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 22 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 244 285
Rank change year-on-year -113 +41 +23
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 349 345 308
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 1.06% 0.81%
As % of the General category 1.15% 1.67% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 225 170
10th Percentile £263 £369 £385
25th Percentile £400 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +4.55% +7.32%
75th Percentile £631 £675 £600
90th Percentile £700 £750 £689
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £581 £525
% change year-on-year -22.55% +10.67% +3.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 12 16
10th Percentile £16.38 £18.87 £21.25
25th Percentile £17.94 £41.95 £27.31
Median hourly rate £38.72 £63.40 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.93% +58.49% +79.65%
75th Percentile £70.63 £97.50 £54.06
90th Percentile £97.50 - £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.41 £18.87 £40.00
% change year-on-year +50.53% -52.83% +100.00%

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 30,427 20,617 22,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.76% 63.48% 58.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,821 12,765 13,200
10th Percentile £313 £275 £283
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,558 1,199 1,073
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.78 £25.15 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +18.41% -28.87% +28.58%
75th Percentile £54.36 £47.31 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.00 £35.03
% change year-on-year +42.86% -40.05% +28.79%

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 22 September 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 22 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Top 16 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 22 September 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 -139 267 £500 -9.09% 863
Work from Home -12 154 £525 +3.96% 323
London -25 148 £525 - 348
UK excluding London -137 106 £450 -22.55% 560
North of England -90 28 £450 -33.33% 149
South East -58 26 £609 +5.32% 139
East of England -64 26 £425 -26.72% 77
North West -80 18 £475 -29.63% 100
South West -29 13 £334 -55.50% 41
Wales -9 6 £175 -42.71% 17
North East -31 5 £200 - 14
Yorkshire -40 5 £450 +38.46% 35
Midlands -48 4 £450 -14.29% 83
Scotland - 3 £425 - 42
East Midlands -15 1 £450 -14.29% 34
West Midlands - 1 - - 49

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 (2.29%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.43%) IIS
3 4 (1.15%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (1.15%) SAS
4 3 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.57%) Apache
5 2 (0.57%) Confluence
6 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.29%) CMS
Applications
1 12 (3.44%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.57%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.57%) InDesign
5 2 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.57%) Photoshop
5 2 (0.57%) Windchill
6 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 47 (13.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.72%) SAP SD
3 4 (1.15%) SAP FI
3 4 (1.15%) SAP IBP
3 4 (1.15%) TrackWise
4 3 (0.86%) SAP CO
4 3 (0.86%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.86%) SAP FI/CO
4 3 (0.86%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.86%) SAP PP
5 2 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.57%) ENOVIA
5 2 (0.57%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.57%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.57%) SAP GTS
5 2 (0.57%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.57%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.29%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 1 (0.29%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.29%) SAP MII
Cloud Services
1 45 (12.89%) Azure
2 40 (11.46%) AWS
3 19 (5.44%) Power Platform
4 18 (5.16%) GCP
5 17 (4.87%) Snowflake
6 16 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (4.01%) GitHub
7 14 (4.01%) SaaS
8 10 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.29%) dbt
10 8 (2.29%) Veeva
11 6 (1.72%) Serverless
12 5 (1.43%) Azure AI
12 5 (1.43%) Cloud Run
12 5 (1.43%) Figma
13 4 (1.15%) Amazon S3
13 4 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.58%) Firewall
2 8 (2.29%) DNS
3 7 (2.01%) VLAN
4 5 (1.43%) DHCP
4 5 (1.43%) HTTPS
4 5 (1.43%) Network Security
4 5 (1.43%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.86%) WAN
6 2 (0.57%) VPN
6 2 (0.57%) X.21
7 1 (0.29%) DMZ
7 1 (0.29%) NGFW
7 1 (0.29%) SSL
7 1 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.44%) Power BI
2 9 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (2.29%) Metadata
3 8 (2.29%) Neo4j
4 7 (2.01%) SAP BW
4 7 (2.01%) SAP HANA
5 5 (1.43%) MySQL
5 5 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.43%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.43%) Tableau
6 4 (1.15%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.15%) Data Mining
6 4 (1.15%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.15%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.86%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.86%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.86%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.57%) Pinecone
8 2 (0.57%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 14 (4.01%) Git
2 13 (3.72%) JIRA
3 7 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.86%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.86%) GitLab
5 2 (0.57%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.57%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.29%) LSMW
6 1 (0.29%) Postman
6 1 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.29%) TestRail
6 1 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 112 (32.09%) Social Skills
2 73 (20.92%) Manufacturing
3 56 (16.05%) Finance
4 54 (15.47%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (4.30%) Retail
6 14 (4.01%) Legal
6 14 (4.01%) Marketing
6 14 (4.01%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (3.15%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.29%) Banking
8 8 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.72%) Public Sector
11 5 (1.43%) Automotive
11 5 (1.43%) Billing
11 5 (1.43%) Law
12 3 (0.86%) Advertising
12 3 (0.86%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.86%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 43 (12.32%) Analyst
2 38 (10.89%) Consultant
3 37 (10.60%) Senior
4 29 (8.31%) Architect
5 28 (8.02%) Lead
5 28 (8.02%) Project Manager
6 24 (6.88%) Business Analyst
7 20 (5.73%) SAP Consultant
8 17 (4.87%) Data Engineer
9 13 (3.72%) Developer
10 9 (2.58%) Data Analyst
11 8 (2.29%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 8 (2.29%) Network Engineer
11 8 (2.29%) Product Owner
11 8 (2.29%) SAP Architect
11 8 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
12 7 (2.01%) AWS Engineer
12 7 (2.01%) Data Business Analyst
12 7 (2.01%) SAP Manager
12 7 (2.01%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.73%) REST
2 14 (4.01%) Terraform
3 9 (2.58%) React
4 7 (2.01%) SOAP
5 6 (1.72%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.72%) SAP Fiori
5 6 (1.72%) SAPUI5
6 5 (1.43%) .NET
6 5 (1.43%) Kafka
6 5 (1.43%) Middleware
6 5 (1.43%) PyTorch
7 4 (1.15%) Hibernate
7 4 (1.15%) RESTful
7 4 (1.15%) SAP Basis
7 4 (1.15%) SAP PI
7 4 (1.15%) SQLAlchemy
7 4 (1.15%) XML
8 3 (0.86%) EDI
8 3 (0.86%) Jakarta EE
8 3 (0.86%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 131 (37.54%) Life Science
2 21 (6.02%) FMCG
3 19 (5.44%) Product Ownership
4 17 (4.87%) Cloud Native
5 14 (4.01%) LIMS
6 12 (3.44%) Operational Technology
7 10 (2.87%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.58%) Data Structures
8 9 (2.58%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.29%) Biopharmaceutical
9 8 (2.29%) CRISPR
9 8 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (2.01%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (2.01%) NHS
10 7 (2.01%) SCADA
11 6 (1.72%) AI Agents
11 6 (1.72%) Genomics
11 6 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (1.43%) Manufacturing Execution System
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.45%) Windows
2 11 (3.15%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.43%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.57%) Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Android
5 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.29%) VMS
5 1 (0.29%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (23.21%) Stakeholder Management
2 72 (20.63%) AI
3 55 (15.76%) Agile
4 54 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
5 51 (14.61%) Validation
6 46 (13.18%) Analytics
6 46 (13.18%) Continuous Improvement
7 42 (12.03%) Biotechnology
8 37 (10.60%) Migration
9 36 (10.32%) CI/CD
9 36 (10.32%) Roadmaps
10 32 (9.17%) DevOps
11 30 (8.60%) Machine Learning
11 30 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 29 (8.31%) Data Governance
13 28 (8.02%) Data Pipeline
14 27 (7.74%) Data Modelling
14 27 (7.74%) Decision-Making
14 27 (7.74%) ERP
15 26 (7.45%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (15.19%) Python
2 29 (8.31%) SQL
3 7 (2.01%) Java
3 7 (2.01%) R
4 6 (1.72%) ABAP
4 6 (1.72%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.15%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.15%) TypeScript
6 3 (0.86%) C#
7 2 (0.57%) Cypher
7 2 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.57%) Korn
8 1 (0.29%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.29%) Bicep
8 1 (0.29%) Gremlin
8 1 (0.29%) Groovy
8 1 (0.29%) MATLAB
8 1 (0.29%) SPARQL
8 1 (0.29%) XPath
8 1 (0.29%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 53 (15.19%) Degree
2 12 (3.44%) PMI Certification
2 12 (3.44%) PMP
3 11 (3.15%) Security Cleared
4 8 (2.29%) DBS Check
5 7 (2.01%) SC Cleared
6 6 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.43%) CSPO
7 5 (1.43%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.15%) MCITP
9 3 (0.86%) CAPM
9 3 (0.86%) CISM
9 3 (0.86%) CISSP
9 3 (0.86%) PhD
9 3 (0.86%) Postgraduate
10 2 (0.57%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (14.61%) GxP
2 27 (7.74%) Data Quality
3 16 (4.58%) QA
4 15 (4.30%) GMP
5 12 (3.44%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 12 (3.44%) GDPR
6 11 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (2.87%) GRC
8 8 (2.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (1.72%) HIPAA
9 6 (1.72%) PMO
10 5 (1.43%) PCI DSS
11 4 (1.15%) NIST
12 3 (0.86%) EU AI Act
13 2 (0.57%) GAMP
14 1 (0.29%) CDISC
14 1 (0.29%) ISO 14001
14 1 (0.29%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.29%) SLA
14 1 (0.29%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 18 (5.16%) Docker
2 9 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (2.01%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.15%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.29%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (3.44%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.15%) SCCM
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Ranger
3 1 (0.29%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.29%) Grafana
3 1 (0.29%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 65 (18.62%) SAP
2 33 (9.46%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.15%) VMware
4 9 (2.58%) Databricks
4 9 (2.58%) Oracle
4 9 (2.58%) Palo Alto
4 9 (2.58%) Zscaler
5 8 (2.29%) Ariba
5 8 (2.29%) Google
5 8 (2.29%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.72%) Rockwell
7 5 (1.43%) Citrix
7 5 (1.43%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.15%) Cisco
8 4 (1.15%) Foundry
8 4 (1.15%) JD Edwards
8 4 (1.15%) LabVantage
9 3 (0.86%) Conga
10 2 (0.57%) Adobe
10 2 (0.57%) LabWare