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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 226 225
Rank change year-on-year -84 -1 +99
Contract jobs citing Pharmaceutical 339 348 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 1.18% 1.05%
As % of the General category 1.33% 1.87% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 230 282
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £388 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £673 £603
90th Percentile £688 £820 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 17 36
10th Percentile £22.69 £15.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £50.00 £19.00 £20.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £32.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +130.77% +7.76% +0.53%
75th Percentile £97.50 £97.50 £60.00
90th Percentile - - £63.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £26.25 £28.50
% change year-on-year +109.52% -7.89% +137.50%

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 25,419 18,596 25,477
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.12% 63.19% 58.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,754 11,902 16,136
10th Percentile £305 £296 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,600 775 1,917
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.34 £18.17 £15.39
Median hourly rate £27.80 £28.60 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.80% +4.00% -21.43%
75th Percentile £59.50 £56.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £26.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -5.09% +1.92% -14.75%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -143 234 £513 -6.82% 159
Work from Home +1 148 £475 -9.52% 66
London -16 109 £525 -25.00% 57
UK excluding London -157 96 £475 -9.52% 108
East of England -48 43 £475 -13.64% 11
South East -28 23 £475 +123.53% 33
North of England -116 20 £540 -1.82% 32
North West -86 18 £540 -1.82% 25
South West - 6 £700 - 9
Scotland +2 2 - - 2
North East -18 2 - - 4
Wales -13 1 - - 4
West Midlands -67 1 - - 6
Midlands -73 1 - - 19

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 4 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (1.18%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.88%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) SAS
3 2 (0.59%) Mendix
3 2 (0.59%) WinCC
4 1 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.29%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.29%) CMS
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 29 (8.55%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (4.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.59%) InDesign
5 2 (0.59%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.59%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 63 (18.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.95%) SAP EWM
3 7 (2.06%) SAP PM
4 6 (1.77%) SAP MM
4 6 (1.77%) SAP PP
4 6 (1.77%) SAP QM
4 6 (1.77%) SAP SD
4 6 (1.77%) SAP WM
5 4 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (1.18%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.59%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.59%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.59%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.59%) TrackWise
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.29%) SAP CS
7 1 (0.29%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.29%) SAP MDM
7 1 (0.29%) SAP PP-PI
Cloud Services
1 40 (11.80%) AWS
2 34 (10.03%) Azure
3 18 (5.31%) GCP
4 15 (4.42%) SaaS
5 13 (3.83%) Microsoft 365
6 12 (3.54%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.36%) dbt
7 8 (2.36%) Snowflake
8 6 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.77%) Figma
8 6 (1.77%) GitHub
9 4 (1.18%) Cloud Run
9 4 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (1.18%) Veeva
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon SageMaker
10 3 (0.88%) Azure AKS
10 3 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 3 (0.88%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.88%) Ethernet
1 3 (0.88%) Firewall
1 3 (0.88%) Modbus
1 3 (0.88%) Network Security
1 3 (0.88%) RS-485
2 2 (0.59%) BGP
2 2 (0.59%) OSPF
2 2 (0.59%) Wireless
3 1 (0.29%) AMQP
3 1 (0.29%) HTTP
3 1 (0.29%) Junos
3 1 (0.29%) RFID
3 1 (0.29%) SSL
3 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.29%) Telepresence
3 1 (0.29%) VLAN
3 1 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.54%) Power BI
2 8 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (2.06%) Data Lake
4 4 (1.18%) Metadata
4 4 (1.18%) Tableau
5 3 (0.88%) BigQuery
5 3 (0.88%) Electronic Patient Records
5 3 (0.88%) SAP Data Services
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.29%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.29%) JasperReports
7 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (4.72%) JIRA
2 13 (3.83%) Git
3 3 (0.88%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.88%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.88%) LSMW
3 3 (0.88%) MLflow
4 2 (0.59%) GitLab
4 2 (0.59%) Selenium
5 1 (0.29%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.29%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.29%) Hudson
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 75 (22.12%) Social Skills
2 69 (20.35%) Manufacturing
3 68 (20.06%) Finance
4 37 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (2.95%) Marketing
5 10 (2.95%) Retail
6 9 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (2.36%) Advertising
7 8 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (1.77%) Public Sector
8 6 (1.77%) Public Speaking
9 4 (1.18%) Billing
9 4 (1.18%) Wearables
10 3 (0.88%) Banking
10 3 (0.88%) Health Technology
10 3 (0.88%) Legal
11 2 (0.59%) Digital Health
Job Titles
1 35 (10.32%) Lead
2 27 (7.96%) Senior
3 24 (7.08%) Analyst
3 24 (7.08%) Project Manager
4 22 (6.49%) Consultant
5 17 (5.01%) Developer
6 15 (4.42%) Data Engineer
7 14 (4.13%) Designer
8 13 (3.83%) Business Analyst
8 13 (3.83%) Data Scientist
8 13 (3.83%) SAP Consultant
9 12 (3.54%) Architect
10 11 (3.24%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 11 (3.24%) Python Developer
11 8 (2.36%) Accountant
11 8 (2.36%) Product Designer
11 8 (2.36%) Quality Manager
11 8 (2.36%) Systems Accountant
12 7 (2.06%) IT Manager
12 7 (2.06%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.36%) FastAPI
2 6 (1.77%) pytest
3 5 (1.47%) IDoc
3 5 (1.47%) PyTorch
4 4 (1.18%) LangGraph
4 4 (1.18%) Playwright
4 4 (1.18%) React
4 4 (1.18%) TensorFlow
5 3 (0.88%) Google JAX
5 3 (0.88%) J2EE
5 3 (0.88%) JAX
5 3 (0.88%) Ray
5 3 (0.88%) REST
6 2 (0.59%) BAPI
6 2 (0.59%) EDI
6 2 (0.59%) Kafka
6 2 (0.59%) NumPy
6 2 (0.59%) RESTful
6 2 (0.59%) SAP ALE
6 2 (0.59%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 68 (20.06%) Life Science
2 16 (4.72%) Data Structures
3 14 (4.13%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.54%) FMCG
4 12 (3.54%) LIMS
5 9 (2.65%) Cloud Native
5 9 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (2.36%) CRISPR
6 8 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.36%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.06%) NHS
8 6 (1.77%) Genomics
9 5 (1.47%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.18%) Biopharmaceutical
10 4 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.18%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.18%) SCADA
11 3 (0.88%) Pharmacovigilance
11 3 (0.88%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.24%) Windows
2 2 (0.59%) Linux
2 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
2 2 (0.59%) Windows 10
2 2 (0.59%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (15.34%) AI
2 47 (13.86%) Validation
3 46 (13.57%) Agile
3 46 (13.57%) ERP
4 37 (10.91%) Migration
4 37 (10.91%) Stakeholder Management
5 32 (9.44%) Machine Learning
5 32 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 30 (8.85%) Biotechnology
7 28 (8.26%) Data Science
8 27 (7.96%) Problem-Solving
9 26 (7.67%) DevOps
9 26 (7.67%) Project Management
9 26 (7.67%) Workshop Facilitation
10 24 (7.08%) Analytics
10 24 (7.08%) Data Migration
11 23 (6.78%) CI/CD
12 22 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
12 22 (6.49%) Data Governance
12 22 (6.49%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 55 (16.22%) Python
2 30 (8.85%) SQL
3 12 (3.54%) R
4 6 (1.77%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.18%) ABAP
5 4 (1.18%) Java
5 4 (1.18%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.29%) Bicep
6 1 (0.29%) C
6 1 (0.29%) C++
6 1 (0.29%) DataWeave
6 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.29%) SHACL
6 1 (0.29%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.29%) XPath
6 1 (0.29%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 41 (12.09%) Degree
2 9 (2.65%) A+ Certification
2 9 (2.65%) ACCA
2 9 (2.65%) CIMA
3 6 (1.77%) Master's Degree
4 5 (1.47%) PMI Certification
4 5 (1.47%) PMP
5 3 (0.88%) HND
5 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.59%) HNC
6 2 (0.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.29%) ECDL
7 1 (0.29%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.29%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.29%) OCP
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
7 1 (0.29%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (10.32%) GxP
2 18 (5.31%) GMP
3 16 (4.72%) QA
4 10 (2.95%) Data Quality
5 8 (2.36%) GDPR
5 8 (2.36%) PMO
6 6 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.18%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 4 (1.18%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.59%) GAMP
8 2 (0.59%) GRC
8 2 (0.59%) NIST
9 1 (0.29%) EU AI Act
9 1 (0.29%) HL7
9 1 (0.29%) ISO 13485
9 1 (0.29%) ITGC
9 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.29%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 11 (3.24%) Docker
2 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.59%) vSphere
3 1 (0.29%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 6 (1.77%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.47%) Terraform
3 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.29%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.29%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 90 (26.55%) SAP
2 38 (11.21%) Microsoft
3 12 (3.54%) Google
3 12 (3.54%) Oracle
4 7 (2.06%) SOTI
5 6 (1.77%) Databricks
5 6 (1.77%) Salesforce
6 5 (1.47%) Ariba
6 5 (1.47%) LabWare
7 4 (1.18%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.88%) Adobe
8 3 (0.88%) Cerner
8 3 (0.88%) Cisco
8 3 (0.88%) Foundry
8 3 (0.88%) HP
8 3 (0.88%) IBM
8 3 (0.88%) LabVantage
8 3 (0.88%) MuleSoft
8 3 (0.88%) Palantir
8 3 (0.88%) VMware