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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 316 223 210
Rank change year-on-year -93 -13 +138
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 324 350 510
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 1.18% 1.14%
As % of the General category 1.33% 1.88% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 219 336
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £400 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £659 £600
90th Percentile £720 £776 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £545 £525 £510
% change year-on-year +3.81% +2.94% +13.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 24 39
10th Percentile £16.17 £16.20 £17.60
25th Percentile £41.66 £23.14 £20.00
Median hourly rate £72.50 £32.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +123.08% +14.04% -5.00%
75th Percentile £97.50 £35.00 £47.63
90th Percentile - £97.50 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.50 £29.75 £21.50
% change year-on-year +66.39% +38.37% +79.17%

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 24,278 18,615 26,141
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 57.49% 62.56% 58.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,215 11,713 16,724
10th Percentile £300 £290 £263
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,481 657 1,815
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.26 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.12 £15.35
Median hourly rate £24.03 £29.23 £25.71
Median % change year-on-year -17.79% +13.69% -19.66%
75th Percentile £55.00 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.44 £25.00
% change year-on-year -16.88% +9.77% -5.87%

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 9 March 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 9 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Top 13 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 9 March 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 -121 239 £525 -4.55% 213
Work from Home -12 130 £513 -6.82% 122
London +5 116 £575 -13.21% 59
UK excluding London -139 102 £545 +3.81% 181
East of England -55 36 £500 -9.09% 22
South East -21 32 £565 +165.76% 58
North of England -105 25 £575 +4.55% 43
North West -69 21 £575 +4.55% 30
South West - 6 £700 - 22
Scotland +6 3 £550 +49.66% 5
North East -14 3 - - 4
Wales -7 1 £183 - 2
Yorkshire -57 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 6 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
1 6 (1.85%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.54%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.54%) Confluence
3 2 (0.62%) Mendix
3 2 (0.62%) WinCC
4 1 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.31%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 24 (7.41%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.62%) Weka
5 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 78 (24.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.78%) SAP EWM
3 8 (2.47%) SAP MM
4 7 (2.16%) SAP PM
5 6 (1.85%) SAP PP
5 6 (1.85%) SAP QM
5 6 (1.85%) SAP WM
6 4 (1.23%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.93%) SAP CO
8 2 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.62%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.62%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.62%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.62%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.62%) SAP SCM
8 2 (0.62%) TrackWise
9 1 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.31%) SAP LE
9 1 (0.31%) SAP Oil and Gas
9 1 (0.31%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 36 (11.11%) AWS
2 30 (9.26%) Azure
3 24 (7.41%) GCP
4 15 (4.63%) GitHub
4 15 (4.63%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (4.32%) Power Platform
6 11 (3.40%) Cloud Run
7 10 (3.09%) Snowflake
8 8 (2.47%) SaaS
9 7 (2.16%) dbt
10 6 (1.85%) Figma
11 4 (1.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 3 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (0.93%) Amazon SageMaker
12 3 (0.93%) Azure AKS
12 3 (0.93%) Azure DevOps
12 3 (0.93%) Dynamics 365
12 3 (0.93%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.93%) Veeva
13 2 (0.62%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.54%) Firewall
1 5 (1.54%) Network Security
2 4 (1.23%) Wireless
3 3 (0.93%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.93%) Modbus
3 3 (0.93%) RS-485
4 2 (0.62%) BGP
4 2 (0.62%) OSPF
4 2 (0.62%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.62%) VPN
5 1 (0.31%) AMQP
5 1 (0.31%) Cisco ICM
5 1 (0.31%) DNS
5 1 (0.31%) HTTP
5 1 (0.31%) Junos
5 1 (0.31%) RFID
5 1 (0.31%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.31%) SMS
5 1 (0.31%) Telepresence
5 1 (0.31%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.32%) Power BI
2 10 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 8 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (1.54%) BigQuery
5 4 (1.23%) Metadata
5 4 (1.23%) Tableau
6 3 (0.93%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (0.62%) Neo4j
7 2 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.62%) SAP Data Services
7 2 (0.62%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.62%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.31%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.31%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.31%) QlikView
8 1 (0.31%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 21 (6.48%) Git
2 12 (3.70%) JIRA
3 3 (0.93%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.93%) MLflow
4 2 (0.62%) GitLab
4 2 (0.62%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.62%) LSMW
5 1 (0.31%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.31%) Hudson
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.31%) PHPUnit
5 1 (0.31%) Selenium
General
1 71 (21.91%) Manufacturing
2 70 (21.60%) Social Skills
3 62 (19.14%) Finance
4 29 (8.95%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.01%) Aerospace
6 12 (3.70%) Marketing
7 11 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (2.16%) Retail
11 6 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (1.85%) Public Sector
11 6 (1.85%) Wearables
12 4 (1.23%) Digital Health
12 4 (1.23%) Legal
13 3 (0.93%) Advertising
13 3 (0.93%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.62%) Banking
14 2 (0.62%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 43 (13.27%) Lead
2 26 (8.02%) Consultant
3 24 (7.41%) Senior
4 17 (5.25%) Developer
5 15 (4.63%) Analyst
5 15 (4.63%) Project Manager
5 15 (4.63%) SAP Consultant
6 14 (4.32%) Data Engineer
7 13 (4.01%) Data Scientist
8 12 (3.70%) Architect
9 11 (3.40%) Designer
9 11 (3.40%) Python Developer
10 10 (3.09%) Software Engineer
11 8 (2.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 8 (2.47%) Business Analyst
11 8 (2.47%) IT Manager
11 8 (2.47%) IT Support
11 8 (2.47%) Quality Manager
12 7 (2.16%) Accountant
12 7 (2.16%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.94%) pytest
2 15 (4.63%) FastAPI
3 12 (3.70%) SAP Fiori
4 9 (2.78%) LangGraph
5 7 (2.16%) Playwright
5 7 (2.16%) React
6 3 (0.93%) EDI
6 3 (0.93%) IDoc
6 3 (0.93%) Ray
6 3 (0.93%) REST
6 3 (0.93%) RESTful
7 2 (0.62%) BAPI
7 2 (0.62%) CSS
7 2 (0.62%) JSON
7 2 (0.62%) PyTorch
7 2 (0.62%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.62%) SAP PI
7 2 (0.62%) SOAP
8 1 (0.31%) Web Services
8 1 (0.31%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (17.59%) Life Science
2 17 (5.25%) FMCG
3 12 (3.70%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.70%) Genomics
4 11 (3.40%) Product Ownership
5 10 (3.09%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.47%) Operational Technology
7 7 (2.16%) Data Structures
7 7 (2.16%) LIMS
8 6 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.85%) NHS
9 5 (1.54%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.54%) SCADA
9 5 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.23%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.23%) CRISPR
11 3 (0.93%) Biopharmaceutical
11 3 (0.93%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.40%) Windows
2 3 (0.93%) Mac OS
2 3 (0.93%) Windows 10
3 2 (0.62%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.31%) Linux
4 1 (0.31%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (18.21%) AI
2 48 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 45 (13.89%) Agile
4 43 (13.27%) ERP
5 41 (12.65%) Machine Learning
6 37 (11.42%) Validation
7 34 (10.49%) DevOps
8 32 (9.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 32 (9.88%) Migration
8 32 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 31 (9.57%) Biotechnology
10 30 (9.26%) Analytics
11 26 (8.02%) Data Science
11 26 (8.02%) Problem-Solving
12 25 (7.72%) Roadmaps
13 22 (6.79%) Test Automation
14 21 (6.48%) Workshop Facilitation
15 20 (6.17%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (5.86%) Data Governance
16 19 (5.86%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 62 (19.14%) Python
2 28 (8.64%) SQL
3 13 (4.01%) R
4 6 (1.85%) JavaScript
4 6 (1.85%) TypeScript
5 3 (0.93%) ABAP
5 3 (0.93%) Java
6 2 (0.62%) Bash
7 1 (0.31%) C
7 1 (0.31%) C++
7 1 (0.31%) DataWeave
7 1 (0.31%) Ladder Logic
7 1 (0.31%) PHP
7 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.31%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 44 (13.58%) Degree
2 9 (2.78%) A+ Certification
2 9 (2.78%) Master's Degree
3 8 (2.47%) ACCA
3 8 (2.47%) CIMA
4 7 (2.16%) Security Cleared
5 6 (1.85%) PMI Certification
5 6 (1.85%) PMP
5 6 (1.85%) SC Cleared
6 4 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (0.93%) HND
8 2 (0.62%) CISSP
8 2 (0.62%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (0.62%) HNC
8 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.31%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.31%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.31%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.31%) OCP
9 1 (0.31%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.17%) GxP
2 15 (4.63%) GMP
3 10 (3.09%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.09%) QA
4 7 (2.16%) GDPR
5 5 (1.54%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.54%) PMO
6 3 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.62%) ISO 13485
7 2 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.62%) SLA
8 1 (0.31%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 1 (0.31%) GAMP
8 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.31%) HL7
8 1 (0.31%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.31%) ITGC
8 1 (0.31%) MiFID
8 1 (0.31%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.31%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 18 (5.56%) Docker
2 2 (0.62%) GPFS
2 2 (0.62%) Lustre
2 2 (0.62%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (2.78%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.85%) Terraform
3 2 (0.62%) Ansible
3 2 (0.62%) Puppet
3 2 (0.62%) Salt
3 2 (0.62%) SCCM
4 1 (0.31%) Cisco UCCE
4 1 (0.31%) Cisco UCCX
4 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.31%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
4 1 (0.31%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 104 (32.10%) SAP
2 42 (12.96%) Microsoft
3 21 (6.48%) Google
4 8 (2.47%) Oracle
5 7 (2.16%) SOTI
6 6 (1.85%) Ariba
7 5 (1.54%) Databricks
7 5 (1.54%) LabWare
7 5 (1.54%) Salesforce
7 5 (1.54%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.23%) Cisco
9 3 (0.93%) Cerner
9 3 (0.93%) HP
9 3 (0.93%) IBM
9 3 (0.93%) MuleSoft
9 3 (0.93%) Siemens
10 2 (0.62%) IFS
10 2 (0.62%) Palo Alto
10 2 (0.62%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.62%) Zscaler