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 17 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 248 286 308
Rank change year-on-year +38 +22 +68
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 359 316 376
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.09% 0.83% 0.76%
As % of the General category 1.71% 1.43% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 172 243
10th Percentile £377 £365 £266
25th Percentile £485 £463 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £544 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.75% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £675 £601 £605
90th Percentile £750 £720 £723
UK excluding London median daily rate £580 £525 £505
% change year-on-year +10.48% +3.96% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 17 25
10th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £17.35
25th Percentile £41.95 £27.75 £17.72
Median hourly rate £63.40 £40.00 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year +58.49% +77.54% -35.63%
75th Percentile £97.50 £55.00 £62.50
90th Percentile - £67.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £40.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -52.83% +90.48% -22.22%

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 20,950 22,147 29,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 63.60% 57.91% 59.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,987 13,281 19,876
10th Percentile £275 £283 £306
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £671
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,199 1,107 1,067
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.70 £13.91
25th Percentile £16.17 £17.08 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% +30.91% +12.24%
75th Percentile £48.75 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £67.50 £70.39 £70.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.39 £35.36 £26.25
% change year-on-year -39.51% +34.70% +25.00%

Pharmaceutical
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Pharmaceutical as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Pharmaceutical 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 17 September 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 17 September 2025.

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 17 September 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 +45 291 £550 - 402
UK excluding London +4 150 £580 +10.48% 315
Work from Home +10 107 £510 -7.27% 159
London +42 94 £550 - 165
East of England +6 63 £580 +16.00% 32
North of England -24 55 £663 +23.26% 95
North West -12 53 £675 +28.57% 60
South East +27 21 £578 +54.13% 124
Wales +10 6 £305 - 10
South West - 5 £750 - 16
East Midlands -6 2 £525 -12.50% 14
Midlands -15 2 £525 -12.50% 29
Yorkshire -25 1 £325 -40.91% 29
North East - 1 - - 8

Pharmaceutical
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (2.23%) Confluence
2 3 (0.84%) CMS
3 2 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.56%) SAS
4 1 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.28%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.28%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.28%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 6 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.84%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.56%) Adobe After Effects
4 2 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.56%) Photoshop
4 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.28%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 91 (25.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.51%) SAP ERP
3 8 (2.23%) SAP MM
4 6 (1.67%) SAP CO
4 6 (1.67%) SAP IBP
4 6 (1.67%) SAP MDG
4 6 (1.67%) SAP PLM
5 5 (1.39%) SAP FI
5 5 (1.39%) SAP FI/CO
5 5 (1.39%) SAP PP
5 5 (1.39%) SAP SD
6 4 (1.11%) SAP VC
6 4 (1.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
7 3 (0.84%) SAP QM
8 2 (0.56%) PRMS
8 2 (0.56%) SAP EWM
8 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.28%) SAP R/3
9 1 (0.28%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 51 (14.21%) AWS
2 27 (7.52%) Azure
3 18 (5.01%) Power Platform
4 13 (3.62%) GitHub
5 12 (3.34%) GCP
6 9 (2.51%) Veeva
7 6 (1.67%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (1.67%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.11%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.11%) Anthropic Claude
8 4 (1.11%) Azure AI
8 4 (1.11%) Cloud Run
8 4 (1.11%) Google Gemini
8 4 (1.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 4 (1.11%) SuccessFactors
9 3 (0.84%) Amazon EC2
9 3 (0.84%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (0.84%) Lucidchart
9 3 (0.84%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (0.84%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.23%) Network Security
2 4 (1.11%) Firewall
3 3 (0.84%) VPN
4 1 (0.28%) DHCP
4 1 (0.28%) DNS
4 1 (0.28%) Intranet
4 1 (0.28%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.28%) LAN
4 1 (0.28%) NGFW
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%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.01%) Power BI
2 12 (3.34%) SAP HANA
3 10 (2.79%) Data Lake
3 10 (2.79%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.23%) Metadata
5 7 (1.95%) Electronic Patient Records
6 5 (1.39%) Neo4j
7 4 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.56%) Ataccama
9 2 (0.56%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.56%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.56%) Text Mining
10 1 (0.28%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.28%) DTS
10 1 (0.28%) EDMS
10 1 (0.28%) KNIME
10 1 (0.28%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.28%) SAP BW
10 1 (0.28%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (4.74%) JIRA
2 9 (2.51%) Git
3 6 (1.67%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.39%) LoadRunner
4 5 (1.39%) NeoLoad
5 3 (0.84%) JMeter
6 2 (0.56%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.56%) ERwin
7 1 (0.28%) ER Studio
7 1 (0.28%) PHPUnit
7 1 (0.28%) Selenium
7 1 (0.28%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 111 (30.92%) Social Skills
2 92 (25.63%) Finance
3 71 (19.78%) Manufacturing
4 36 (10.03%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.46%) Legal
6 11 (3.06%) Marketing
7 10 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.51%) Aerospace
8 9 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.95%) German Language
10 6 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.67%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.11%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.56%) Digital Health
13 2 (0.56%) Digital Healthcare
13 2 (0.56%) Health Technology
13 2 (0.56%) Law
13 2 (0.56%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 50 (13.93%) Consultant
2 49 (13.65%) Lead
3 38 (10.58%) SAP Consultant
4 26 (7.24%) Developer
5 25 (6.96%) Analyst
5 25 (6.96%) Project Manager
6 23 (6.41%) Architect
7 18 (5.01%) Accountant
7 18 (5.01%) Systems Accountant
8 17 (4.74%) Python Developer
9 14 (3.90%) SAP Manager
10 13 (3.62%) IT Manager
10 13 (3.62%) Senior
11 12 (3.34%) Business Analyst
12 11 (3.06%) Full-Stack Developer
12 11 (3.06%) Full-Stack Python Developer
12 11 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA Consultant
13 10 (2.79%) Data Scientist
14 9 (2.51%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 9 (2.51%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.62%) SAP Fiori
2 11 (3.06%) React
3 6 (1.67%) FastAPI
3 6 (1.67%) pytest
4 4 (1.11%) PyTorch
4 4 (1.11%) Streamlit
4 4 (1.11%) TensorFlow
5 3 (0.84%) FHIR
5 3 (0.84%) Kafka
5 3 (0.84%) LangGraph
5 3 (0.84%) MACH
5 3 (0.84%) Middleware
5 3 (0.84%) pydantic
5 3 (0.84%) SailPoint
6 2 (0.56%) AWS Amplify
6 2 (0.56%) EDI
6 2 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
6 2 (0.56%) RESTful
6 2 (0.56%) SOAP
6 2 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 55 (15.32%) Life Science
2 13 (3.62%) Genomics
3 11 (3.06%) FMCG
4 9 (2.51%) Algorithms
4 9 (2.51%) Data Structures
4 9 (2.51%) NHS
5 7 (1.95%) Cloud Native
6 6 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (1.67%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.67%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.67%) Operational Technology
7 5 (1.39%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.11%) Data Fabric
8 4 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.11%) LIMS
8 4 (1.11%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.11%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.84%) Biopharmaceutical
9 3 (0.84%) Marketing Technology
9 3 (0.84%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 9 (2.51%) Windows
2 7 (1.95%) Apple iOS
3 6 (1.67%) Linux
4 4 (1.11%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.84%) Android
6 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (18.94%) Problem-Solving
2 58 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 54 (15.04%) Agile
4 51 (14.21%) Project Management
5 46 (12.81%) ERP
6 44 (12.26%) Artificial Intelligence
7 41 (11.42%) Analytics
7 41 (11.42%) Change Management
8 33 (9.19%) Validation
9 30 (8.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 29 (8.08%) Migration
11 28 (7.80%) Machine Learning
12 26 (7.24%) Decision-Making
12 26 (7.24%) User Acceptance Testing
13 25 (6.96%) Continuous Improvement
13 25 (6.96%) Process Improvement
14 24 (6.69%) Data Governance
15 22 (6.13%) Data Management
15 22 (6.13%) Roadmaps
16 21 (5.85%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 64 (17.83%) Python
2 30 (8.36%) SQL
3 17 (4.74%) R
4 13 (3.62%) TypeScript
5 10 (2.79%) Java
6 5 (1.39%) ABAP
7 4 (1.11%) Scala
8 3 (0.84%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.56%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.56%) Ruby
10 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.28%) Bicep
10 1 (0.28%) C#
10 1 (0.28%) Groovy
10 1 (0.28%) Korn
10 1 (0.28%) PHP
10 1 (0.28%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 55 (15.32%) Degree
2 20 (5.57%) ACCA
2 20 (5.57%) CIMA
3 14 (3.90%) PMI Certification
3 14 (3.90%) PMP
4 13 (3.62%) Master's Degree
5 10 (2.79%) Security Cleared
6 8 (2.23%) SC Cleared
7 6 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (1.39%) CCNP
8 5 (1.39%) CCSA
9 3 (0.84%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 2 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.56%) CISA
10 2 (0.56%) CISM
10 2 (0.56%) PhD
10 2 (0.56%) SAP Certification
11 1 (0.28%) CBAP
11 1 (0.28%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (11.14%) GxP
2 16 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 15 (4.18%) QA
4 14 (3.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 9 (2.51%) GMP
6 8 (2.23%) GDPR
7 7 (1.95%) APQC
8 6 (1.67%) Accessibility
8 6 (1.67%) PMO
9 5 (1.39%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 4 (1.11%) HL7
11 3 (0.84%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.84%) NCSC
11 3 (0.84%) SLA
12 2 (0.56%) IFRS
13 1 (0.28%) GAMP
13 1 (0.28%) GRC
13 1 (0.28%) IEC 62304
13 1 (0.28%) ISO 13485
13 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 20 (5.57%) Docker
2 3 (0.84%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 2 (0.56%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.28%) Lustre
4 1 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (7.24%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.79%) Terraform
3 3 (0.84%) Ansible
3 3 (0.84%) Packer
3 3 (0.84%) SCCM
4 2 (0.56%) HP ALM
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.28%) CASB
5 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.28%) HP Quality Center
5 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
5 1 (0.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 1 (0.28%) TeamSite
Vendors
1 157 (43.73%) SAP
2 22 (6.13%) Ariba
3 14 (3.90%) Microsoft
4 11 (3.06%) ServiceNow
5 10 (2.79%) Oracle
6 8 (2.23%) Google
7 7 (1.95%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.67%) Zscaler
9 5 (1.39%) Salesforce
9 5 (1.39%) Siemens
10 4 (1.11%) Sparx
10 4 (1.11%) Workday
11 3 (0.84%) Cisco
11 3 (0.84%) Remedy
12 2 (0.56%) Adobe
12 2 (0.56%) Apple
12 2 (0.56%) CyberArk
12 2 (0.56%) Databricks
12 2 (0.56%) HP
12 2 (0.56%) Rockwell