leads at DSIT identified 47 occupations of relevance to Future Telecommunications which fed into the long list of occupations relevant to the critical technologies. They then identified 12 occupations from this long-list which are most relevant to Future Telecommunications – these form part of the short list of occupations most relevant to Future Telecoms technologies and to the critical technologies. |