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 8 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 266 272 263
Rank change year-on-year +6 -9 +100
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 363 310 436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 0.85% 0.93%
As % of the General category 1.65% 1.44% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 162 299
10th Percentile £400 £364 £265
25th Percentile £494 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +9.52% - -
75th Percentile £678 £607 £588
90th Percentile £751 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £581 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +10.74% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 27
10th Percentile £18.87 £19.13 £17.21
25th Percentile £26.47 £21.98 £17.72
Median hourly rate £51.80 £32.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.37% +62.50% -25.93%
75th Percentile £97.50 £38.75 £48.58
90th Percentile - £53.79 £62.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £28.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -33.79% +42.50% -25.93%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,014 21,527 27,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 62.91% 58.83% 59.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,765 12,699 18,711
10th Percentile £273 £285 £288
25th Percentile £400 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £641 £660
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,401 817 1,110
10th Percentile £13.80 £14.89 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.92 £16.68
Median hourly rate £24.34 £29.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.07% -3.33% +20.00%
75th Percentile £44.75 £55.00 £57.46
90th Percentile £67.25 £70.00 £70.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.97 £27.13 £27.00
% change year-on-year -19.01% +0.46% +20.00%

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025. 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 +8 294 £575 +4.55% 448
UK excluding London -48 132 £581 +10.74% 361
Work from Home +21 121 £525 -2.33% 191
London +62 116 £575 +4.55% 194
East of England -8 55 £580 +10.48% 41
North of England -65 41 £675 +26.17% 44
North West -41 38 £675 +26.17% 32
South East +19 29 £578 +44.50% 201
South West - 4 £750 - 19
Wales +2 2 £224 - 8
East Midlands -17 2 £525 -12.50% 15
Midlands -32 2 £525 -12.50% 20
Yorkshire -43 2 £325 - 8
Scotland +5 1 £550 +60.58% 25
North East - 1 - - 6

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 8 (2.20%) Confluence
2 6 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (1.10%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.83%) CMS
5 2 (0.55%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.55%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.28%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.28%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.83%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.55%) Adobe After Effects
3 2 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
3 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.55%) Photoshop
3 2 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.55%) Weka
4 1 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
4 1 (0.28%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 93 (25.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.48%) SAP MM
3 7 (1.93%) SAP CO
3 7 (1.93%) SAP MDG
4 6 (1.65%) SAP FI
4 6 (1.65%) SAP FI/CO
5 5 (1.38%) SAP PLM
5 5 (1.38%) SAP SD
6 4 (1.10%) SAP ERP
6 4 (1.10%) SAP IBP
6 4 (1.10%) SAP VC
7 3 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
7 3 (0.83%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.83%) SAP QM
8 2 (0.55%) PRMS
8 2 (0.55%) SAP PP
8 2 (0.55%) SAP SCM
8 2 (0.55%) SAP WM
8 2 (0.55%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 54 (14.88%) AWS
2 34 (9.37%) Azure
3 26 (7.16%) Power Platform
4 24 (6.61%) GCP
5 20 (5.51%) GitHub
6 12 (3.31%) Cloud Run
6 12 (3.31%) Snowflake
7 7 (1.93%) Veeva
8 6 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (1.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 5 (1.38%) Amazon S3
9 5 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
10 4 (1.10%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (1.10%) dbt
10 4 (1.10%) Figma
10 4 (1.10%) IaaS
10 4 (1.10%) SuccessFactors
11 3 (0.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 3 (0.83%) Lucidchart
11 3 (0.83%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.48%) Network Security
2 4 (1.10%) Firewall
3 3 (0.83%) Wireless
4 1 (0.28%) BGP
4 1 (0.28%) Cisco ICM
4 1 (0.28%) DHCP
4 1 (0.28%) DNS
4 1 (0.28%) OSPF
4 1 (0.28%) RFID
4 1 (0.28%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.28%) Skype
4 1 (0.28%) SMS
4 1 (0.28%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.28%) VLAN
4 1 (0.28%) VPN
4 1 (0.28%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (7.16%) Power BI
2 15 (4.13%) Data Lake
3 13 (3.58%) SAP HANA
4 10 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (1.93%) Electronic Patient Records
6 6 (1.65%) Metadata
7 4 (1.10%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.83%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.83%) Tableau
9 2 (0.55%) Ataccama
9 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.55%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.55%) Neo4j
10 1 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.28%) KNIME
10 1 (0.28%) Power Query
10 1 (0.28%) Qlik Sense
10 1 (0.28%) SAP BW
10 1 (0.28%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 17 (4.68%) Git
1 17 (4.68%) JIRA
2 4 (1.10%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.83%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.55%) CircleCI
4 2 (0.55%) Selenium
5 1 (0.28%) ERwin
5 1 (0.28%) GitLab
5 1 (0.28%) PHPUnit
5 1 (0.28%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 104 (28.65%) Social Skills
2 72 (19.83%) Finance
3 67 (18.46%) Manufacturing
4 32 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (4.13%) Marketing
6 12 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.03%) Aerospace
7 11 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.93%) Legal
9 4 (1.10%) German Language
9 4 (1.10%) Health Technology
9 4 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.10%) Public Sector
10 3 (0.83%) Wearables
11 2 (0.55%) Billing
11 2 (0.55%) Digital Health
11 2 (0.55%) Digital Healthcare
11 2 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 46 (12.67%) Consultant
2 40 (11.02%) Lead
3 39 (10.74%) SAP Consultant
4 28 (7.71%) Developer
5 26 (7.16%) Analyst
6 25 (6.89%) Project Manager
7 20 (5.51%) Architect
8 18 (4.96%) Accountant
8 18 (4.96%) Systems Accountant
9 17 (4.68%) Data Scientist
9 17 (4.68%) Python Developer
10 14 (3.86%) SAP Manager
11 12 (3.31%) Business Analyst
11 12 (3.31%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.31%) Full-Stack Developer
11 12 (3.31%) Senior
12 11 (3.03%) Full-Stack Python Developer
12 11 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA Consultant
13 10 (2.75%) Software Engineer
14 9 (2.48%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.41%) pytest
2 15 (4.13%) FastAPI
2 15 (4.13%) React
2 15 (4.13%) SAP Fiori
3 11 (3.03%) LangGraph
4 5 (1.38%) Playwright
5 4 (1.10%) EDI
5 4 (1.10%) FHIR
6 3 (0.83%) IDoc
6 3 (0.83%) Kafka
6 3 (0.83%) MACH
6 3 (0.83%) pydantic
6 3 (0.83%) SAP PI
7 2 (0.55%) Jest
7 2 (0.55%) Next.js
7 2 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.55%) RESTful
7 2 (0.55%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.55%) SOAP
7 2 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 62 (17.08%) Life Science
2 22 (6.06%) Genomics
3 15 (4.13%) Cloud Native
4 10 (2.75%) Operational Technology
5 8 (2.20%) FMCG
5 8 (2.20%) NHS
6 7 (1.93%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.65%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.65%) LIMS
8 5 (1.38%) AI Agents
8 5 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.38%) Management Information System
8 5 (1.38%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.10%) Biopharmaceutical
9 4 (1.10%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.83%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.75%) Windows
2 8 (2.20%) Apple iOS
3 6 (1.65%) Linux
4 5 (1.38%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.83%) Android
6 2 (0.55%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (17.36%) Stakeholder Management
2 60 (16.53%) AI
3 55 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
4 51 (14.05%) Agile
5 49 (13.50%) Analytics
6 47 (12.95%) Project Management
7 42 (11.57%) ERP
8 41 (11.29%) Machine Learning
9 37 (10.19%) Change Management
10 36 (9.92%) Validation
11 35 (9.64%) Continuous Improvement
11 35 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 31 (8.54%) Data Science
13 29 (7.99%) DevOps
13 29 (7.99%) Roadmaps
14 28 (7.71%) Biotechnology
15 27 (7.44%) Migration
15 27 (7.44%) User Acceptance Testing
16 24 (6.61%) Data Governance
17 23 (6.34%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 73 (20.11%) Python
2 33 (9.09%) SQL
3 18 (4.96%) R
4 16 (4.41%) TypeScript
5 11 (3.03%) Java
6 6 (1.65%) ABAP
6 6 (1.65%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.55%) Bash
7 2 (0.55%) Ruby
8 1 (0.28%) C#
8 1 (0.28%) Groovy
8 1 (0.28%) Korn
8 1 (0.28%) Ladder Logic
8 1 (0.28%) MATLAB
8 1 (0.28%) PHP
8 1 (0.28%) Scala
8 1 (0.28%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 61 (16.80%) Degree
2 20 (5.51%) ACCA
2 20 (5.51%) CIMA
3 15 (4.13%) PMI Certification
3 15 (4.13%) PMP
4 14 (3.86%) Master's Degree
5 12 (3.31%) Security Cleared
6 9 (2.48%) SC Cleared
7 7 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (1.38%) CCNP
8 5 (1.38%) CCSA
8 5 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.83%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 2 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.55%) CISA
10 2 (0.55%) CISM
10 2 (0.55%) CISSP
10 2 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.55%) SAP Certification
11 1 (0.28%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (9.37%) GxP
2 16 (4.41%) QA
3 14 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (2.75%) GDPR
5 10 (2.75%) GMP
6 7 (1.93%) APQC
7 6 (1.65%) PMO
8 5 (1.38%) HL7
9 4 (1.10%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 4 (1.10%) Accessibility
9 4 (1.10%) SLA
10 3 (0.83%) NCSC
11 2 (0.55%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.55%) IFRS
12 1 (0.28%) GAMP
12 1 (0.28%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 1 (0.28%) MiFID
12 1 (0.28%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 24 (6.61%) Docker
2 5 (1.38%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 3 (0.83%) Lustre
4 2 (0.55%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.55%) GPFS
5 1 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 22 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.48%) Terraform
3 5 (1.38%) Ansible
4 4 (1.10%) SCCM
5 3 (0.83%) Packer
6 2 (0.55%) HP ALM
6 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.55%) Puppet
6 2 (0.55%) Salt
7 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.28%) Cisco UCCE
7 1 (0.28%) Cisco UCCX
7 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.28%) TeamSite
Vendors
1 139 (38.29%) SAP
2 20 (5.51%) Google
2 20 (5.51%) Microsoft
3 16 (4.41%) Ariba
4 10 (2.75%) Oracle
4 10 (2.75%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.93%) Palo Alto
5 7 (1.93%) Zscaler
6 5 (1.38%) Siemens
7 4 (1.10%) Cisco
7 4 (1.10%) Salesforce
7 4 (1.10%) Workday
8 3 (0.83%) MEDITECH
8 3 (0.83%) Remedy
9 2 (0.55%) Adobe
9 2 (0.55%) Cerner
9 2 (0.55%) CyberArk
9 2 (0.55%) Databricks
9 2 (0.55%) HP
9 2 (0.55%) Rockwell