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 13 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 228 239
Rank change year-on-year -93 +11 +104
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 333 336 423
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 1.16% 0.99%
As % of the General category 1.31% 1.83% 1.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 223 263
10th Percentile £323 £378 £363
25th Percentile £381 £500 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% +5.53%
75th Percentile £600 £688 £618
90th Percentile £675 £820 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £501
% change year-on-year -9.52% +4.90% +11.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 12 38
10th Percentile £22.69 £19.10 £17.72
25th Percentile £50.00 £28.44 £20.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £42.15 £33.83
Median % change year-on-year +77.95% +24.59% -19.45%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £62.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +69.23% -18.75% +39.84%

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 25,341 18,360 24,809
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.69% 63.35% 58.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,487 11,672 15,642
10th Percentile £306 £289 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +1.68% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,622 780 1,929
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.39 £17.31 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.30 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -9.48% -10.82%
75th Percentile £60.94 £56.00 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £24.50 £28.50
% change year-on-year +14.29% -14.04% -1.72%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -154 226 £500 -13.04% 197
Work from Home +4 148 £475 -13.64% 98
London -39 109 £525 -28.47% 79
UK excluding London -151 89 £475 -9.52% 133
East of England -50 39 £454 -17.45% 23
South East -41 19 £475 +90.00% 37
North of England -115 19 £508 -7.73% 33
North West -69 17 £508 -7.73% 22
South West -27 5 £541 - 10
Midlands -59 3 - - 28
Scotland +6 2 - - 1
Wales -16 2 £175 -42.71% 5
North East -24 2 - - 3
West Midlands -60 1 - - 19

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 (1.20%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.90%) SAS
3 2 (0.60%) Confluence
3 2 (0.60%) IIS
3 2 (0.60%) WinCC
4 1 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.30%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.30%) CMS
4 1 (0.30%) Mendix
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 30 (9.01%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (2.10%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.60%) InDesign
5 2 (0.60%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.60%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 61 (18.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (3.00%) SAP SD
3 7 (2.10%) SAP EWM
4 6 (1.80%) SAP QM
5 5 (1.50%) SAP MM
5 5 (1.50%) SAP PM
6 4 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 3 (0.90%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.90%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.90%) SAP PP
7 3 (0.90%) SAP WM
8 2 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.60%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.60%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.60%) SAP GTS
8 2 (0.60%) TrackWise
9 1 (0.30%) Cerner Millennium
9 1 (0.30%) SAP LE
9 1 (0.30%) SAP PP-PI
9 1 (0.30%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 35 (10.51%) AWS
2 26 (7.81%) Azure
3 16 (4.80%) SaaS
4 13 (3.90%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (3.30%) GCP
6 10 (3.00%) Power Platform
7 7 (2.10%) dbt
8 6 (1.80%) Figma
9 5 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.20%) Cloud Run
10 4 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
10 4 (1.20%) Snowflake
10 4 (1.20%) Veeva
11 3 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.90%) Amazon SageMaker
11 3 (0.90%) Azure AKS
11 3 (0.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 3 (0.90%) GitHub
11 3 (0.90%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.20%) Firewall
1 4 (1.20%) VLAN
2 3 (0.90%) Ethernet
2 3 (0.90%) Modbus
2 3 (0.90%) RS-485
3 2 (0.60%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.60%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.30%) AMQP
4 1 (0.30%) DHCP
4 1 (0.30%) DNS
4 1 (0.30%) HTTP
4 1 (0.30%) Junos
4 1 (0.30%) Network Security
4 1 (0.30%) NGFW
4 1 (0.30%) SSL
4 1 (0.30%) Telepresence
4 1 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.00%) Power BI
2 7 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (1.20%) Metadata
3 4 (1.20%) Tableau
4 3 (0.90%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (0.60%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.60%) SAP Data Services
5 2 (0.60%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.30%) Big Data
6 1 (0.30%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.30%) Neo4j
6 1 (0.30%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.30%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.30%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 13 (3.90%) JIRA
2 9 (2.70%) Git
3 3 (0.90%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.90%) MLflow
4 2 (0.60%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.60%) LSMW
5 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.30%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.30%) GitLab
5 1 (0.30%) Hudson
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.30%) Selenium
5 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 75 (22.52%) Manufacturing
2 74 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 72 (21.62%) Finance
4 32 (9.61%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (3.00%) Retail
6 9 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (2.40%) Advertising
7 8 (2.40%) Marketing
7 8 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.10%) Billing
8 7 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.80%) Public Speaking
10 5 (1.50%) Legal
10 5 (1.50%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.20%) Automotive
11 4 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.90%) Banking
12 3 (0.90%) Wearables
13 2 (0.60%) Law
Job Titles
1 38 (11.41%) Lead
2 30 (9.01%) Project Manager
3 29 (8.71%) Senior
4 24 (7.21%) Analyst
4 24 (7.21%) Consultant
5 14 (4.20%) SAP Consultant
6 13 (3.90%) Business Analyst
6 13 (3.90%) Data Engineer
6 13 (3.90%) Designer
7 12 (3.60%) Architect
8 11 (3.30%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 11 (3.30%) Developer
9 9 (2.70%) Data Scientist
10 8 (2.40%) Accountant
10 8 (2.40%) Product Designer
10 8 (2.40%) Quality Manager
10 8 (2.40%) Systems Accountant
11 7 (2.10%) IT Support Technician
11 7 (2.10%) Risk Manager
11 7 (2.10%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.80%) IDoc
2 5 (1.50%) EDI
2 5 (1.50%) FastAPI
2 5 (1.50%) PyTorch
2 5 (1.50%) React
3 4 (1.20%) Playwright
3 4 (1.20%) REST
4 3 (0.90%) Google JAX
4 3 (0.90%) J2EE
4 3 (0.90%) JAX
4 3 (0.90%) Ray
4 3 (0.90%) TensorFlow
5 2 (0.60%) JSON
5 2 (0.60%) Middleware
5 2 (0.60%) NumPy
5 2 (0.60%) OAuth
5 2 (0.60%) RESTful
5 2 (0.60%) SAP Core Interface
5 2 (0.60%) SciPy
5 2 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 74 (22.22%) Life Science
2 16 (4.80%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.90%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.60%) LIMS
5 11 (3.30%) CRISPR
6 10 (3.00%) FMCG
7 9 (2.70%) Onboarding
7 9 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (2.10%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (2.10%) NHS
10 6 (1.80%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.50%) Genomics
11 5 (1.50%) Management Information System
12 4 (1.20%) Biopharmaceutical
12 4 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.20%) Robotics
12 4 (1.20%) SCADA
13 3 (0.90%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 14 (4.20%) Windows
2 3 (0.90%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.60%) Linux
3 2 (0.60%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.60%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.30%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (14.71%) ERP
2 48 (14.41%) Validation
3 47 (14.11%) AI
4 43 (12.91%) Agile
5 40 (12.01%) Migration
5 40 (12.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 30 (9.01%) Biotechnology
6 30 (9.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 28 (8.41%) Project Management
8 27 (8.11%) Problem-Solving
9 26 (7.81%) Workshop Facilitation
10 24 (7.21%) Data Migration
11 22 (6.61%) Analytics
11 22 (6.61%) Continuous Improvement
11 22 (6.61%) Decision-Making
11 22 (6.61%) Machine Learning
12 21 (6.31%) DevOps
13 20 (6.01%) CI/CD
13 20 (6.01%) Data Analysis
13 20 (6.01%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 51 (15.32%) Python
2 28 (8.41%) SQL
3 12 (3.60%) R
4 5 (1.50%) TypeScript
5 4 (1.20%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.90%) ABAP
7 2 (0.60%) Java
8 1 (0.30%) Bicep
8 1 (0.30%) C
8 1 (0.30%) C++
8 1 (0.30%) DataWeave
8 1 (0.30%) Groovy
8 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.30%) SHACL
8 1 (0.30%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.30%) XPath
8 1 (0.30%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 40 (12.01%) Degree
2 9 (2.70%) A+ Certification
2 9 (2.70%) ACCA
2 9 (2.70%) CIMA
2 9 (2.70%) PMI Certification
2 9 (2.70%) PMP
3 4 (1.20%) Master's Degree
3 4 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (0.90%) CISM
4 3 (0.90%) CISSP
4 3 (0.90%) HND
5 2 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (0.60%) HNC
5 2 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
5 2 (0.60%) Security Cleared
6 1 (0.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (0.30%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.30%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.30%) CRISC
6 1 (0.30%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (11.11%) GxP
2 20 (6.01%) GMP
3 13 (3.90%) Data Quality
4 12 (3.60%) QA
5 10 (3.00%) GDPR
6 9 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (2.40%) PMO
8 6 (1.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (1.20%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 4 (1.20%) GRC
10 3 (0.90%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.90%) NIST
11 2 (0.60%) GAMP
11 2 (0.60%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.60%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.60%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.30%) EU AI Act
12 1 (0.30%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.30%) ITGC
System Software
1 6 (1.80%) Docker
2 3 (0.90%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.60%) vSphere
4 1 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 5 (1.50%) Kubernetes
1 5 (1.50%) Terraform
2 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
2 1 (0.30%) RSA Archer
2 1 (0.30%) WSUS
Vendors
1 91 (27.33%) SAP
2 37 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 12 (3.60%) Oracle
4 10 (3.00%) Google
5 7 (2.10%) SOTI
6 6 (1.80%) Ariba
6 6 (1.80%) Databricks
7 5 (1.50%) LabWare
8 4 (1.20%) LabVantage
8 4 (1.20%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.20%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.20%) VMware
9 3 (0.90%) Adobe
9 3 (0.90%) Conga
9 3 (0.90%) MuleSoft
10 2 (0.60%) Citrix
10 2 (0.60%) Dell
10 2 (0.60%) HP
10 2 (0.60%) JD Edwards
10 2 (0.60%) Sage