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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 349 252 287
Rank change year-on-year -97 +35 +30
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 356 350 312
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 1.06% 0.81%
As % of the General category 1.18% 1.67% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 180 232 170
10th Percentile £279 £375 £363
25th Percentile £390 £476 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £563 £550
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +2.27% +8.64%
75th Percentile £621 £688 £607
90th Percentile £688 £750 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £580 £525
% change year-on-year -24.57% +10.48% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 11 17
10th Percentile £16.38 £18.87 £21.25
25th Percentile £20.31 £34.25 £35.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £51.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.24% +29.49% +77.54%
75th Percentile £76.13 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £97.50 - £82.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.41 £18.87 £41.44
% change year-on-year +50.53% -54.46% +88.36%

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 30,205 20,961 22,292
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.56% 63.68% 57.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,737 12,993 13,480
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £497
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.45% -0.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,464 1,199 1,134
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.98 £25.15 £37.39
Median % change year-on-year +19.20% -32.74% +35.96%
75th Percentile £53.87 £49.13 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.50 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.35 £37.50
% change year-on-year +40.55% -43.08% +44.23%

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 13 September 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 13 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Pharmaceutical in the UK

Pharmaceutical
Top 16 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 13 September 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 -112 270 £500 -9.09% 621
Work from Home -14 163 £525 +3.96% 358
London -33 150 £525 -4.55% 298
UK excluding London -130 106 £438 -24.57% 381
East of England -47 30 £425 -26.72% 46
North of England -99 26 £438 -33.96% 103
South East -51 24 £521 -9.74% 109
North West -93 16 £475 -29.63% 64
South West -34 13 £334 -55.50% 23
Wales -14 6 £175 -42.71% 12
Yorkshire -36 5 £450 +38.46% 23
North East -37 5 £200 - 17
Midlands -41 4 £450 -14.29% 56
Scotland - 3 £425 - 31
East Midlands -17 1 £450 -14.29% 22
West Midlands - 1 - - 34

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 8 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.40%) IIS
3 4 (1.12%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (1.12%) SAS
4 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.56%) Apache
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.28%) CMS
6 1 (0.28%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (3.93%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.12%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.56%) InDesign
6 2 (0.56%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.56%) Windchill
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 50 (14.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.97%) SAP SD
3 4 (1.12%) SAP FI
3 4 (1.12%) SAP IBP
3 4 (1.12%) TrackWise
4 3 (0.84%) SAP CO
4 3 (0.84%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.84%) SAP FI/CO
4 3 (0.84%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.84%) SAP PP
5 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.56%) ENOVIA
5 2 (0.56%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.56%) SAP EWM
5 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.56%) SAP GTS
5 2 (0.56%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.28%) OpenText VIM for SAP
Cloud Services
1 43 (12.08%) Azure
2 41 (11.52%) AWS
3 19 (5.34%) Power Platform
4 18 (5.06%) GCP
5 17 (4.78%) Snowflake
6 16 (4.49%) SaaS
7 15 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (3.65%) GitHub
9 10 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (2.25%) dbt
10 8 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.25%) Veeva
11 5 (1.40%) Azure AI
11 5 (1.40%) Cloud Run
11 5 (1.40%) Figma
11 5 (1.40%) Serverless
12 4 (1.12%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.12%) Dynamics 365
13 3 (0.84%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.84%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.25%) DNS
1 8 (2.25%) Firewall
2 7 (1.97%) VLAN
3 5 (1.40%) DHCP
3 5 (1.40%) HTTPS
3 5 (1.40%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.12%) Network Security
5 3 (0.84%) WAN
6 2 (0.56%) VPN
6 2 (0.56%) X.21
7 1 (0.28%) DMZ
7 1 (0.28%) NGFW
7 1 (0.28%) SSL
7 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.34%) Power BI
2 10 (2.81%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (2.25%) Metadata
4 7 (1.97%) Neo4j
5 6 (1.69%) SAP BW
5 6 (1.69%) SAP HANA
6 5 (1.40%) MySQL
6 5 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (1.40%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.40%) Tableau
7 4 (1.12%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.12%) Data Mining
7 4 (1.12%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.12%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.84%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.84%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.84%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.56%) Pinecone
9 2 (0.56%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 14 (3.93%) Git
1 14 (3.93%) JIRA
2 7 (1.97%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.84%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.56%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.56%) GitLab
4 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.28%) LSMW
5 1 (0.28%) Postman
5 1 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
5 1 (0.28%) Selenium
5 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.28%) TestRail
5 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 114 (32.02%) Social Skills
2 75 (21.07%) Manufacturing
3 56 (15.73%) Finance
4 55 (15.45%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (3.93%) Legal
5 14 (3.93%) Retail
6 13 (3.65%) Marketing
6 13 (3.65%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (3.37%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.25%) Banking
8 8 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.69%) Billing
9 6 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.69%) Law
10 5 (1.40%) Advertising
10 5 (1.40%) Automotive
10 5 (1.40%) Health Technology
10 5 (1.40%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.12%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 42 (11.80%) Analyst
2 38 (10.67%) Consultant
3 35 (9.83%) Senior
4 34 (9.55%) Project Manager
5 29 (8.15%) Lead
6 26 (7.30%) Architect
7 22 (6.18%) Business Analyst
7 22 (6.18%) SAP Consultant
8 16 (4.49%) Data Engineer
9 13 (3.65%) Developer
10 10 (2.81%) Data Analyst
11 9 (2.53%) Product Owner
12 8 (2.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 7 (1.97%) AWS Engineer
13 7 (1.97%) Network Engineer
13 7 (1.97%) SAP Architect
13 7 (1.97%) SAP Manager
13 7 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
13 7 (1.97%) Support Technician
14 6 (1.69%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.34%) REST
2 14 (3.93%) Terraform
3 9 (2.53%) React
4 6 (1.69%) FastAPI
4 6 (1.69%) SOAP
5 5 (1.40%) .NET
5 5 (1.40%) PyTorch
5 5 (1.40%) SAP Fiori
5 5 (1.40%) SAPUI5
6 4 (1.12%) EDI
6 4 (1.12%) Hibernate
6 4 (1.12%) IDoc
6 4 (1.12%) Kafka
6 4 (1.12%) Middleware
6 4 (1.12%) RESTful
6 4 (1.12%) SAP PI
6 4 (1.12%) SQLAlchemy
6 4 (1.12%) XML
7 3 (0.84%) PySpark
7 3 (0.84%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 132 (37.08%) Life Science
2 22 (6.18%) Product Ownership
3 20 (5.62%) FMCG
4 15 (4.21%) Cloud Native
5 14 (3.93%) LIMS
6 12 (3.37%) Operational Technology
7 11 (3.09%) Data Structures
8 10 (2.81%) Biopharmaceutical
8 10 (2.81%) CRISPR
9 9 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (2.53%) Management Information System
10 8 (2.25%) NHS
11 7 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (1.97%) Onboarding
11 7 (1.97%) SCADA
12 6 (1.69%) Genomics
12 6 (1.69%) Greenfield Project
13 5 (1.40%) AI Agents
13 5 (1.40%) Manufacturing Execution System
13 5 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.30%) Windows
2 11 (3.09%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.40%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.56%) Linux
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.28%) VMS
5 1 (0.28%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (21.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 69 (19.38%) AI
3 59 (16.57%) Agile
4 56 (15.73%) Validation
5 55 (15.45%) Problem-Solving
6 44 (12.36%) Biotechnology
7 43 (12.08%) Analytics
7 43 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 39 (10.96%) Migration
9 34 (9.55%) CI/CD
9 34 (9.55%) Roadmaps
10 33 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 30 (8.43%) Data Governance
11 30 (8.43%) DevOps
12 29 (8.15%) Project Management
13 28 (7.87%) Data Pipeline
13 28 (7.87%) ERP
14 27 (7.58%) Machine Learning
15 26 (7.30%) Data Modelling
15 26 (7.30%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 54 (15.17%) Python
2 29 (8.15%) SQL
3 9 (2.53%) R
4 7 (1.97%) ABAP
4 7 (1.97%) Java
5 6 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 4 (1.12%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.12%) TypeScript
7 3 (0.84%) C#
8 2 (0.56%) Cypher
8 2 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.56%) Korn
9 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.28%) Bicep
9 1 (0.28%) Gremlin
9 1 (0.28%) Groovy
9 1 (0.28%) MATLAB
9 1 (0.28%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.28%) XPath
9 1 (0.28%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 52 (14.61%) Degree
2 14 (3.93%) PMI Certification
2 14 (3.93%) PMP
3 9 (2.53%) Security Cleared
4 6 (1.69%) DBS Check
4 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
4 6 (1.69%) SC Cleared
5 5 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (1.40%) CSPO
5 5 (1.40%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 4 (1.12%) MCITP
7 3 (0.84%) CAPM
7 3 (0.84%) CISM
7 3 (0.84%) CISSP
7 3 (0.84%) Postgraduate
7 3 (0.84%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 2 (0.56%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.56%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (14.89%) GxP
2 26 (7.30%) Data Quality
3 19 (5.34%) QA
4 14 (3.93%) GMP
5 13 (3.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 13 (3.65%) GDPR
6 11 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (2.81%) GRC
8 8 (2.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (1.69%) HIPAA
9 6 (1.69%) PMO
10 5 (1.40%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.84%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.84%) GAMP
11 3 (0.84%) NIST
12 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.28%) COSHH
12 1 (0.28%) IEC 61508
12 1 (0.28%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.28%) NIST 800
System Software
1 17 (4.78%) Docker
2 9 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.97%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.28%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.28%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (3.09%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.12%) SCCM
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Ranger
3 1 (0.28%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.28%) Grafana
3 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 70 (19.66%) SAP
2 32 (8.99%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.09%) Oracle
3 11 (3.09%) VMware
4 8 (2.25%) Ariba
4 8 (2.25%) Databricks
4 8 (2.25%) Google
4 8 (2.25%) Palo Alto
4 8 (2.25%) ServiceNow
4 8 (2.25%) Zscaler
5 6 (1.69%) Rockwell
5 6 (1.69%) Salesforce
6 5 (1.40%) Citrix
6 5 (1.40%) Foundry
7 4 (1.12%) JD Edwards
7 4 (1.12%) LabVantage
8 3 (0.84%) Cisco
8 3 (0.84%) Conga
9 2 (0.56%) Adobe
9 2 (0.56%) Sitecore