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 21 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 221 223
Rank change year-on-year -89 +2 +107
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 340 350 459
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 1.19% 1.06%
As % of the General category 1.33% 1.88% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 232 283
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £388 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £611
90th Percentile £688 £820 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £518
% change year-on-year -9.52% +1.45% +15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 17 36
10th Percentile £22.69 £15.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £50.00 £19.00 £20.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £32.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +130.77% +7.76% +0.53%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £63.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £26.25 £28.50
% change year-on-year +109.52% -7.89% +137.50%

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 25,477 18,596 25,290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.05% 63.15% 58.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,762 11,903 15,985
10th Percentile £305 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £751
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,614 775 1,917
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.13 £15.40
Median hourly rate £28.00 £28.60 £28.42
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% +0.63% -18.80%
75th Percentile £59.00 £56.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £26.50 £26.87
% change year-on-year -4.23% -1.36% -15.08%

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 21 April 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 21 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Top 14 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 21 April 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 -145 234 £513 -6.82% 158
Work from Home +8 147 £475 -9.52% 62
London -35 109 £525 -25.00% 61
UK excluding London -164 96 £475 -9.52% 103
East of England -45 43 £475 -13.64% 9
South East -40 23 £475 +123.53% 34
North of England -112 20 £540 -1.82% 24
North West -88 18 £540 -1.82% 18
South West - 6 £700 - 11
Scotland +1 2 - - 2
North East -19 2 - - 4
Wales -14 1 - - 3
West Midlands -64 1 - - 7
Midlands -73 1 - - 21

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 4 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (1.18%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.88%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) SAS
3 2 (0.59%) Mendix
3 2 (0.59%) WinCC
4 1 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.29%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.29%) CMS
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 29 (8.53%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (4.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.59%) InDesign
5 2 (0.59%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.59%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 64 (18.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.94%) SAP EWM
3 7 (2.06%) SAP PM
3 7 (2.06%) SAP SD
4 6 (1.76%) SAP MM
4 6 (1.76%) SAP PP
4 6 (1.76%) SAP QM
4 6 (1.76%) SAP WM
5 4 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (1.18%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.59%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.59%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.59%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.59%) TrackWise
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.29%) SAP CS
7 1 (0.29%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.29%) SAP MDM
7 1 (0.29%) SAP PP-PI
Cloud Services
1 40 (11.76%) AWS
2 34 (10.00%) Azure
3 18 (5.29%) GCP
4 15 (4.41%) SaaS
5 13 (3.82%) Microsoft 365
6 12 (3.53%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.35%) dbt
7 8 (2.35%) Snowflake
8 6 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.76%) Figma
8 6 (1.76%) GitHub
9 4 (1.18%) Cloud Run
9 4 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (1.18%) Veeva
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon SageMaker
10 3 (0.88%) Azure AKS
10 3 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 3 (0.88%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.88%) Ethernet
1 3 (0.88%) Firewall
1 3 (0.88%) Modbus
1 3 (0.88%) Network Security
1 3 (0.88%) RS-485
2 2 (0.59%) BGP
2 2 (0.59%) OSPF
2 2 (0.59%) Wireless
3 1 (0.29%) AMQP
3 1 (0.29%) HTTP
3 1 (0.29%) Junos
3 1 (0.29%) RFID
3 1 (0.29%) SSL
3 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.29%) Telepresence
3 1 (0.29%) VLAN
3 1 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.53%) Power BI
2 8 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (2.06%) Data Lake
4 4 (1.18%) Metadata
4 4 (1.18%) Tableau
5 3 (0.88%) BigQuery
5 3 (0.88%) Electronic Patient Records
5 3 (0.88%) SAP Data Services
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.29%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.29%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (4.71%) JIRA
2 13 (3.82%) Git
3 3 (0.88%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.88%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.88%) LSMW
3 3 (0.88%) MLflow
4 2 (0.59%) GitLab
4 2 (0.59%) Selenium
5 1 (0.29%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.29%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.29%) Hudson
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 75 (22.06%) Social Skills
2 69 (20.29%) Manufacturing
3 68 (20.00%) Finance
4 37 (10.88%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (2.94%) Marketing
5 10 (2.94%) Retail
6 9 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (2.35%) Advertising
7 8 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.35%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (1.76%) Public Sector
8 6 (1.76%) Public Speaking
9 5 (1.47%) Billing
10 4 (1.18%) Wearables
11 3 (0.88%) Banking
11 3 (0.88%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.88%) Legal
12 2 (0.59%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 36 (10.59%) Lead
2 29 (8.53%) Senior
3 24 (7.06%) Analyst
3 24 (7.06%) Project Manager
4 22 (6.47%) Consultant
5 17 (5.00%) Developer
6 15 (4.41%) Data Engineer
7 14 (4.12%) Designer
8 13 (3.82%) Business Analyst
8 13 (3.82%) Data Scientist
8 13 (3.82%) SAP Consultant
9 12 (3.53%) Architect
10 11 (3.24%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 11 (3.24%) Python Developer
11 8 (2.35%) Accountant
11 8 (2.35%) Product Designer
11 8 (2.35%) Quality Manager
11 8 (2.35%) Systems Accountant
12 7 (2.06%) IT Manager
12 7 (2.06%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.35%) FastAPI
2 6 (1.76%) pytest
3 5 (1.47%) IDoc
3 5 (1.47%) PyTorch
4 4 (1.18%) LangGraph
4 4 (1.18%) Playwright
4 4 (1.18%) React
4 4 (1.18%) TensorFlow
5 3 (0.88%) EDI
5 3 (0.88%) Google JAX
5 3 (0.88%) J2EE
5 3 (0.88%) JAX
5 3 (0.88%) Ray
5 3 (0.88%) REST
6 2 (0.59%) BAPI
6 2 (0.59%) CSS
6 2 (0.59%) JSON
6 2 (0.59%) Pandas
6 2 (0.59%) SAP ALE
6 2 (0.59%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 68 (20.00%) Life Science
2 16 (4.71%) Data Structures
3 14 (4.12%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.53%) FMCG
4 12 (3.53%) LIMS
5 10 (2.94%) Cloud Native
6 9 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (2.35%) CRISPR
7 8 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (2.35%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.06%) NHS
9 6 (1.76%) Genomics
10 5 (1.47%) AI Agents
11 4 (1.18%) Biopharmaceutical
11 4 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (1.18%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.18%) SCADA
12 3 (0.88%) Robotics
12 3 (0.88%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.24%) Windows
2 2 (0.59%) Linux
2 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
2 2 (0.59%) Windows 10
2 2 (0.59%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (15.29%) AI
2 47 (13.82%) Validation
3 46 (13.53%) Agile
3 46 (13.53%) ERP
4 38 (11.18%) Stakeholder Management
5 37 (10.88%) Migration
6 32 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 31 (9.12%) Machine Learning
8 30 (8.82%) Biotechnology
9 27 (7.94%) Data Science
9 27 (7.94%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (7.94%) Workshop Facilitation
10 26 (7.65%) DevOps
10 26 (7.65%) Project Management
11 24 (7.06%) Data Migration
12 23 (6.76%) Analytics
13 22 (6.47%) CI/CD
13 22 (6.47%) Data Governance
13 22 (6.47%) Data Pipeline
14 21 (6.18%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 56 (16.47%) Python
2 31 (9.12%) SQL
3 12 (3.53%) R
4 6 (1.76%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.18%) ABAP
5 4 (1.18%) Java
5 4 (1.18%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.29%) Bicep
6 1 (0.29%) C
6 1 (0.29%) C++
6 1 (0.29%) DataWeave
6 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.29%) SHACL
6 1 (0.29%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.29%) XPath
6 1 (0.29%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 41 (12.06%) Degree
2 9 (2.65%) A+ Certification
2 9 (2.65%) ACCA
2 9 (2.65%) CIMA
3 6 (1.76%) Master's Degree
4 5 (1.47%) PMI Certification
4 5 (1.47%) PMP
5 3 (0.88%) HND
5 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.59%) HNC
6 2 (0.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.29%) ECDL
7 1 (0.29%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.29%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.29%) OCP
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
7 1 (0.29%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (10.29%) GxP
2 18 (5.29%) GMP
3 16 (4.71%) QA
4 10 (2.94%) Data Quality
5 8 (2.35%) GDPR
5 8 (2.35%) PMO
6 6 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.18%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 4 (1.18%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.59%) GAMP
8 2 (0.59%) GRC
8 2 (0.59%) NIST
9 1 (0.29%) EU AI Act
9 1 (0.29%) HL7
9 1 (0.29%) ISO 13485
9 1 (0.29%) ITGC
9 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.29%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 11 (3.24%) Docker
2 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.59%) vSphere
3 1 (0.29%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 6 (1.76%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.47%) Terraform
3 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.29%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.29%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 91 (26.76%) SAP
2 38 (11.18%) Microsoft
3 12 (3.53%) Google
3 12 (3.53%) Oracle
4 7 (2.06%) SOTI
5 6 (1.76%) Databricks
5 6 (1.76%) Salesforce
6 5 (1.47%) Ariba
6 5 (1.47%) LabWare
7 4 (1.18%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.88%) Adobe
8 3 (0.88%) Cerner
8 3 (0.88%) Cisco
8 3 (0.88%) Foundry
8 3 (0.88%) HP
8 3 (0.88%) IBM
8 3 (0.88%) LabVantage
8 3 (0.88%) MuleSoft
8 3 (0.88%) Palantir
8 3 (0.88%) VMware