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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 228 204
Rank change year-on-year -94 -24 +153
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 311 351 519
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 1.14% 1.16%
As % of the General category 1.30% 1.84% 1.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 198 214 344
10th Percentile £350 £341 £304
25th Percentile £406 £437 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £582
90th Percentile £735 £768 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £555 £525 £510
% change year-on-year +5.62% +2.94% +13.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 23 40
10th Percentile £16.47 £19.00 £17.66
25th Percentile £49.25 £24.18 £20.00
Median hourly rate £75.00 £32.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +130.77% +14.04% +90.00%
75th Percentile £97.50 £35.00 £50.31
90th Percentile - £89.05 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.50 £32.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +52.31% +51.16% +65.38%

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 23,969 19,082 26,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.52% 62.09% 58.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,975 11,615 16,888
10th Percentile £300 £284 £265
25th Percentile £404 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £645 £650
90th Percentile £735 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £500
% change year-on-year -0.21% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,474 618 1,680
10th Percentile £13.70 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.39 £20.27 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.90 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.08% +15.00% -5.80%
75th Percentile £51.53 £57.59 £52.50
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £25.00
% change year-on-year -18.89% +8.50% -

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -120 236 £525 -4.55% 158
Work from Home +1 131 £513 -6.82% 66
London -6 109 £540 -18.49% 53
UK excluding London -143 97 £555 +5.62% 123
East of England -46 34 £500 -4.76% 14
South East -14 28 £575 +170.59% 38
North of England -108 26 £600 +10.09% 28
North West -76 22 £600 +9.59% 22
South West - 6 £700 - 17
Scotland +5 3 £550 +54.93% 3
North East -21 3 - - 5
Wales -2 1 £183 - 1
Yorkshire -63 1 - - 2

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 (1.93%) Apache Airflow
2 5 (1.61%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.61%) Confluence
2 5 (1.61%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.64%) WinCC
4 1 (0.32%) Mendix
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 21 (6.75%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.64%) Weka
5 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 77 (24.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.25%) SAP PM
3 6 (1.93%) SAP EWM
3 6 (1.93%) SAP MM
3 6 (1.93%) SAP PP
3 6 (1.93%) SAP QM
4 5 (1.61%) SAP MDG
4 5 (1.61%) SAP WM
5 4 (1.29%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.96%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.96%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.64%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.64%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.64%) SAP IBP
7 2 (0.64%) SAP SCM
7 2 (0.64%) TrackWise
8 1 (0.32%) SAP MDG-M
8 1 (0.32%) SAP Travel Management
8 1 (0.32%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 36 (11.58%) AWS
2 28 (9.00%) Azure
3 22 (7.07%) GCP
4 16 (5.14%) Power Platform
5 15 (4.82%) GitHub
6 14 (4.50%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (3.54%) Cloud Run
8 10 (3.22%) Snowflake
9 7 (2.25%) SaaS
9 7 (2.25%) Veeva
10 6 (1.93%) Figma
11 5 (1.61%) dbt
12 4 (1.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 3 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.96%) Amazon SageMaker
13 3 (0.96%) Azure AKS
14 2 (0.64%) Collibra
14 2 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
14 2 (0.64%) Serverless
14 2 (0.64%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.25%) Network Security
2 5 (1.61%) Firewall
3 4 (1.29%) Wireless
4 3 (0.96%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.96%) Modbus
4 3 (0.96%) RS-485
5 2 (0.64%) BGP
5 2 (0.64%) OSPF
5 2 (0.64%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.64%) VPN
6 1 (0.32%) Cisco ICM
6 1 (0.32%) DHCP
6 1 (0.32%) DNS
6 1 (0.32%) Junos
6 1 (0.32%) RFID
6 1 (0.32%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.32%) SMS
6 1 (0.32%) Telepresence
6 1 (0.32%) VLAN
6 1 (0.32%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.14%) Power BI
2 11 (3.54%) Data Lake
3 6 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (1.61%) BigQuery
5 4 (1.29%) Electronic Patient Records
5 4 (1.29%) Metadata
5 4 (1.29%) SAP HANA
6 3 (0.96%) Tableau
7 2 (0.64%) Neo4j
7 2 (0.64%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.64%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.64%) SAP Data Services
7 2 (0.64%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.32%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.32%) QlikView
8 1 (0.32%) Snowflake Schema
8 1 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 20 (6.43%) Git
2 10 (3.22%) JIRA
3 3 (0.96%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.96%) MLflow
4 2 (0.64%) GitLab
4 2 (0.64%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.64%) LSMW
5 1 (0.32%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.32%) Hudson
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.32%) PHPUnit
5 1 (0.32%) Selenium
General
1 78 (25.08%) Social Skills
2 65 (20.90%) Manufacturing
3 60 (19.29%) Finance
4 26 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.86%) Aerospace
5 12 (3.86%) Marketing
6 11 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (2.25%) Retail
10 6 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.93%) Public Sector
11 5 (1.61%) Wearables
12 3 (0.96%) Digital Health
12 3 (0.96%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.96%) Legal
13 2 (0.64%) Advertising
13 2 (0.64%) Banking
13 2 (0.64%) Digital Healthcare
13 2 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 41 (13.18%) Lead
2 28 (9.00%) Consultant
3 23 (7.40%) Senior
4 18 (5.79%) SAP Consultant
5 17 (5.47%) Developer
5 17 (5.47%) Project Manager
6 15 (4.82%) Analyst
7 12 (3.86%) Data Engineer
7 12 (3.86%) Python Developer
8 11 (3.54%) Architect
8 11 (3.54%) Data Scientist
8 11 (3.54%) Designer
9 10 (3.22%) Software Engineer
10 8 (2.57%) IT Support
10 8 (2.57%) Quality Manager
11 7 (2.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 7 (2.25%) IT Technician
11 7 (2.25%) Process Consultant
11 7 (2.25%) SAP Manager
11 7 (2.25%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.47%) pytest
2 16 (5.14%) FastAPI
3 12 (3.86%) SAP Fiori
4 9 (2.89%) LangGraph
4 9 (2.89%) React
5 7 (2.25%) Playwright
6 3 (0.96%) Ray
6 3 (0.96%) RESTful
7 2 (0.64%) CSS
7 2 (0.64%) EDI
7 2 (0.64%) IDoc
7 2 (0.64%) Jest
7 2 (0.64%) Next.js
7 2 (0.64%) PyTorch
7 2 (0.64%) REST
7 2 (0.64%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.64%) SAP PI
8 1 (0.32%) BAPI
8 1 (0.32%) Middleware
8 1 (0.32%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 58 (18.65%) Life Science
2 16 (5.14%) Genomics
3 15 (4.82%) FMCG
4 12 (3.86%) Cloud Native
5 10 (3.22%) Onboarding
5 10 (3.22%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.57%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.93%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.93%) LIMS
7 6 (1.93%) NHS
8 5 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.61%) SCADA
9 4 (1.29%) AI Agents
9 4 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.29%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.29%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.96%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 12 (3.86%) Windows
2 3 (0.96%) Mac OS
2 3 (0.96%) Windows 10
3 2 (0.64%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.32%) Linux
4 1 (0.32%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (18.65%) AI
2 53 (17.04%) Stakeholder Management
3 44 (14.15%) Agile
3 44 (14.15%) Machine Learning
4 43 (13.83%) ERP
5 39 (12.54%) Validation
6 34 (10.93%) Biotechnology
7 33 (10.61%) Analytics
7 33 (10.61%) Migration
8 32 (10.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 32 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 30 (9.65%) DevOps
10 28 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
11 26 (8.36%) Data Science
12 24 (7.72%) Roadmaps
13 22 (7.07%) Decision-Making
14 21 (6.75%) Test Automation
15 20 (6.43%) Workshop Facilitation
16 19 (6.11%) Data Governance
16 19 (6.11%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 61 (19.61%) Python
2 26 (8.36%) SQL
3 12 (3.86%) R
4 8 (2.57%) TypeScript
5 6 (1.93%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.96%) Java
7 2 (0.64%) ABAP
7 2 (0.64%) Bash
8 1 (0.32%) C
8 1 (0.32%) C++
8 1 (0.32%) Ladder Logic
8 1 (0.32%) PHP
8 1 (0.32%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.32%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 48 (15.43%) Degree
2 11 (3.54%) Master's Degree
3 9 (2.89%) A+ Certification
4 8 (2.57%) ACCA
4 8 (2.57%) CIMA
4 8 (2.57%) PMI Certification
4 8 (2.57%) PMP
5 7 (2.25%) Security Cleared
6 6 (1.93%) SC Cleared
7 4 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (0.96%) HND
9 2 (0.64%) CISSP
9 2 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (0.64%) HNC
9 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.32%) CCSA
10 1 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.32%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.32%) MBA
10 1 (0.32%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (8.04%) GxP
2 17 (5.47%) GMP
3 13 (4.18%) QA
4 11 (3.54%) Data Quality
5 7 (2.25%) GDPR
6 5 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.29%) PMO
7 4 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.96%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.64%) GAMP
9 2 (0.64%) ISO 13485
9 2 (0.64%) SLA
10 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.32%) HL7
10 1 (0.32%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.32%) ITGC
10 1 (0.32%) MiFID
10 1 (0.32%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.32%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 19 (6.11%) Docker
2 2 (0.64%) GPFS
2 2 (0.64%) Lustre
2 2 (0.64%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (3.54%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.93%) Terraform
3 2 (0.64%) Ansible
3 2 (0.64%) HP ALM
3 2 (0.64%) Puppet
3 2 (0.64%) Salt
3 2 (0.64%) SCCM
4 1 (0.32%) Cisco UCCE
4 1 (0.32%) Cisco UCCX
4 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
4 1 (0.32%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 102 (32.80%) SAP
2 38 (12.22%) Microsoft
3 19 (6.11%) Google
4 8 (2.57%) Oracle
5 7 (2.25%) Ariba
5 7 (2.25%) SOTI
6 6 (1.93%) Salesforce
7 5 (1.61%) Databricks
7 5 (1.61%) LabWare
7 5 (1.61%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.29%) Cisco
8 4 (1.29%) HP
8 4 (1.29%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.29%) Siemens
9 3 (0.96%) Cerner
9 3 (0.96%) IBM
9 3 (0.96%) Zscaler
10 2 (0.64%) CyberArk
10 2 (0.64%) Meraki
10 2 (0.64%) MuleSoft