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 7 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 328 240 298
Rank change year-on-year -88 +58 +8
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 383 372 302
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.13% 0.77%
As % of the General category 1.30% 1.79% 1.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 259 172
10th Percentile £308 £360 £400
25th Percentile £388 £476 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% - +4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £688 £625
90th Percentile £677 £761 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -14.77% +10.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 13 18
10th Percentile £16.75 £16.22 £25.80
25th Percentile £33.70 £20.00 £40.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £51.80 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +1.06% +127.47%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £71.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £17.46 £57.50
% change year-on-year +121.80% -69.64% +224.49%

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 29,399 20,810 22,373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.04% 63.33% 57.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,462 13,011 14,078
10th Percentile £313 £279 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,192 1,115 1,395
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.42 £16.30 £17.00
Median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +27.24% -34.02% +27.07%
75th Percentile £59.50 £50.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.32 £38.12
% change year-on-year +45.61% -41.45% +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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 -115 292 £500 -9.09% 426
Work from Home +11 176 £475 -7.32% 162
London -18 155 £525 -10.64% 193
UK excluding London -145 112 £469 -14.77% 252
East of England -43 44 £500 -13.42% 31
South East -55 26 £475 -10.38% 57
North of England -112 22 £438 -24.57% 77
North West -80 15 £463 -20.26% 48
South West -26 12 £334 -55.50% 30
Wales -12 4 £175 -42.71% 11
North East -40 4 £245 - 11
Midlands -58 4 £450 -14.29% 34
Yorkshire -38 3 £463 - 18
East Midlands -15 1 £450 -14.29% 11
West Midlands -64 1 - - 23

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 5 (1.31%) IIS
2 4 (1.04%) FactoryTalk
2 4 (1.04%) SAS
3 3 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.78%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.52%) Apache
4 2 (0.52%) Confluence
4 2 (0.52%) WinCC
5 1 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.26%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.26%) CMS
5 1 (0.26%) Mendix
Applications
1 22 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.04%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.52%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.52%) InDesign
6 2 (0.52%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 63 (16.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.61%) SAP SD
3 6 (1.57%) SAP EWM
4 4 (1.04%) SAP FI
4 4 (1.04%) SAP MM
4 4 (1.04%) TrackWise
5 3 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.78%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.78%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.78%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.78%) SAP IBP
5 3 (0.78%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.78%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.78%) SAP QM
6 2 (0.52%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.52%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.52%) SAP GTS
7 1 (0.26%) Bankmaster
7 1 (0.26%) JDE EnterpriseOne
Cloud Services
1 44 (11.49%) AWS
2 36 (9.40%) Azure
3 18 (4.70%) SaaS
4 16 (4.18%) GCP
4 16 (4.18%) Power Platform
5 11 (2.87%) Snowflake
6 10 (2.61%) dbt
6 10 (2.61%) GitHub
7 9 (2.35%) Veeva
8 8 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.83%) Figma
10 6 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
11 5 (1.31%) Cloud Run
11 5 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.04%) Google Workspace
12 4 (1.04%) Serverless
13 3 (0.78%) AWS Direct Connect
13 3 (0.78%) Collibra
13 3 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.35%) Firewall
2 8 (2.09%) VLAN
3 6 (1.57%) TCP/IP
4 5 (1.31%) DNS
4 5 (1.31%) HTTPS
5 3 (0.78%) Network Security
5 3 (0.78%) VPN
5 3 (0.78%) WAN
6 2 (0.52%) DHCP
6 2 (0.52%) X.21
7 1 (0.26%) AMQP
7 1 (0.26%) HTTP
7 1 (0.26%) Junos
7 1 (0.26%) NGFW
7 1 (0.26%) SSL
7 1 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.18%) Power BI
2 11 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (2.09%) Metadata
4 6 (1.57%) Tableau
5 5 (1.31%) MySQL
5 5 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 4 (1.04%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.04%) SAP BW
6 4 (1.04%) SAP HANA
7 3 (0.78%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.78%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.78%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.78%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.78%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.78%) Semantic Layer
7 3 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (0.52%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (4.18%) JIRA
2 11 (2.87%) Git
3 5 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.78%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.26%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.26%) ER Studio
6 1 (0.26%) GitLab
6 1 (0.26%) LSMW
6 1 (0.26%) Postman
6 1 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.26%) Selenium
6 1 (0.26%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.26%) TestRail
6 1 (0.26%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 107 (27.94%) Social Skills
2 86 (22.45%) Manufacturing
3 67 (17.49%) Finance
4 56 (14.62%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (3.66%) Marketing
5 14 (3.66%) Organisational Skills
5 14 (3.66%) Retail
6 10 (2.61%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (2.35%) Advertising
7 9 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.35%) Legal
8 7 (1.83%) Billing
9 6 (1.57%) Banking
10 5 (1.31%) Automotive
10 5 (1.31%) Health Technology
10 5 (1.31%) Law
10 5 (1.31%) Public Sector
10 5 (1.31%) Public Speaking
11 4 (1.04%) Digital Health
11 4 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 40 (10.44%) Consultant
2 39 (10.18%) Analyst
3 36 (9.40%) Project Manager
4 34 (8.88%) Lead
5 33 (8.62%) Senior
6 24 (6.27%) Business Analyst
6 24 (6.27%) SAP Consultant
7 22 (5.74%) Architect
8 16 (4.18%) Data Engineer
9 15 (3.92%) Product Owner
10 14 (3.66%) Developer
11 11 (2.87%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 8 (2.09%) Data Analyst
12 8 (2.09%) Data Scientist
13 7 (1.83%) Designer
13 7 (1.83%) Network Engineer
13 7 (1.83%) SAP Manager
13 7 (1.83%) Solutions Architect
14 6 (1.57%) AWS Engineer
14 6 (1.57%) SAP Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.39%) REST
2 7 (1.83%) React
3 6 (1.57%) IDoc
3 6 (1.57%) PyTorch
4 5 (1.31%) EDI
4 5 (1.31%) RESTful
4 5 (1.31%) SOAP
4 5 (1.31%) XML
5 4 (1.04%) FastAPI
5 4 (1.04%) Hibernate
5 4 (1.04%) Pandas
5 4 (1.04%) SAP Fiori
5 4 (1.04%) SQLAlchemy
6 3 (0.78%) .NET
6 3 (0.78%) Google JAX
6 3 (0.78%) Jakarta EE
6 3 (0.78%) JAX
6 3 (0.78%) SAPUI5
6 3 (0.78%) TensorFlow
7 2 (0.52%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 120 (31.33%) Life Science
2 23 (6.01%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.18%) FMCG
3 16 (4.18%) LIMS
4 15 (3.92%) Data Structures
5 12 (3.13%) CRISPR
5 12 (3.13%) Operational Technology
6 10 (2.61%) Cloud Native
7 9 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (2.09%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.83%) Biopharmaceutical
9 7 (1.83%) SCADA
10 6 (1.57%) NHS
11 5 (1.31%) Genomics
11 5 (1.31%) Manufacturing Execution System
11 5 (1.31%) Onboarding
12 4 (1.04%) Robotics
12 4 (1.04%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.70%) Windows
2 8 (2.09%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.78%) Linux
4 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.26%) Unix
4 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (18.02%) AI
2 68 (17.75%) Agile
2 68 (17.75%) Stakeholder Management
3 62 (16.19%) Validation
4 49 (12.79%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (10.70%) Migration
6 40 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 39 (10.18%) Biotechnology
7 39 (10.18%) Continuous Improvement
8 38 (9.92%) ERP
9 34 (8.88%) Analytics
10 33 (8.62%) Roadmaps
11 31 (8.09%) Project Management
12 30 (7.83%) Data Pipeline
12 30 (7.83%) Workshop Facilitation
13 29 (7.57%) Data Modelling
13 29 (7.57%) Machine Learning
14 28 (7.31%) Data Governance
15 27 (7.05%) CI/CD
16 26 (6.79%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 57 (14.88%) Python
2 33 (8.62%) SQL
3 12 (3.13%) R
4 8 (2.09%) Java
5 6 (1.57%) ABAP
6 5 (1.31%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.04%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.04%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.78%) C#
9 2 (0.52%) Cypher
9 2 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.26%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.26%) Gremlin
10 1 (0.26%) Groovy
10 1 (0.26%) Korn
10 1 (0.26%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.26%) SHACL
10 1 (0.26%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.26%) XPath
10 1 (0.26%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 49 (12.79%) Degree
2 12 (3.13%) PMI Certification
2 12 (3.13%) PMP
3 8 (2.09%) Security Cleared
4 5 (1.31%) CSPO
4 5 (1.31%) Master's Degree
4 5 (1.31%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (0.78%) ACCA
6 3 (0.78%) CIMA
6 3 (0.78%) CISM
6 3 (0.78%) CISSP
6 3 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.78%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 2 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.52%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.52%) HNC
7 2 (0.52%) HND
8 1 (0.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (15.14%) GxP
2 21 (5.48%) QA
3 18 (4.70%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.70%) GMP
4 14 (3.66%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 13 (3.39%) GDPR
6 11 (2.87%) GRC
6 11 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (2.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (1.57%) HIPAA
9 5 (1.31%) PCI DSS
9 5 (1.31%) PMO
10 3 (0.78%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.78%) NIST
11 2 (0.52%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.52%) GAMP
11 2 (0.52%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.26%) CDISC
12 1 (0.26%) SLA
12 1 (0.26%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 10 (2.61%) Docker
2 7 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.57%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.52%) vSphere
5 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 12 (3.13%) Terraform
2 4 (1.04%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.26%) Apache Ranger
3 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.26%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.26%) SCCM
3 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (0.26%) WSUS
Vendors
1 85 (22.19%) SAP
2 27 (7.05%) Microsoft
3 10 (2.61%) Google
3 10 (2.61%) Oracle
4 9 (2.35%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.35%) VMware
5 8 (2.09%) Rockwell
6 7 (1.83%) Palo Alto
6 7 (1.83%) Zscaler
7 6 (1.57%) Ariba
7 6 (1.57%) Databricks
7 6 (1.57%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.04%) LabVantage
8 4 (1.04%) Siemens
9 3 (0.78%) Adobe
9 3 (0.78%) Citrix
9 3 (0.78%) Conga
9 3 (0.78%) MuleSoft
9 3 (0.78%) Palantir
10 2 (0.52%) Informatica