RESILIENCE, a UK government scheme designed to help fill the acute skills gap in medicines manufacturing, is celebrating a successful first two years since its launch in spring 2024.
To date, the scheme has had 2,275 trainees attend industry relevant training events led by RESILIENCE partners, as well as an additional 25,000 students from across the UK participating in outreach activities.
The scheme has just walked away from the 2026 Learning Excellence Awards with three major wins, topped off by a Gold in the Outstanding Learning Initiative category. It was the Sector Winner in the Health, Medical & Pharma category, and the Innovation Winner in the Learning Tools & Technology category.
“This triple award win is a testament to the hard work that’s gone into RESILIENCE over the last two years. The initial results from the scheme have exceeded even our own expectations.
“It also highlights our commitment to nurturing future generations of medicine makers and providing opportunities for young people pursuing a career in science, all while reducing the impact of this sector on the environment.”
– Professor Ivan Wall, co-director of RESILIENCE.
RESILIENCE uses Virtual Reality (VR) technology to deliver core lab and manufacturing training; this means real-world facilities aren’t interrupted, and the training can be done anywhere, at any time, and replicated at scale.
Advanced medicines include vaccines, biologics, and cutting-edge cell and gene therapies. Yet, according to industry estimates, the UK is heading towards a shortfall of 145,000 medicines manufacturing workers over the next decade. That figure includes 70,000 new roles and 75,000 replacements – jobs that could be filled by today’s students.
RESILIENCE is a £4.5m programme that uses advanced virtual reality (VR) technology to train medicine makers in core skills that would be impractical, disruptive, and expensive to gain in the real world.
At the end of March 2026, the RESILIENCE teams celebrated the scheme’s two-year anniversary. It has achieved:
- 2,275 trainees attended industry relevant training events led by RESILIENCE partners, with 51% female and 40% BAME
- 25,111 students from across the UK participated in training and outreach activities through 359 events, with 47% female and 25% BAME
- 175 future sector leaders from 23 organisations developed skills through leadership accelerator programmes
- 334 member organisations with 88,559 end users
The RESILIENCE scheme is run by Innovate UK. The four UK universities at the heart of the scheme are the University of Birmingham, University College London, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and the University of Teesside.
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