R&D intensity of firms
Figure 11 shows R&D expenditure as a proportion of sales for three categories of firm in the UK1000. On average, foreign-owned firms spent a higher proportion of the value of their sales on R&D (2.6%) than either listed or unlisted UK-owned companies. The R&D intensity for these two types of firm decreased compared with last year’s Scoreboard.
Figure 11: R&D expenditure as a proportion of sales by ownership of firms in the UK1000 (%)
Table 10: Companies with a high ratio of R&D expenditure to sales
Table 10 lists UK1000 companies with a comparatively high ratio of investment in R&D to sales in 2008. As in past Scoreboards, companies from the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sector dominate the list. Generally, high-tech sectors have a much higher ratio of R&D expenditure to sales than other sectors.
