Pharmaceutical Contract Job Trends

Pharmaceutical (Pharma)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Pharmaceutical in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Pharmaceutical over the 6 months leading up to 20 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 327 226 277
Rank change year-on-year -101 +51 +39
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 385 375 359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 1.14% 0.86%
As % of the General category 1.33% 1.82% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 266 209
10th Percentile £327 £363 £363
25th Percentile £388 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £688 £604
90th Percentile £650 £755 £723
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 12 34
10th Percentile £16.75 £15.89 £18.48
25th Percentile £33.70 £19.72 £20.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £51.80 £33.83
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +53.10% +50.16%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £55.00
90th Percentile - - £65.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £17.46 £28.50
% change year-on-year +121.80% -38.75% +43.50%

All General Skills
UK

Pharmaceutical falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 28,914 20,634 23,891
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.78% 62.91% 57.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,236 12,929 15,000
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £490
% change year-on-year +6.61% -4.29% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,032 1,064 1,718
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.28 £13.18
25th Percentile £18.32 £16.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.81 £25.75 £34.23
Median % change year-on-year +27.40% -24.77% +12.16%
75th Percentile £61.50 £51.58 £55.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.92 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.90 £22.50 £33.07
% change year-on-year +46.23% -31.95% +27.30%

Pharmaceutical
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Pharmaceutical relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Pharmaceutical job vacancy trend in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Pharmaceutical.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Pharmaceutical

Pharmaceutical
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Pharmaceutical over the 6 months to 20 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Pharmaceutical.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Pharmaceutical

Pharmaceutical
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Pharmaceutical over the 6 months to 20 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Pharmaceutical within the UK over the 6 months to 20 July 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -109 292 £500 -9.09% 172
Work from Home +13 174 £475 -7.32% 85
London -4 157 £525 -14.29% 62
UK excluding London -166 105 £475 -13.64% 123
East of England -39 45 £500 -9.09% 27
South East -57 23 £475 -17.75% 42
North of England -115 23 £475 -13.64% 25
North West -90 17 £475 -13.64% 15
South West -33 7 £463 -38.33% 10
Midlands -44 4 £450 -14.29% 18
Wales -19 3 £175 -42.71% 2
North East -35 3 £290 -
Yorkshire -50 3 £463 - 10
East Midlands -14 1 £450 - 8
West Midlands -63 1 - - 10

Pharmaceutical
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Application Platforms
1 5 (1.30%) IIS
2 4 (1.04%) SAS
3 3 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.78%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.78%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.52%) Apache
4 2 (0.52%) Confluence
4 2 (0.52%) WinCC
5 1 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.26%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.26%) CMS
5 1 (0.26%) Mendix
Applications
1 24 (6.23%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (3.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.82%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.04%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.52%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.52%) InDesign
6 2 (0.52%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 68 (17.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.60%) SAP SD
3 7 (1.82%) SAP EWM
4 5 (1.30%) SAP MM
5 4 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (1.04%) SAP PM
5 4 (1.04%) SAP PP
5 4 (1.04%) TrackWise
6 3 (0.78%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.78%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.78%) SAP QM
7 2 (0.52%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.52%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.52%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.52%) SAP GTS
7 2 (0.52%) SAP IBP
7 2 (0.52%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.52%) SAP WM
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 53 (13.77%) AWS
2 39 (10.13%) Azure
3 19 (4.94%) SaaS
4 15 (3.90%) Power Platform
5 14 (3.64%) GCP
6 10 (2.60%) dbt
6 10 (2.60%) GitHub
6 10 (2.60%) Snowflake
7 9 (2.34%) Veeva
8 8 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.82%) Figma
10 6 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
11 5 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.30%) Serverless
12 4 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.04%) Cloud Run
12 4 (1.04%) Google Workspace
13 3 (0.78%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.78%) AWS Direct Connect
13 3 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.08%) Firewall
2 7 (1.82%) VLAN
3 5 (1.30%) HTTPS
3 5 (1.30%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.04%) DNS
5 3 (0.78%) VPN
5 3 (0.78%) WAN
6 2 (0.52%) X.21
7 1 (0.26%) AMQP
7 1 (0.26%) DHCP
7 1 (0.26%) HTTP
7 1 (0.26%) Junos
7 1 (0.26%) Network Security
7 1 (0.26%) NGFW
7 1 (0.26%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.90%) Power BI
2 11 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.56%) Metadata
3 6 (1.56%) Tableau
4 5 (1.30%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.04%) MySQL
5 4 (1.04%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.04%) SAP HANA
6 3 (0.78%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.78%) Neo4j
6 3 (0.78%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.78%) SAP BW
6 3 (0.78%) SQL Server
6 3 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.52%) Amazon QuickSight
7 2 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.52%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
7 2 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (3.64%) JIRA
2 13 (3.38%) Git
3 4 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.78%) Cypress.io
4 3 (0.78%) MLflow
5 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.26%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.26%) ER Studio
6 1 (0.26%) GitLab
6 1 (0.26%) Hudson
6 1 (0.26%) LSMW
6 1 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
6 1 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.26%) Postman
6 1 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.26%) Selenium
6 1 (0.26%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.26%) TestRail
General
1 100 (25.97%) Social Skills
2 86 (22.34%) Manufacturing
3 72 (18.70%) Finance
4 49 (12.73%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (3.90%) Retail
6 14 (3.64%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (3.38%) Marketing
8 10 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (2.34%) Advertising
9 9 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (2.08%) Legal
11 7 (1.82%) Billing
12 6 (1.56%) Public Speaking
13 5 (1.30%) Automotive
13 5 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.30%) Health Technology
13 5 (1.30%) Law
13 5 (1.30%) Public Sector
14 4 (1.04%) Aerospace
14 4 (1.04%) Digital Health
Job Titles
1 40 (10.39%) Consultant
2 38 (9.87%) Lead
3 37 (9.61%) Analyst
4 36 (9.35%) Project Manager
5 34 (8.83%) Senior
6 23 (5.97%) SAP Consultant
7 22 (5.71%) Business Analyst
8 17 (4.42%) Architect
8 17 (4.42%) Data Engineer
9 15 (3.90%) Developer
9 15 (3.90%) Product Owner
10 14 (3.64%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 9 (2.34%) AWS Engineer
12 8 (2.08%) Data Scientist
13 7 (1.82%) Data Analyst
13 7 (1.82%) Designer
14 6 (1.56%) Network Engineer
14 6 (1.56%) Python Developer
14 6 (1.56%) SAP Manager
14 6 (1.56%) Snowflake Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.38%) REST
2 7 (1.82%) React
3 6 (1.56%) IDoc
4 5 (1.30%) EDI
4 5 (1.30%) PyTorch
4 5 (1.30%) RESTful
4 5 (1.30%) XML
5 4 (1.04%) FastAPI
5 4 (1.04%) Pandas
5 4 (1.04%) SAP Fiori
5 4 (1.04%) SOAP
6 3 (0.78%) .NET
6 3 (0.78%) Google JAX
6 3 (0.78%) JAX
6 3 (0.78%) Kafka
6 3 (0.78%) Playwright
6 3 (0.78%) Ray
6 3 (0.78%) SAPUI5
6 3 (0.78%) SQLAlchemy
6 3 (0.78%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 116 (30.13%) Life Science
2 22 (5.71%) Product Ownership
3 17 (4.42%) FMCG
4 16 (4.16%) LIMS
5 15 (3.90%) Data Structures
6 13 (3.38%) CRISPR
7 9 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.08%) Cloud Native
8 8 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (2.08%) Operational Technology
9 7 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
9 7 (1.82%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.30%) Biopharmaceutical
10 5 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.30%) Genomics
10 5 (1.30%) NHS
10 5 (1.30%) SCADA
11 4 (1.04%) Pharmacovigilance
11 4 (1.04%) Robotics
11 4 (1.04%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 16 (4.16%) Windows
2 6 (1.56%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.78%) Linux
4 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.26%) Unix
4 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (17.40%) AI
2 63 (16.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 62 (16.10%) Validation
4 61 (15.84%) Agile
5 43 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
6 42 (10.91%) Biotechnology
6 42 (10.91%) ERP
7 41 (10.65%) Migration
8 40 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 37 (9.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 34 (8.83%) Roadmaps
11 31 (8.05%) Machine Learning
12 30 (7.79%) Analytics
12 30 (7.79%) CI/CD
13 29 (7.53%) Data Pipeline
13 29 (7.53%) Workshop Facilitation
14 28 (7.27%) Data Modelling
14 28 (7.27%) Project Management
15 27 (7.01%) DevOps
16 26 (6.75%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 64 (16.62%) Python
2 35 (9.09%) SQL
3 13 (3.38%) R
4 7 (1.82%) Java
5 6 (1.56%) ABAP
5 6 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 4 (1.04%) TypeScript
7 3 (0.78%) C#
7 3 (0.78%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.52%) Cypher
8 2 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.26%) Bicep
9 1 (0.26%) C
9 1 (0.26%) C++
9 1 (0.26%) DataWeave
9 1 (0.26%) Gremlin
9 1 (0.26%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.26%) SHACL
9 1 (0.26%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.26%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 43 (11.17%) Degree
2 11 (2.86%) PMI Certification
2 11 (2.86%) PMP
3 6 (1.56%) Security Cleared
4 5 (1.30%) ACCA
4 5 (1.30%) CIMA
4 5 (1.30%) CSPO
4 5 (1.30%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.04%) SC Cleared
6 3 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (0.78%) CISM
6 3 (0.78%) CISSP
6 3 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.52%) HNC
7 2 (0.52%) HND
7 2 (0.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 1 (0.26%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.26%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (15.06%) GxP
2 21 (5.45%) QA
3 18 (4.68%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.68%) GMP
4 13 (3.38%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 11 (2.86%) GDPR
5 11 (2.86%) GRC
5 11 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 10 (2.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (1.56%) PMO
8 5 (1.30%) HIPAA
8 5 (1.30%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.78%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.78%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.78%) NIST
10 2 (0.52%) GAMP
10 2 (0.52%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.26%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.26%) ITGC
11 1 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 9 (2.34%) Docker
2 5 (1.30%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.52%) vSphere
4 1 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 12 (3.12%) Terraform
2 7 (1.82%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.26%) Apache Ranger
3 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.26%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.26%) RSA Archer
3 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (0.26%) WSUS
Vendors
1 91 (23.64%) SAP
2 25 (6.49%) Microsoft
3 12 (3.12%) Oracle
4 10 (2.60%) Google
5 8 (2.08%) Databricks
5 8 (2.08%) ServiceNow
6 7 (1.82%) Ariba
6 7 (1.82%) VMware
7 6 (1.56%) Rockwell
8 5 (1.30%) Palo Alto
8 5 (1.30%) Salesforce
8 5 (1.30%) Zscaler
9 4 (1.04%) LabVantage
9 4 (1.04%) MuleSoft
10 3 (0.78%) Adobe
10 3 (0.78%) Conga
10 3 (0.78%) LabWare
10 3 (0.78%) Palantir
10 3 (0.78%) Siemens
11 2 (0.52%) Citrix