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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 227 238
Rank change year-on-year -94 +11 +104
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 340 346 420
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 1.19% 0.99%
As % of the General category 1.32% 1.88% 1.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 229 259
10th Percentile £333 £375 £363
25th Percentile £383 £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 £615
90th Percentile £669 £820 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 13 40
10th Percentile £19.28 £19.20 £17.72
25th Percentile £50.00 £31.25 £20.75
Median hourly rate £72.50 £51.80 £33.83
Median % change year-on-year +39.97% +53.10% -19.45%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £60.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £26.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year +109.52% -34.38% +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 25,839 18,404 24,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.55% 63.23% 58.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,748 11,685 15,587
10th Percentile £311 £285 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.35% -1.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,662 799 1,924
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.89 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.40 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.49% -8.67% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.25 £52.78
90th Percentile £79.90 £75.00 £66.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £24.50 £28.25
% change year-on-year +18.37% -13.27% -2.59%

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 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 21 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 21 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 -146 235 £510 -7.36% 181
Work from Home -4 149 £475 -9.52% 102
London -25 119 £525 -28.47% 80
UK excluding London -166 85 £475 -9.52% 128
East of England -48 39 £465 -15.55% 16
North of England -108 20 £475 -13.64% 35
South East -46 17 £491 +96.30% 35
North West -72 17 £508 -7.73% 23
North East -27 3 £290 - 2
South West -31 3 - - 14
Midlands -62 3 - - 20
Wales -14 2 £175 -42.71% 5
Scotland -2 1 - - 4
West Midlands -60 1 - - 14

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 (0.88%) IIS
1 3 (0.88%) SAS
1 3 (0.88%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.59%) 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 (8.53%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (2.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.59%) InDesign
4 2 (0.59%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.59%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 58 (17.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.94%) SAP SD
3 6 (1.76%) SAP EWM
4 5 (1.47%) SAP MM
4 5 (1.47%) SAP QM
5 4 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (1.18%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.88%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.59%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.59%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.59%) SAP GTS
7 2 (0.59%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.59%) 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 42 (12.35%) AWS
2 27 (7.94%) Azure
3 16 (4.71%) SaaS
4 11 (3.24%) GCP
4 11 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (2.35%) Power Platform
6 7 (2.06%) dbt
7 6 (1.76%) Figma
7 6 (1.76%) GitHub
8 4 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (1.18%) Cloud Run
8 4 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.18%) Veeva
9 3 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.88%) Amazon SageMaker
9 3 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (0.88%) Azure AKS
9 3 (0.88%) Google Workspace
9 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (0.88%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.47%) Firewall
2 4 (1.18%) VLAN
3 3 (0.88%) DNS
3 3 (0.88%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.88%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.88%) Modbus
3 3 (0.88%) RS-485
4 2 (0.59%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.59%) VPN
4 2 (0.59%) WAN
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
5 1 (0.29%) X.21
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.35%) Power BI
2 7 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (1.18%) Tableau
4 3 (0.88%) Metadata
4 3 (0.88%) NoSQL
4 3 (0.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (0.59%) Amazon QuickSight
5 2 (0.59%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.59%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.59%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.59%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.59%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.59%) 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 (3.53%) JIRA
2 11 (3.24%) Git
3 3 (0.88%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.88%) 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 76 (22.35%) Social Skills
2 74 (21.76%) Manufacturing
3 71 (20.88%) Finance
4 31 (9.12%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.94%) Retail
6 9 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (2.35%) Advertising
7 8 (2.35%) Marketing
8 7 (2.06%) Billing
8 7 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.76%) Legal
9 6 (1.76%) Public Speaking
10 5 (1.47%) Automotive
10 5 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.88%) Banking
11 3 (0.88%) Public Sector
11 3 (0.88%) Wearables
12 2 (0.59%) Health Technology
12 2 (0.59%) Law
Job Titles
1 37 (10.88%) Lead
2 32 (9.41%) Project Manager
3 30 (8.82%) Senior
4 25 (7.35%) Analyst
4 25 (7.35%) Consultant
5 15 (4.41%) Data Engineer
5 15 (4.41%) SAP Consultant
6 14 (4.12%) Business Analyst
7 13 (3.82%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 13 (3.82%) Designer
8 12 (3.53%) Architect
9 11 (3.24%) Developer
10 9 (2.65%) Data Scientist
11 8 (2.35%) Accountant
11 8 (2.35%) AWS Engineer
11 8 (2.35%) Product Designer
11 8 (2.35%) Systems Accountant
12 7 (2.06%) Product Owner
12 7 (2.06%) Quality Manager
12 7 (2.06%) SAP Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.76%) IDoc
2 5 (1.47%) EDI
2 5 (1.47%) FastAPI
2 5 (1.47%) PyTorch
2 5 (1.47%) REST
3 4 (1.18%) Pandas
3 4 (1.18%) Playwright
3 4 (1.18%) React
4 3 (0.88%) Google JAX
4 3 (0.88%) J2EE
4 3 (0.88%) JAX
4 3 (0.88%) Ray
4 3 (0.88%) TensorFlow
4 3 (0.88%) XML
5 2 (0.59%) JSON
5 2 (0.59%) OAuth
5 2 (0.59%) RESTful
5 2 (0.59%) SciPy
5 2 (0.59%) Web Services
5 2 (0.59%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 81 (23.82%) Life Science
2 16 (4.71%) Data Structures
3 14 (4.12%) LIMS
4 13 (3.82%) Product Ownership
5 12 (3.53%) CRISPR
6 11 (3.24%) FMCG
7 9 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (2.06%) Cloud Native
8 7 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (2.06%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.06%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.76%) NHS
10 5 (1.47%) Genomics
10 5 (1.47%) Management Information System
11 4 (1.18%) Biopharmaceutical
11 4 (1.18%) Robotics
11 4 (1.18%) SCADA
12 3 (0.88%) Pharmacovigilance
12 3 (0.88%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.41%) Windows
2 3 (0.88%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.59%) Linux
3 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.59%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (14.71%) AI
2 48 (14.12%) ERP
3 47 (13.82%) Validation
4 43 (12.65%) Agile
5 40 (11.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 38 (11.18%) Migration
7 35 (10.29%) Biotechnology
8 33 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 27 (7.94%) Project Management
10 26 (7.65%) Problem-Solving
10 26 (7.65%) Workshop Facilitation
11 25 (7.35%) Machine Learning
12 23 (6.76%) Data Migration
12 23 (6.76%) DevOps
13 21 (6.18%) CI/CD
13 21 (6.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 21 (6.18%) Data Science
13 21 (6.18%) Decision-Making
14 20 (5.88%) Analytics
14 20 (5.88%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 56 (16.47%) Python
2 28 (8.24%) SQL
3 13 (3.82%) R
4 5 (1.47%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.18%) TypeScript
6 3 (0.88%) ABAP
6 3 (0.88%) 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 (11.18%) Degree
2 9 (2.65%) ACCA
2 9 (2.65%) CIMA
3 8 (2.35%) A+ Certification
3 8 (2.35%) PMI Certification
3 8 (2.35%) PMP
4 3 (0.88%) CISM
4 3 (0.88%) CISSP
4 3 (0.88%) Master's Degree
4 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (0.88%) Security Cleared
5 2 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (0.59%) HNC
5 2 (0.59%) HND
5 2 (0.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
5 2 (0.59%) SC Cleared
6 1 (0.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (0.29%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.29%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.29%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (10.88%) GxP
2 20 (5.88%) GMP
3 12 (3.53%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.24%) QA
5 9 (2.65%) GDPR
5 9 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (2.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (1.76%) PMO
8 5 (1.47%) GRC
9 4 (1.18%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 3 (0.88%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.88%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.88%) NIST
10 3 (0.88%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.59%) GAMP
11 2 (0.59%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.29%) EU AI Act
12 1 (0.29%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.29%) ITGC
System Software
1 6 (1.76%) Docker
2 4 (1.18%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.59%) vSphere
4 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 9 (2.65%) Terraform
2 6 (1.76%) 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 (25.29%) SAP
2 34 (10.00%) Microsoft
3 11 (3.24%) Oracle
4 10 (2.94%) Google
5 6 (1.76%) Databricks
5 6 (1.76%) SOTI
6 5 (1.47%) LabWare
7 4 (1.18%) Ariba
7 4 (1.18%) LabVantage
7 4 (1.18%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.18%) ServiceNow
7 4 (1.18%) VMware
7 4 (1.18%) Zscaler
8 3 (0.88%) Adobe
8 3 (0.88%) Conga
8 3 (0.88%) MuleSoft
8 3 (0.88%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.59%) IFS
9 2 (0.59%) Palantir
9 2 (0.59%) Rockwell