Makers of Birmingham: Science in the City
Science in the City: How CSR Scientific Training is helping build the workforce Birmingham needs
Walk into the ground floor laboratory at Millennium Point on any given day and you will find people working through practical sessions on state-of-the-art equipment, an AI humanoid called Ada assisting with teaching and support, and a team committed to the idea that science careers should be accessible to anyone with the drive to pursue one.
This is CSR Scientific Training, and for 15 years it has been doing something the rest of the sector has been slow to catch up with. The company works with employers, large and small, to find talent and train people for careers in science and healthcare science. Not to employ apprentices directly, as many assume, but to act as the bridge between ambitious individuals and the organisations that need them. It is a distinction that matters, and one the team finds itself making often. Simon Jukes is the co-founder and director:
“If a local science employer has no prior knowledge of us before we talk to them, I hope they see that we are about building up people and businesses, not about a hard sell or a transaction.”
That ethos is woven into the fabric of the organisation, from the way it approaches new relationships to the graduation ceremony it holds each year at Millennium Point, where apprentices, their families and their workplace mentors gather to mark the completion of programmes that, in rigour and commitment, sit comfortably alongside a traditional degree.
The science and apprenticeship sectors are full of misconceptions, and CSR has made a habit of dismantling them. The idea that apprenticeships attract people who are less academically capable is, as the team puts it plainly, “as far from the truth as it is possible to get.” Their programmes are filled with people aged 18 to 60, many of them highly qualified, all of them united by a desire to move forward.
“The thing they all share is a desire to work and learn, to move their careers forward or make a change and do something new.”
The numbers behind the sector tell their own story. Life science contributes more than £90 billion annually to the UK economy, yet fewer than 2,000 new apprenticeships begin in the sector each year. In engineering, which has long embraced the model, that figure is around 50,000. The gap is significant, and closing it is part of what drives CSR’s ambitions for the years ahead.
Those ambitions are well placed. Birmingham is at the centre of a period of serious investment in life science infrastructure. BioCity, the city centre’s new life sciences hub, completes its build next year. The UK government’s £100 million AI Life Sciences Accelerator Mission positions the West Midlands as a recipient of meaningful funding and private sector interest. AI-enhanced drug discovery is expected to become a defining theme for the region’s economy, and the workforce will need to be ready.
“The skills we need in Birmingham for the decade ahead are going to be digital literacy, especially around AI, combined with flexible scientific research knowledge and skills.”
CSR’s response to that challenge is already taking shape. A new Science Bootcamp strand focuses on healthcare and life science, designed to give the regional workforce the short, intensive training it needs to support rapid growth. The teaching itself has moved well beyond what most people picture when they think of science education. Online platforms, cutting-edge laboratory equipment and Ada, the AI humanoid, place CSR at a point where the pace of its development matches the pace of the sector it serves.
Underpinning all of it is a location that the company has long considered central to its plans. Millennium Point, positioned at the gateway to Birmingham’s Knowledge Quarter, offers a combination of profile, infrastructure and institutional support that the team describes as “exceptional.” The arrival of HS2, when it comes, will extend the reach further still.
“Millennium Point made it clear early on that scientific laboratory space is a big part of their future offer. There is no better location for us to make maximum impact.”
For anyone who has wondered whether science is for them, or whether they have left it too late, CSR’s message is direct: get in touch. There are programmes at different levels, designed for people from a wide range of backgrounds. The science sector, they are keen to point out, thrives on a neurodiverse workforce. Everyone can find their place in it.
The logo, designed fifteen years ago by a school friend of the founder, is made up of four complementary DNA base pairs. Sciencey, yes, but also quite cool. It is a small detail, but it captures something true about the organisation: rigorous in substance, human in spirit, and quietly proud of what it has built.
