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 24 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 303 246 228
Rank change year-on-year -57 -18 +119
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 315 319 457
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 1.01% 1.04%
As % of the General category 1.39% 1.63% 1.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 177 311
10th Percentile £350 £350 £270
25th Percentile £463 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% +4.48%
75th Percentile £659 £638 £584
90th Percentile £785 £700 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £552 £525 £523
% change year-on-year +5.19% +0.48% +16.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 23 24
10th Percentile £18.57 £19.00 £17.39
25th Percentile £26.47 £24.18 £20.00
Median hourly rate £75.00 £32.50 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +130.77% +20.37% +68.75%
75th Percentile £97.50 £35.00 £51.56
90th Percentile - £89.05 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £32.50 £24.75
% change year-on-year -41.94% +31.31% +76.79%

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 22,664 19,541 25,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 59.64% 61.81% 58.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,263 11,660 16,840
10th Percentile £284 £285 £266
25th Percentile £401 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,390 642 1,432
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.36 £20.00 £15.32
Median hourly rate £22.92 £27.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.65% +5.77% +4.00%
75th Percentile £46.94 £53.44 £55.47
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.46 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £26.23 £25.25
% change year-on-year -19.46% +3.88% +12.67%

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 24 January 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 24 January 2026.

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 24 January 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 -79 238 £537 -2.36% 343
Work from Home -3 120 £525 -4.55% 166
London +32 107 £600 - 47
UK excluding London -113 102 £552 +5.19% 343
East of England -36 37 £500 -4.76% 59
North of England -103 30 £575 +4.55% 70
North West -61 27 £588 +6.82% 32
South East -10 26 £565 +165.76% 98
South West - 5 £700 - 47
Scotland -1 3 £550 +54.93% 10
East Midlands -29 2 £525 -12.50% 25
Midlands -50 2 £525 -12.50% 43
Yorkshire -62 2 £325 -5.25% 28
Wales -5 1 £183 - 19
North East -16 1 - - 10

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 7 (2.22%) Confluence
2 6 (1.90%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.59%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.95%) CMS
4 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.32%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Mendix
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 14 (4.44%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.63%) Weka
4 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
4 1 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.32%) InDesign
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 82 (26.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (2.54%) SAP QM
3 7 (2.22%) SAP MM
4 6 (1.90%) SAP CO
4 6 (1.90%) SAP EWM
4 6 (1.90%) SAP PM
4 6 (1.90%) SAP PP
5 5 (1.59%) SAP FI
5 5 (1.59%) SAP FI/CO
5 5 (1.59%) SAP MDG
6 4 (1.27%) SAP WM
7 3 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
7 3 (0.95%) SAP IBP
7 3 (0.95%) SAP SD
8 2 (0.63%) PRMS
8 2 (0.63%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.63%) SAP SCM
9 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.32%) TrackWise
Cloud Services
1 38 (12.06%) AWS
2 36 (11.43%) Azure
3 27 (8.57%) GCP
4 25 (7.94%) Power Platform
5 18 (5.71%) GitHub
6 14 (4.44%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (4.44%) Snowflake
7 12 (3.81%) Cloud Run
8 6 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (1.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 5 (1.59%) dbt
9 5 (1.59%) Veeva
10 4 (1.27%) Figma
10 4 (1.27%) IaaS
10 4 (1.27%) SaaS
11 3 (0.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 2 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
12 2 (0.63%) Azure Pipelines
12 2 (0.63%) Collibra
12 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.54%) Network Security
2 4 (1.27%) Firewall
2 4 (1.27%) Wireless
3 3 (0.95%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.95%) Modbus
3 3 (0.95%) RS-485
4 2 (0.63%) BGP
4 2 (0.63%) OSPF
5 1 (0.32%) Cisco ICM
5 1 (0.32%) DHCP
5 1 (0.32%) DNS
5 1 (0.32%) RFID
5 1 (0.32%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.32%) SMS
5 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.32%) Telepresence
5 1 (0.32%) VPN
5 1 (0.32%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.94%) Power BI
2 16 (5.08%) Data Lake
3 9 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (2.22%) SAP HANA
5 5 (1.59%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.59%) Electronic Patient Records
6 4 (1.27%) Metadata
7 3 (0.95%) Tableau
8 2 (0.63%) Ataccama
8 2 (0.63%) Neo4j
8 2 (0.63%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.63%) SAP Data Services
9 1 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.32%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.32%) Big Data
9 1 (0.32%) KNIME
9 1 (0.32%) Power Query
9 1 (0.32%) Qlik Sense
9 1 (0.32%) SAP BW
9 1 (0.32%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 19 (6.03%) Git
2 16 (5.08%) JIRA
3 5 (1.59%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.95%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.63%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.63%) GitLab
5 2 (0.63%) LSMW
5 2 (0.63%) Selenium
6 1 (0.32%) Hudson
6 1 (0.32%) PHPUnit
6 1 (0.32%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 80 (25.40%) Social Skills
2 70 (22.22%) Manufacturing
3 54 (17.14%) Finance
4 24 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.13%) Influencing Skills
6 12 (3.81%) Marketing
7 11 (3.49%) Aerospace
8 10 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.90%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.95%) Digital Health
12 3 (0.95%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.95%) Retail
12 3 (0.95%) Wearables
13 2 (0.63%) Banking
13 2 (0.63%) Digital Healthcare
13 2 (0.63%) Legal
14 1 (0.32%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 40 (12.70%) Lead
2 31 (9.84%) Consultant
3 23 (7.30%) SAP Consultant
4 20 (6.35%) Analyst
5 19 (6.03%) Architect
6 18 (5.71%) Developer
6 18 (5.71%) Project Manager
6 18 (5.71%) Senior
7 13 (4.13%) Python Developer
8 10 (3.17%) Data Engineer
8 10 (3.17%) Data Scientist
8 10 (3.17%) Designer
8 10 (3.17%) IT Manager
8 10 (3.17%) SAP Manager
8 10 (3.17%) Software Engineer
9 9 (2.86%) Data Analytics Specialist
9 9 (2.86%) Full-Stack Developer
9 9 (2.86%) Quality Manager
9 9 (2.86%) SAP Financial Specialist
10 8 (2.54%) Risk Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (5.71%) FastAPI
1 18 (5.71%) pytest
2 13 (4.13%) React
2 13 (4.13%) SAP Fiori
3 11 (3.49%) LangGraph
4 6 (1.90%) Playwright
5 3 (0.95%) MACH
5 3 (0.95%) pydantic
6 2 (0.63%) EDI
6 2 (0.63%) IDoc
6 2 (0.63%) Jest
6 2 (0.63%) Next.js
6 2 (0.63%) RESTful
6 2 (0.63%) SailPoint
6 2 (0.63%) SAP PI
6 2 (0.63%) SOAP
7 1 (0.32%) CSS
7 1 (0.32%) Node.js
7 1 (0.32%) Web Services
7 1 (0.32%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (18.10%) Life Science
2 20 (6.35%) Genomics
3 17 (5.40%) Cloud Native
4 14 (4.44%) FMCG
5 11 (3.49%) Onboarding
6 9 (2.86%) Product Ownership
7 8 (2.54%) NHS
8 7 (2.22%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.90%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.90%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (1.59%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (1.59%) LIMS
11 4 (1.27%) Biopharmaceutical
11 4 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (1.27%) Management Information System
11 4 (1.27%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.27%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 14 (4.44%) Windows
2 6 (1.90%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.27%) Linux
3 4 (1.27%) Mac OS
3 4 (1.27%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.95%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (17.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 53 (16.83%) AI
3 52 (16.51%) Agile
4 45 (14.29%) Analytics
4 45 (14.29%) ERP
5 39 (12.38%) Continuous Improvement
5 39 (12.38%) Machine Learning
6 36 (11.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 35 (11.11%) Validation
8 34 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
9 33 (10.48%) Migration
10 32 (10.16%) DevOps
11 27 (8.57%) Biotechnology
12 24 (7.62%) Decision-Making
13 23 (7.30%) Change Management
13 23 (7.30%) Data Science
13 23 (7.30%) Project Management
13 23 (7.30%) Roadmaps
13 23 (7.30%) Test Automation
14 22 (6.98%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 59 (18.73%) Python
2 22 (6.98%) SQL
3 14 (4.44%) TypeScript
4 12 (3.81%) R
5 8 (2.54%) Java
6 7 (2.22%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.63%) ABAP
7 2 (0.63%) Bash
7 2 (0.63%) Ruby
8 1 (0.32%) Ladder Logic
8 1 (0.32%) MATLAB
8 1 (0.32%) PHP
8 1 (0.32%) Scala
8 1 (0.32%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 50 (15.87%) Degree
2 14 (4.44%) Master's Degree
3 10 (3.17%) ACCA
3 10 (3.17%) CIMA
4 9 (2.86%) A+ Certification
4 9 (2.86%) PMI Certification
4 9 (2.86%) PMP
4 9 (2.86%) Security Cleared
5 6 (1.90%) SC Cleared
6 4 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (0.95%) CCNP
7 3 (0.95%) CCSA
7 3 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.63%) CISSP
8 2 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (0.63%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 1 (0.32%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.32%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.32%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (9.84%) GxP
2 16 (5.08%) GMP
3 15 (4.76%) QA
4 10 (3.17%) Data Quality
5 8 (2.54%) GDPR
6 7 (2.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.27%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.27%) PMO
8 3 (0.95%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 3 (0.95%) SLA
9 1 (0.32%) GAMP
9 1 (0.32%) GRC
9 1 (0.32%) HL7
9 1 (0.32%) IEC 62304
9 1 (0.32%) IFRS
9 1 (0.32%) ISO 13485
9 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.32%) ITGC
9 1 (0.32%) MiFID
9 1 (0.32%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 26 (8.25%) Docker
2 5 (1.59%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 3 (0.95%) Lustre
4 2 (0.63%) GPFS
5 1 (0.32%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.54%) Terraform
3 5 (1.59%) Ansible
4 3 (0.95%) Packer
4 3 (0.95%) SCCM
5 2 (0.63%) HP ALM
5 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.63%) Puppet
5 2 (0.63%) Salt
6 1 (0.32%) Cisco UCCE
6 1 (0.32%) Cisco UCCX
6 1 (0.32%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.32%) RSA Archer
6 1 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.32%) TeamSite
Vendors
1 110 (34.92%) SAP
2 35 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 22 (6.98%) Google
4 9 (2.86%) Ariba
5 7 (2.22%) SOTI
6 6 (1.90%) Palo Alto
6 6 (1.90%) Salesforce
6 6 (1.90%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.59%) Oracle
7 5 (1.59%) Zscaler
8 4 (1.27%) Cisco
8 4 (1.27%) HP
9 3 (0.95%) Cerner
9 3 (0.95%) IBM
9 3 (0.95%) LabWare
9 3 (0.95%) MEDITECH
10 2 (0.63%) CyberArk
10 2 (0.63%) IFS
10 2 (0.63%) Meraki
10 2 (0.63%) Rockwell