Bioinformatics is on the rise, forecasted to grow by about $16 billion from 2024 to 2029 given its value to managing mass datasets critical to modern drug discovery and development. Two talent acquisition experts share how the field has evolved in the past few years and which skills are most in demand.
With bioinformatics playing a crucial role in getting drugs to market, the demand for people who can collect, store and analyze biological data should grow in the next five years, according to two talent acquisition experts. Both told BioSpace that their firms have already seen increased client requests to fill this type of job.
Leslie Loveless, co-CEO and managing partner of Slone Partners, an executive and fractional talent search firm, said she expects bioinformatics will continue to be a top five in-demand role. She highlighted the field’s importance to not only the industry overall but also to personalized medicine.
“Personalized medicine is our future,” Loveless said. “It absolutely is our future, and you don’t achieve that at the scale that we all are seeking without these types of people, because the volume of data is just too big, and it keeps getting bigger. And without these folks, you don’t know how to analyze, interpret, make real this data to inform the decisions.”
Cameron Barrus, senior director of RPO and project management at global recruiting firm PharmaLogics Recruiting, also said bioinformatics roles will be in demand moving forward, especially as biopharma funding increases.
Data from Research and Markets supports Barrus and Loveless’ assessments. According to the market research site, the bioinformatics market is forecasted to grow by about $16 billion from 2024 to 2029. It noted that the development of sophisticated bioinformatics tools for next-generation sequencing is a prime reason for that growth. Research and Markets also said increasing outsourcing activities for drug discovery and the rising emergence of personalized medicine will lead to sizeable market demand.
Regarding whom employers want to hire to fill bioinformatics positions, Barrus said companies are looking for data scientists with biology expertise rather than biologists who have coding skills.
“Not every candidate is a perfect combination of the biology piece and the data science,” Barrus said. “Marrying those two together can be a little bit tricky. I think usually folks are stronger in one area or the other, and then some roles just require deep domain experience, and that can be a little bit trickier to find.”
AI, ML, Omics Increasingly Important
While the term “bioinformatics” has been around since the early 1970s, the field has evolved since then. In the past five years alone, there have been several key changes, according to Barrus and Loveless. For example, Barrus pointed to the increasing need for artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise, while Loveless noted that bioinformatics now involves all omics, not just genomics. That means, for example, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and epigenomics.
“So, now, we’re not looking at just one dataset,” Loveless said. “We’re looking at many datasets.”
Biopharma professionals are just starting to figure out how to apply all that information and how it will impact the industry, she noted.
Another way bioinformatics has changed recently, according to Barrus, is it’s much more cross functional, as bioinformatics professionals must interact with different teams, such as bench scientists and regulatory personnel. She said those interactions require an extra layer of communication skills.
Loveless agreed that bioinformatics professionals must interact well with their colleagues.
“They need to really have those skills of knowing how to communicate a message around very complex information that then the whole team can use to apply for the betterment of whatever asset they’re working on,” she said.
Hot Roles Combine Analytical Skills, Modern Tools
In today’s bioinformatics landscape, the hottest roles combine analytical skills with more modern tools, according to Barrus. For example, she said, employers are looking for single-cell and multiomics data analysts.
“With companies generating really complex data, they need experts who can analyze and interpret,” Barrus said.
She also mentioned a demand for cloud-based bioinformatics engineers, noting that many companies are moving their data and pipelines to the cloud.
“So, there is definitely an increasing need for talent who can build scalable, automated types of workflows,” Barrus said.
Machine learning roles where bioinformatics professionals develop and implement algorithms to analyze data and predict drug responses, improving the entire drug development process, are also in high demand, according to Loveless. She added that job candidates for those positions range from individual contributors who do hands-on work to those who lead the strategy around this activity.
Education, Publications, Omics Critical Hiring Factors
When companies consider who does or doesn’t get bioinformatics roles, hiring managers consider a few key factors, according to Loveless. One is education. Where did the job candidate study, and what kind of programs does that university have?
“Are they known to develop and put out into the market really brilliant data scientists and bioinformaticians?” Loveless said.
A job candidate’s publishing background is also important, she noted. If candidates are published, are they the first author listed? Also, what kinds of journals are they in? Are they top-tier publications?
“When you’re hiring for these types of people, the companies are really looking at that in ways that they might not in other positions,” Loveless said.
Another factor, she noted, is the breadth of their omics experience. She shared that although Slone Partners works on many roles where candidates have only genomics experience, employers want a broader multiomics background.
Looking ahead five years, Barrus said she expects that hiring will probably shift toward roles that sit at the intersection of biology, data and patient impact. Companies, she explained, will look at people who can not only analyze data but also use it to make decisions in areas including drug pipelines, personalized medicine and diagnostics.
“I think ultimately, the hiring is going to become more technical and more collaborative—more focused on clinical and real-world impact,” Barrus said.
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