Life Science Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Life Sciences
Central London > City of London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Life Science in contract job vacancies in the City of London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Life Science over the 6 months leading up to 7 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 120 124
Rank change year-on-year -4 +4 +50
Contract jobs citing Life Science 12 2 2
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.54% 0.11% 0.088%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.66% 0.33% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 1 1
10th Percentile £546 - -
25th Percentile £650 £613 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £700 £625 £800
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -21.88% +52.38%
75th Percentile £778 £638 -
90th Percentile £788 - -
Central London median daily rate £700 £625 £800
% change year-on-year +12.00% -21.88% +52.38%

All Generic Skills
City of London

Life Science falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 722 600 697
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 32.70% 34.46% 30.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 390 479
10th Percentile £358 £363 £263
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -7.26%
75th Percentile £688 £695 £700
90th Percentile £800 £775 £838
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 2 7
10th Percentile £18.92 £37.90 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.82 £48.25 £14.88
Median hourly rate £32.07 £65.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -51.05% +244.74% -58.70%
75th Percentile £41.94 £82.75 £38.88
90th Percentile £63.13 £93.10 £59.65
Central London median hourly rate £28.00 £30.04 £19.00
% change year-on-year -6.78% +58.08% -45.71%

Life Science
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Life Science relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Life Science job vacancy trend in the City of London

Life Science
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Life Science.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Life Science

Life Science
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Life Science in the City of London over the 6 months to 7 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Life Science in the City of London

Life Science
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Life Science.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Life Science

Life Science
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Business Applications
1 1 (8.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 3 (25.00%) GCP
2 1 (8.33%) Azure
2 1 (8.33%) Cloud Run
2 1 (8.33%) dbt
2 1 (8.33%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (8.33%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (8.33%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Git
General
1 6 (50.00%) Pharmaceutical
2 5 (41.67%) Manufacturing
3 1 (8.33%) Finance
3 1 (8.33%) Organisational Skills
3 1 (8.33%) Retail
3 1 (8.33%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (41.67%) .NET Software Engineer
1 5 (41.67%) Hardware Engineer
1 5 (41.67%) Integration Engineer
1 5 (41.67%) Software Engineer
1 5 (41.67%) Software Integration Engineer
2 3 (25.00%) Backend Developer
2 3 (25.00%) Developer
2 3 (25.00%) Python Developer
2 3 (25.00%) Senior
2 3 (25.00%) Senior Backend Developer
2 3 (25.00%) Senior Developer
2 3 (25.00%) Senior Python Developer
3 2 (16.67%) Data Engineer
4 1 (8.33%) Programme Manager
4 1 (8.33%) Snowflake Data Engineer
4 1 (8.33%) Snowflake Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (41.67%) .NET
2 3 (25.00%) FastAPI
3 1 (8.33%) gRPC
3 1 (8.33%) LangGraph
3 1 (8.33%) pytest
3 1 (8.33%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 3 (25.00%) Cloud Native
2 1 (8.33%) Device Driver
2 1 (8.33%) Reference Data
2 1 (8.33%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 1 (8.33%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (66.67%) Software Engineering
2 3 (25.00%) AI
2 3 (25.00%) Code Quality
2 3 (25.00%) DevOps
2 3 (25.00%) Machine Learning
2 3 (25.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (25.00%) Unit Testing
3 2 (16.67%) Analytics
3 2 (16.67%) Containerisation
3 2 (16.67%) Data Engineering
3 2 (16.67%) Data Pipeline
3 2 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (16.67%) TDD
4 1 (8.33%) Data Migration
4 1 (8.33%) Data Modelling
4 1 (8.33%) Migration
4 1 (8.33%) Programme Governance
4 1 (8.33%) Programme Management
4 1 (8.33%) Project Management
4 1 (8.33%) Scorecard
Programming Languages
1 4 (33.33%) Python
2 3 (25.00%) SQL
3 1 (8.33%) C#
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (8.33%) Data Quality
1 1 (8.33%) GxP
System Software
1 2 (16.67%) Docker
Vendors
1 3 (25.00%) Google
2 1 (8.33%) Databricks
2 1 (8.33%) SAP