The first question you probably have is “how much can I get paid in the industry?” While the answer varies greatly, one helpful graph is the following:
Source: PayScale, Inc.
It is important to note that these positions all assume you are a researcher of some sort, whether it is in academia or corporate research. These are Canadian positions and amounts are in Canadian dollars. The age group and experience of these employees is not posted and will cause the salary figures to vary.
Source: PayScale, Inc.
This figure reports a different metric for the same individuals surveyed from the previous chart. You can see that the salary figures nearly double between one and twenty years of experience, but again, these figures are for researchers only and assume you do not continue to a professorship after a Post-Doc and that you do not move out of technical work into management after twenty years.
The industry breakdown in Canada as of 2006 is shown in the figure below. 
Source: OECD, Biotechnolgy statistics database, January 2009
It is evident based on these data that healthcare and agriculture comprise a significant majority of the biotechnology industry in Canada, with a notable contribution from the natural resources, environment, and food and beverage sectors. Note that the data here are from 2006, indicating the published figures were for the reported 2005 year. Much has changed in the biotechnology industry in the past five years, and this chart breakdown may be different today. Our SBN estimates indicate that the environment sector has increased in market share and that the health sector has decreased in market share. Our research indicates that in 2005, total biotechnology researchers in firms, in Canada, were 13,433, with approximately half of those employees in Research and Development.
