There is a lot of professional development during PhD too. Especially if you're at a well funded institution with enough prestige to have a lot of international

There is a lot of professional development during PhD too. Especially if you're at a well funded institution with enough prestige to have a lot of international collaboration. The resources are typically a lot more experimental and RnD focussed than you will find in many companies. Having done a masters I'd say the "learning" there is rote and the sort of thing you do in school. PhD what you learn is how to actually see through BS you otherwise took as "truth" on a masters, see the landscape of research at play, which ideas have merit, which don't, what's interesting and likely has large implications etc. The actual skills and exposure is something quite tricky to explain but unless you do research in a really big company, it might be a lot harder to develop those. Especially if you are an entry level technician, as most of the more senior positions are likely to be those with PhDs already. At least in biotech, software and hardware it's way more about industry career paths and RnD.