The UK’s First AI-Driven Life Sciences Sector Official Statistics Published.
A Groundbreaking Shift in Sector Data Collection
The latest Bioscience and Health Technology Sector Statistics (BaHTSS), published by the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) in October 2025, mark an important moment for UK statistics. For the first time in OLS, artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to help build a dataset underpinning an official statistics publication, with Glass.AI technology being central to this new approach[1].
The latest release builds on previous iterations of BaHTSS but heralds a change in method, by using the power of AI to map one of the UK’s most important sectors — Life Sciences. The sector is vital to the UK, has grown in prominence since the Covid-19 pandemic and is one of eight sectors featured in the Industrial Strategy. It is also fundamental to a healthy nation, propelled by advances in science, medicine development and drug discovery. By combining AI-driven data collection with OLS’s statistical capabilities, the dataset has obtained broad coverage of the sector and has subsequently underpinned the latest estimates on the size and composition of the sector for 2023/24 through the BaHTSS publication.
A Granular Dataset
The dataset is the result of a significant, multi-year effort, developed in partnership with Technopolis (technical sector experts) and the OLS. It draws on data from a wide variety of open web sources, alongside official informational assets maintained by government and industry stakeholders. The data underwent rigorous testing, iteration, and quality assurance, with matching to official data sources, and careful validation of company activity.
As a result of Glass.AI’s unique research capability and access to vast amounts of data from across the open web combined with linkage to official government datasets, it has been possible to:
Identify new and diversified life sciences companies in the UK, across the full extent of the value chain.
Showcase activity from all sizes of companies, from large corporations to small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
Understand the nuances, specialisms and classifications of companies.
Highlight changes in the sector from the previous BaHTSS publication
Pinpoint the geographical locations that are hotspots for life sciences activity.
Some Data Headlines
The data helps to animate the UK’s Life Sciences sector — key headlines include[2]:
There were 6,170 businesses operating in the UK life sciences industry across 7,320 companies. These businesses employed 359,600 people and generated £146.9 billion in turnover.
The largest subsector in terms of employment and the number of companies was medical technology, which accounted for 60% of companies and 55% of employment. Meanwhile, biopharmaceutical companies accounted for 40% of companies and 45% of employment. In these statistics, the life sciences industry is split into these 2 main subsectors.
The subsector that generated the highest turnover was the biopharmaceutical subsector, accounting for 67% of turnover across the life sciences industry.
The international territorial level (ITL) 1 region with the highest share of employment and turnover (based on registered addresses of companies) was the South East, accounting for 24% of employment and 27% of turnover.
25% of life sciences companies reported manufacturing as their primary activity.
19% of life sciences companies reported research and development (R&D) as their primary activity.
Looking Ahead
The data sets the foundations for the next BaHTSS iteration, to be delivered in 2026. The delivery team, alongside OLS, will focus on:
Updating the dataset with a fresh baseline of intelligence.
Enhancing coverage — both in terms of geography and sub-sector depth.
Enriching the dataset with new indicators.
The objective will be to provide continuity and support onward monitoring, while maintaining commonalities with historic BaHTSS datasets to allow meaningful comparisons over time.
Wider Opportunities for AI-Driven Sector Data
We are tremendously excited to have been involved in this important work and wish to thank the OLS and Technopolis for their collaboration and partnership. There is a real opportunity for this AI-enabled approach to be followed across the other seven Industrial Strategy sectors, helping the UK Government to track, understand, and influence growth across each.
For more information on the latest BaHTSS release, please visit the Government website here.
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[1] Note — the data has been designated as ‘Official Statistics — In Development’. Statistics with this badging are defined by the UK Statistics Authority as a ‘subset of official statistics that are undergoing development.
[2] Note — Due to a methodology change, these findings are not directly comparable to past estimates of the life sciences sector relating to 2021/2022 or earlier.