Perhaps my view is blurred by being a programmer, but I have never found the skill to be particularly useful in my non-programming side businesses. It is a nice idea that biologists will write helper scripts, but my experience in the real world is more like:
1. Someone has already written the code, so there is no reason to write it again
2. The problem is big enough that you are going to end up spending all your time programming, taking time away from what you should really be working on
And maybe there is a need for biologists working on new research where there are no existing tools that match what they are working on, but I don't think that is something that extends to a lot of professions.
I'm really interested in this, and all my anecdotal data (in the hundreds of points) points against what you're saying. I'd love to discuss your experience. I can also bring a few biologists into the discussion, to make it more interesting.
1. Someone has already written the code, so there is no reason to write it again
2. The problem is big enough that you are going to end up spending all your time programming, taking time away from what you should really be working on
And maybe there is a need for biologists working on new research where there are no existing tools that match what they are working on, but I don't think that is something that extends to a lot of professions.