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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 361 250 299
Rank change year-on-year -111 +49 +22
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 355 344 295
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 1.06% 0.77%
As % of the General category 1.20% 1.67% 1.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 230 167
10th Percentile £279 £374 £378
25th Percentile £389 £485 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -17.39% +4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £619 £688 £620
90th Percentile £675 £760 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £580 £525
% change year-on-year -22.41% +10.48% +3.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 12 15
10th Percentile £16.64 £18.87 £21.25
25th Percentile £21.50 £19.72 £33.88
Median hourly rate £38.72 £51.80 £42.88
Median % change year-on-year -25.24% +20.79% +90.32%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.56 £18.87 £41.44
% change year-on-year +77.86% -54.46% +108.66%

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 29,647 20,544 21,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.27% 63.58% 57.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,516 12,745 13,465
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £419 £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 £498
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,299 1,164 1,171
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.47 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.77 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £30.50 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.27% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.75 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.16 £22.04 £38.12
% change year-on-year +41.36% -42.18% +46.90%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -109 270 £500 -9.09% 788
Work from Home +1 164 £525 +3.19% 382
London -36 146 £525 -4.55% 384
UK excluding London -127 104 £450 -22.41% 459
East of England -41 35 £463 -20.26% 69
North of England -105 24 £425 -37.04% 107
South East -61 22 £521 -1.65% 132
North West -81 16 £475 -29.63% 61
South West -38 12 £334 -55.50% 46
Wales -14 6 £175 -42.71% 10
North East -33 5 £200 - 23
Midlands -47 4 £450 -14.29% 65
Yorkshire -40 3 £463 +42.31% 24
East Midlands -22 1 £450 -14.29% 29
West Midlands -47 1 - - 36
Scotland - 1 £425 - 31

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 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.41%) IIS
3 4 (1.13%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (1.13%) SAS
4 3 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.56%) Apache
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.28%) CMS
6 1 (0.28%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (3.94%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (2.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.97%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.13%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.56%) InDesign
6 2 (0.56%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.56%) Windchill
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 51 (14.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.54%) SAP SD
3 4 (1.13%) SAP FI
3 4 (1.13%) SAP IBP
3 4 (1.13%) TrackWise
4 3 (0.85%) SAP CO
4 3 (0.85%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.85%) SAP FI/CO
4 3 (0.85%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.85%) SAP PP
5 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.56%) ENOVIA
5 2 (0.56%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.56%) SAP EWM
5 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.56%) SAP GTS
5 2 (0.56%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.28%) Bankmaster
Cloud Services
1 42 (11.83%) AWS
2 41 (11.55%) Azure
3 17 (4.79%) Power Platform
3 17 (4.79%) SaaS
4 16 (4.51%) GCP
4 16 (4.51%) Snowflake
5 13 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.82%) GitHub
7 9 (2.54%) dbt
7 9 (2.54%) Veeva
8 8 (2.25%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (1.41%) Azure AI
9 5 (1.41%) Cloud Run
9 5 (1.41%) Figma
9 5 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (1.13%) Serverless
11 3 (0.85%) AWS Direct Connect
12 2 (0.56%) Azure Pipelines
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.25%) DNS
1 8 (2.25%) Firewall
2 7 (1.97%) VLAN
3 5 (1.41%) DHCP
3 5 (1.41%) HTTPS
3 5 (1.41%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.85%) Network Security
4 3 (0.85%) WAN
5 2 (0.56%) VPN
5 2 (0.56%) X.21
6 1 (0.28%) NGFW
6 1 (0.28%) SSL
6 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (4.79%) Power BI
2 10 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (2.25%) Metadata
4 7 (1.97%) Neo4j
5 5 (1.41%) MySQL
5 5 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.41%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.41%) Tableau
6 4 (1.13%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.13%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.13%) SAP BW
6 4 (1.13%) SAP HANA
7 3 (0.85%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.85%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.85%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.85%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.85%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.56%) Amazon QuickSight
8 2 (0.56%) Pinecone
8 2 (0.56%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 15 (4.23%) JIRA
2 14 (3.94%) Git
3 5 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.85%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.28%) GitLab
6 1 (0.28%) LSMW
6 1 (0.28%) Postman
6 1 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.28%) Selenium
6 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.28%) TestRail
6 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 112 (31.55%) Social Skills
2 73 (20.56%) Manufacturing
3 55 (15.49%) Finance
4 54 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (3.94%) Legal
5 14 (3.94%) Marketing
6 12 (3.38%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (3.10%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (3.10%) Retail
8 8 (2.25%) Banking
8 8 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.69%) Advertising
10 6 (1.69%) Billing
10 6 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.69%) Law
10 6 (1.69%) Public Sector
11 5 (1.41%) Automotive
11 5 (1.41%) Health Technology
11 5 (1.41%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 42 (11.83%) Analyst
2 37 (10.42%) Project Manager
3 36 (10.14%) Consultant
4 28 (7.89%) Senior
5 26 (7.32%) Lead
6 24 (6.76%) Business Analyst
7 23 (6.48%) Architect
8 22 (6.20%) SAP Consultant
9 16 (4.51%) Data Engineer
10 15 (4.23%) Developer
11 11 (3.10%) Product Owner
12 10 (2.82%) Data Analyst
13 9 (2.54%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 7 (1.97%) SAP Manager
14 7 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
15 6 (1.69%) AWS Engineer
15 6 (1.69%) Data Business Analyst
15 6 (1.69%) Data Scientist
15 6 (1.69%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 6 (1.69%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (4.79%) REST
2 13 (3.66%) Terraform
3 9 (2.54%) React
4 7 (1.97%) PyTorch
5 6 (1.69%) FastAPI
6 5 (1.41%) .NET
7 4 (1.13%) EDI
7 4 (1.13%) Google JAX
7 4 (1.13%) Hibernate
7 4 (1.13%) IDoc
7 4 (1.13%) JAX
7 4 (1.13%) RESTful
7 4 (1.13%) SOAP
7 4 (1.13%) SQLAlchemy
7 4 (1.13%) TensorFlow
7 4 (1.13%) XML
8 3 (0.85%) Pandas
8 3 (0.85%) PySpark
8 3 (0.85%) SAP Fiori
8 3 (0.85%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 128 (36.06%) Life Science
2 23 (6.48%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.51%) FMCG
4 14 (3.94%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.94%) LIMS
5 12 (3.38%) Cloud Native
6 11 (3.10%) Operational Technology
7 10 (2.82%) CRISPR
8 9 (2.54%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
9 8 (2.25%) Biopharmaceutical
9 8 (2.25%) Management Information System
10 7 (1.97%) NHS
11 6 (1.69%) Genomics
11 6 (1.69%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.69%) SCADA
11 6 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.41%) AI Agents
12 5 (1.41%) Manufacturing Execution System
13 4 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.48%) Windows
2 11 (3.10%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.85%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.56%) Linux
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.28%) VMS
5 1 (0.28%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (20.85%) Stakeholder Management
2 67 (18.87%) AI
3 61 (17.18%) Agile
4 58 (16.34%) Validation
5 51 (14.37%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (11.55%) Biotechnology
6 41 (11.55%) Continuous Improvement
7 38 (10.70%) Migration
8 35 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 34 (9.58%) Analytics
10 31 (8.73%) CI/CD
10 31 (8.73%) Project Management
10 31 (8.73%) Roadmaps
11 29 (8.17%) Data Governance
12 28 (7.89%) DevOps
12 28 (7.89%) ERP
12 28 (7.89%) Machine Learning
13 27 (7.61%) Data Pipeline
14 26 (7.32%) Decision-Making
15 25 (7.04%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 58 (16.34%) Python
2 28 (7.89%) SQL
3 9 (2.54%) R
4 7 (1.97%) Java
5 6 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.41%) ABAP
7 4 (1.13%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.13%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.85%) C#
9 2 (0.56%) Cypher
9 2 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.28%) Bicep
10 1 (0.28%) Gremlin
10 1 (0.28%) Groovy
10 1 (0.28%) Korn
10 1 (0.28%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.28%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.28%) XPath
10 1 (0.28%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 49 (13.80%) Degree
2 12 (3.38%) PMI Certification
2 12 (3.38%) PMP
3 9 (2.54%) Security Cleared
4 6 (1.69%) SC Cleared
5 5 (1.41%) CSPO
5 5 (1.41%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.13%) DBS Check
6 4 (1.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 4 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.85%) CISM
7 3 (0.85%) CISSP
7 3 (0.85%) Postgraduate
7 3 (0.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 2 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.56%) MCITP
8 2 (0.56%) PhD
9 1 (0.28%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (15.49%) GxP
2 22 (6.20%) Data Quality
3 21 (5.92%) QA
4 14 (3.94%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 14 (3.94%) GMP
5 13 (3.66%) GDPR
6 11 (3.10%) GRC
7 10 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (2.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (1.69%) HIPAA
10 5 (1.41%) PCI DSS
11 4 (1.13%) PMO
12 3 (0.85%) EU AI Act
13 2 (0.56%) GAMP
13 2 (0.56%) NIST
14 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
14 1 (0.28%) CDISC
14 1 (0.28%) NCSC
14 1 (0.28%) SLA
14 1 (0.28%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 17 (4.79%) Docker
2 9 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.97%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.28%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.28%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.13%) SCCM
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Ranger
3 1 (0.28%) Grafana
3 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 70 (19.72%) SAP
2 27 (7.61%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.10%) VMware
4 8 (2.25%) Ariba
4 8 (2.25%) Databricks
4 8 (2.25%) Oracle
4 8 (2.25%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.97%) Google
5 7 (1.97%) Palo Alto
5 7 (1.97%) Zscaler
6 6 (1.69%) Rockwell
6 6 (1.69%) Salesforce
7 5 (1.41%) Citrix
7 5 (1.41%) Foundry
8 4 (1.13%) LabVantage
9 3 (0.85%) Conga
10 2 (0.56%) Palantir
10 2 (0.56%) Sitecore
10 2 (0.56%) Splunk
10 2 (0.56%) SYSPRO