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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 225 237
Rank change year-on-year -97 +12 +101
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 346 336 411
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 1.17% 0.97%
As % of the General category 1.33% 1.84% 1.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 222 250
10th Percentile £315 £378 £363
25th Percentile £381 £485 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £688 £600
90th Percentile £668 £820 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 41
10th Percentile £19.28 £19.10 £17.72
25th Percentile £50.00 £42.23 £20.75
Median hourly rate £72.50 £53.52 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +35.46% +42.73% -10.71%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £20.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +175.00% -50.00% +23.97%

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 26,036 18,224 24,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.56% 63.25% 57.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,816 11,584 15,556
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% -2.19% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +3.47% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,695 778 1,949
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.77 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.19 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £24.50 £28.00
% change year-on-year +18.37% -12.50% +1.45%

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 May 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 May 2026.

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 24 May 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 -146 240 £513 -6.82% 203
Work from Home +10 152 £475 -9.52% 122
London -23 125 £525 -29.34% 103
UK excluding London -149 85 £475 -13.64% 120
East of England -55 39 £465 -15.55% 13
North of England -113 20 £475 -13.64% 37
South East -43 17 £491 -32.31% 36
North West -72 17 £508 -7.73% 23
South West -29 3 - - 11
North East -31 3 £290 - 1
Midlands -76 3 - - 18
Wales -15 2 £175 -42.71% 3
Scotland -1 1 - - 2
West Midlands -66 1 - - 11

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 3 (0.87%) IIS
1 3 (0.87%) SAS
1 3 (0.87%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.58%) WinCC
3 1 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.29%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.29%) CMS
3 1 (0.29%) Confluence
3 1 (0.29%) Mendix
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 29 (8.38%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (2.02%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.58%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.58%) InDesign
4 2 (0.58%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.58%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 58 (16.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.89%) SAP SD
3 6 (1.73%) SAP EWM
4 5 (1.45%) SAP MM
4 5 (1.45%) SAP QM
5 4 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (1.16%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.87%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.58%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.58%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.58%) SAP GTS
7 2 (0.58%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.58%) SAP WM
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.29%) SAP LE
8 1 (0.29%) SAP MDG-M
8 1 (0.29%) SAP MII
8 1 (0.29%) SAP PP-PI
8 1 (0.29%) TrackWise
Cloud Services
1 41 (11.85%) AWS
2 27 (7.80%) Azure
3 16 (4.62%) SaaS
4 11 (3.18%) GCP
4 11 (3.18%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (2.31%) Power Platform
6 7 (2.02%) dbt
7 6 (1.73%) Figma
7 6 (1.73%) GitHub
8 5 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.16%) Cloud Run
9 4 (1.16%) Veeva
10 3 (0.87%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.87%) Amazon SageMaker
10 3 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.87%) Azure AKS
10 3 (0.87%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (0.87%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.45%) Firewall
2 4 (1.16%) VLAN
3 3 (0.87%) DNS
3 3 (0.87%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.87%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.87%) Modbus
3 3 (0.87%) RS-485
4 2 (0.58%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.58%) VPN
4 2 (0.58%) WAN
4 2 (0.58%) X.21
5 1 (0.29%) AMQP
5 1 (0.29%) DHCP
5 1 (0.29%) HTTP
5 1 (0.29%) Junos
5 1 (0.29%) Network Security
5 1 (0.29%) NGFW
5 1 (0.29%) SSL
5 1 (0.29%) Telepresence
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.31%) Power BI
2 7 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (1.16%) Tableau
4 3 (0.87%) Metadata
4 3 (0.87%) NoSQL
4 3 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (0.58%) Amazon QuickSight
5 2 (0.58%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.58%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.58%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.58%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.58%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.29%) Big Data
6 1 (0.29%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.29%) Neo4j
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.29%) SAP Data Services
6 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 12 (3.47%) JIRA
2 11 (3.18%) Git
3 3 (0.87%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.87%) MLflow
4 1 (0.29%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.29%) ER Studio
4 1 (0.29%) GitLab
4 1 (0.29%) Hudson
4 1 (0.29%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.29%) LSMW
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
4 1 (0.29%) Selenium
4 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 78 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 75 (21.68%) Manufacturing
3 74 (21.39%) Finance
4 32 (9.25%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.89%) Retail
6 9 (2.60%) Advertising
6 9 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.31%) Legal
7 8 (2.31%) Marketing
8 7 (2.02%) Billing
9 6 (1.73%) Public Speaking
10 5 (1.45%) Automotive
10 5 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.16%) Law
12 3 (0.87%) Banking
12 3 (0.87%) Public Sector
12 3 (0.87%) Wearables
13 2 (0.58%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 38 (10.98%) Lead
2 33 (9.54%) Senior
3 32 (9.25%) Project Manager
4 27 (7.80%) Consultant
5 25 (7.23%) Analyst
6 15 (4.34%) Data Engineer
6 15 (4.34%) SAP Consultant
7 14 (4.05%) Business Analyst
8 13 (3.76%) Architect
8 13 (3.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 13 (3.76%) Designer
9 11 (3.18%) Developer
10 9 (2.60%) Data Scientist
11 8 (2.31%) Accountant
11 8 (2.31%) AWS Engineer
11 8 (2.31%) Product Designer
11 8 (2.31%) Systems Accountant
12 7 (2.02%) Product Owner
12 7 (2.02%) Quality Manager
12 7 (2.02%) SAP Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.73%) IDoc
2 5 (1.45%) EDI
2 5 (1.45%) FastAPI
2 5 (1.45%) PyTorch
2 5 (1.45%) REST
3 4 (1.16%) Pandas
3 4 (1.16%) React
4 3 (0.87%) Google JAX
4 3 (0.87%) J2EE
4 3 (0.87%) JAX
4 3 (0.87%) Playwright
4 3 (0.87%) Ray
4 3 (0.87%) TensorFlow
4 3 (0.87%) XML
5 2 (0.58%) Kafka
5 2 (0.58%) LangGraph
5 2 (0.58%) SAP Core Interface
5 2 (0.58%) Seaborn
5 2 (0.58%) Web Services
5 2 (0.58%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 82 (23.70%) Life Science
2 16 (4.62%) Data Structures
3 15 (4.34%) LIMS
4 13 (3.76%) FMCG
4 13 (3.76%) Product Ownership
5 12 (3.47%) CRISPR
6 9 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.02%) Cloud Native
7 7 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.02%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.73%) NHS
9 5 (1.45%) Genomics
9 5 (1.45%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.16%) Biopharmaceutical
10 4 (1.16%) Robotics
10 4 (1.16%) SCADA
11 3 (0.87%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.87%) Omics
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.34%) Windows
2 3 (0.87%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.58%) Linux
3 2 (0.58%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.58%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (14.45%) AI
2 49 (14.16%) Validation
3 48 (13.87%) ERP
4 43 (12.43%) Agile
5 41 (11.85%) Stakeholder Management
6 39 (11.27%) Migration
7 36 (10.40%) Biotechnology
8 34 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 27 (7.80%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (7.80%) Project Management
10 26 (7.51%) Machine Learning
10 26 (7.51%) Workshop Facilitation
11 24 (6.94%) Data Migration
12 23 (6.65%) Decision-Making
12 23 (6.65%) DevOps
13 22 (6.36%) Continuous Improvement
14 21 (6.07%) CI/CD
14 21 (6.07%) Data Science
15 20 (5.78%) Analytics
15 20 (5.78%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 56 (16.18%) Python
2 28 (8.09%) SQL
3 13 (3.76%) R
4 5 (1.45%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.16%) TypeScript
6 3 (0.87%) ABAP
6 3 (0.87%) Java
7 1 (0.29%) Bicep
7 1 (0.29%) C
7 1 (0.29%) C++
7 1 (0.29%) DataWeave
7 1 (0.29%) Groovy
7 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.29%) SHACL
7 1 (0.29%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.29%) XPath
7 1 (0.29%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 38 (10.98%) Degree
2 9 (2.60%) ACCA
2 9 (2.60%) CIMA
3 8 (2.31%) A+ Certification
3 8 (2.31%) PMI Certification
3 8 (2.31%) PMP
4 4 (1.16%) Security Cleared
5 3 (0.87%) CISM
5 3 (0.87%) CISSP
5 3 (0.87%) Master's Degree
5 3 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (0.87%) SC Cleared
6 2 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.58%) HNC
6 2 (0.58%) HND
6 2 (0.58%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (0.29%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.29%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.29%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (11.27%) GxP
2 20 (5.78%) GMP
3 12 (3.47%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.47%) QA
4 9 (2.60%) GDPR
4 9 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (2.02%) GRC
5 7 (2.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 6 (1.73%) PMO
7 4 (1.16%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 3 (0.87%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.87%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.87%) NIST
8 3 (0.87%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.58%) GAMP
9 2 (0.58%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.29%) EU AI Act
10 1 (0.29%) ISO 13485
10 1 (0.29%) ITGC
System Software
1 6 (1.73%) Docker
2 4 (1.16%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.58%) vSphere
4 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 9 (2.60%) Terraform
2 6 (1.73%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.29%) RSA Archer
3 1 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 86 (24.86%) SAP
2 34 (9.83%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.18%) Oracle
4 10 (2.89%) Google
5 6 (1.73%) Databricks
5 6 (1.73%) SOTI
6 5 (1.45%) LabWare
7 4 (1.16%) Ariba
7 4 (1.16%) LabVantage
7 4 (1.16%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.16%) ServiceNow
7 4 (1.16%) VMware
7 4 (1.16%) Zscaler
8 3 (0.87%) Adobe
8 3 (0.87%) Conga
8 3 (0.87%) MuleSoft
8 3 (0.87%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.58%) IFS
9 2 (0.58%) Palantir
9 2 (0.58%) Rockwell