National innovation strategy: scorecard - 2024 update

6. Business Enterprise R&D (BERD) Jobs (As a % of those Aged 16-64 in Employment)

6.1 Ecosystem

• Convert

6.2 Performance Assessment

• Performance to be confirmed

6.3 Description

• Whilst the number of Business Enterprise R&D (BERD) Jobs may be small (as it is in other countries), there is a common understanding that there are large multipliers around business enterprise R&D jobs for other professional occupations in innovating companies.
• The number of BERD Jobs is also a more stable indicator than BERD as a percentage of GDP.
• BERD Jobs, measured as the percentage of those aged 16-64 in employment, is therefore used as an indicator.

6.4 Current Performance

• In 2022, business enterprise R&D (BERD) Job count for Scotland was 35,000, representing 5.4% of UK BERD Jobs UK in 2022.
• BERD Jobs were 1.4% of the Scottish employment in 2022.

6.5 Previous Year and Time Series

• ONS have developed a new methodology for BERD estimates, which introduces a break to the time series.
• Due to methodological changes to the ONS publication, 2022 is not yet possible to compare with previous years data.

6.6 UK Regional Benchmark

• Scotland is in the 4^th quartile of the 12 UK regions for BERD Jobs as a share of the 16-64 employment – ranking 10^th out of the 12 regions in 2022.

• Scotland = 5.4% of UK BERD jobs

6.7 International Benchmark

• The EU27 achieved a rate of 0.99%. Scotland comes 6^th out of the EU27 countries.

*EU27 countries = 15-64 employment

6.8 About the Data

• Current Dataset: Business enterprise research and development, UK (designated as official statistics) - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) (Released 27 February 2024)
• Next Release: Expected February 2025