Health & Life Sciences

Healthcare and life sciences organisations deal with complex decisions that affect patient outcomes and public health. Data plays an increasingly important role in improving those decisions, from analysing clinical trial results to forecasting demand for hospital beds. The sector is broad and includes both publicly funded institutions and commercial pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

The daily work depends heavily on the role and employer. In a hospital or public health setting, analysts work with patient data to improve care pathways, monitor disease trends, or allocate resources. In pharmaceutical research, quantitative work focuses on clinical trial design and analysis, regulatory submissions, and health economic modelling. In health economics, the focus is on evaluating whether treatments are cost-effective.

The main tools are R and Python for statistical analysis, SAS in some pharmaceutical settings, and Excel for reporting. Knowledge of survival analysis, clinical trial methodology, and health economic modelling is relevant depending on the role. Privacy and data governance are important constraints in this sector, since patient data is highly sensitive.

The sector is growing as healthcare systems generate more data and face increasing pressure to improve efficiency. In the Netherlands, health data infrastructure and digital health initiatives are expanding. The sector connects to Academia and Research Institutes, where much of the underlying research is conducted, and to roles like Data Scientist, Economic Researcher, and Policy Analyst.