IBM Contract Job Trends in the South East

IBM
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring knowledge or experience of IBM products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited IBM over the 6 months leading up to 24 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the International Business Machines Corporation.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 137 115
Rank change year-on-year -42 -22 +53
Contract jobs citing IBM 54 29 73
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.81% 0.82% 1.53%
As % of the Vendors category 1.85% 1.57% 3.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 21 35
10th Percentile - £375 £245
25th Percentile £413 £463 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £563 £401
Median % change year-on-year -18.22% +40.45% -15.68%
75th Percentile £611 £703 £544
90th Percentile £646 £720 £658
England median daily rate £500 £550 £489
% change year-on-year -9.09% +12.47% -6.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 1 5
10th Percentile - - £24.45
25th Percentile - £181.24 £27.00
Median hourly rate £88.00 £182.48 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -51.77% +551.70% -
75th Percentile - £183.71 £29.00
90th Percentile - - £51.20
England median hourly rate £88.00 £25.15 £70.00
% change year-on-year +249.90% -64.07% +7.69%

All Vendors
South East

IBM falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 2,913 1,842 2,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.67% 51.87% 48.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,824 1,230 1,400
10th Percentile £280 £208 £254
25th Percentile £425 £363 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £634
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £513 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 116 133
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.20 £14.50
25th Percentile £20.88 £15.13 £26.03
Median hourly rate £52.50 £18.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +177.26% -66.98% +19.60%
75th Percentile £77.75 £38.98 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.38 £70.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -28.24%

IBM
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing IBM relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

IBM job vacancy trend in the South East

IBM
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing IBM.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing IBM

IBM
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IBM in the South East over the 6 months to 24 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IBM in the South East

IBM
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing IBM.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing IBM

IBM
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IBM within the South East region over the 6 months to 24 August 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
Berkshire -1 35 £450 -20.00%
Thames Valley -23 35 £450 -20.00% 1
West Sussex -21 7 £425 -40.97%
Surrey -19 6 £460 -5.64% 1
Hampshire -30 4 £643 +30.79% 5
Kent -2 1 £625 +224.68% 1
Home Counties - 1 - -
IBM
England

IBM
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 (7.41%) WebSphere
1 4 (7.41%) WebSphere Application Server
2 2 (3.70%) ArcGIS
2 2 (3.70%) IBM HTTP Server
2 2 (3.70%) JBoss
2 2 (3.70%) Oracle HTTP Server
2 2 (3.70%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 2 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (5.56%) Maximo
2 2 (3.70%) Cognos Controller
3 1 (1.85%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (1.85%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 7 (12.96%) Azure
2 6 (11.11%) AWS
2 6 (11.11%) Azure Service Bus
2 6 (11.11%) Boomi
2 6 (11.11%) GCP
2 6 (11.11%) iPaaS
3 2 (3.70%) OpenShift
3 2 (3.70%) Power Platform
4 1 (1.85%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 8 (14.81%) HTTP
2 3 (5.56%) Wireshark
3 2 (3.70%) DNS
3 2 (3.70%) Firewall
3 2 (3.70%) SSL
3 2 (3.70%) TCP/IP
4 1 (1.85%) DMVPN
4 1 (1.85%) LAN
4 1 (1.85%) MPLS
4 1 (1.85%) SD-WAN
4 1 (1.85%) TETRA
4 1 (1.85%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (12.96%) DataStage
2 2 (3.70%) GIS
2 2 (3.70%) Power BI
3 1 (1.85%) Oracle Database
3 1 (1.85%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (55.56%) Rational DOORS
2 10 (18.52%) JIRA
3 2 (3.70%) GitLab
3 2 (3.70%) Introscope
3 2 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.85%) Git
General
1 27 (50.00%) Aerospace
2 3 (5.56%) Finance
2 3 (5.56%) Military
2 3 (5.56%) Social Skills
3 1 (1.85%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (1.85%) Automotive
3 1 (1.85%) Police
3 1 (1.85%) Retail
3 1 (1.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 26 (48.15%) Delivery Manager
1 26 (48.15%) Product Delivery Manager
1 26 (48.15%) Product Manager
2 21 (38.89%) Systems Delivery Manager
2 21 (38.89%) Systems Manager
3 9 (16.67%) Architect
4 8 (14.81%) Solutions Architect
5 6 (11.11%) DataStage Developer
5 6 (11.11%) Developer
5 6 (11.11%) Senior
6 4 (7.41%) Middleware Engineer
7 3 (5.56%) Analyst
7 3 (5.56%) Engineering Manager
7 3 (5.56%) Requirements Manager
8 2 (3.70%) Business Analyst
8 2 (3.70%) Data Business Analyst
8 2 (3.70%) Linux Engineer
8 2 (3.70%) Migration Engineer
8 2 (3.70%) Senior Middleware Engineer
9 1 (1.85%) Maximo Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (18.52%) Middleware
2 8 (14.81%) Kafka
2 8 (14.81%) RabbitMQ
3 6 (11.11%) ActiveMQ
3 6 (11.11%) EDI
3 6 (11.11%) GraphQL
3 6 (11.11%) JSON
3 6 (11.11%) JWT
3 6 (11.11%) OAuth
3 6 (11.11%) OpenAPI
3 6 (11.11%) REST
3 6 (11.11%) SAML
3 6 (11.11%) SOAP
3 6 (11.11%) Swagger
3 6 (11.11%) XML
4 2 (3.70%) JDBC
4 2 (3.70%) JMS
4 2 (3.70%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 25 (46.30%) Product Ownership
2 22 (40.74%) Data Structures
3 6 (11.11%) Cloud Native
3 6 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (5.56%) Management Information System
4 3 (5.56%) Taxonomies
5 2 (3.70%) Clustering
5 2 (3.70%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (1.85%) IBM Mainframe
6 1 (1.85%) Mainframe
6 1 (1.85%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.85%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 12 (22.22%) Linux
2 9 (16.67%) Unix
3 2 (3.70%) Oracle Linux
3 2 (3.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.70%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 2 (3.70%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (53.70%) Computer Science
1 29 (53.70%) Systems Engineering
2 28 (51.85%) Agile
2 28 (51.85%) Requirements Management
3 26 (48.15%) Scaled Agile Framework
4 25 (46.30%) Continuous Improvement
4 25 (46.30%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
4 25 (46.30%) PRINCE2
4 25 (46.30%) Programme Management
4 25 (46.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 24 (44.44%) Configuration Management
6 22 (40.74%) Change Control
6 22 (40.74%) SysML
6 22 (40.74%) UML
7 21 (38.89%) DoDAF
8 9 (16.67%) Root Cause Analysis
9 8 (14.81%) Migration
10 7 (12.96%) ETL
10 7 (12.96%) Integration Patterns
11 6 (11.11%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 10 (18.52%) SQL
2 8 (14.81%) Python
3 5 (9.26%) PowerShell
4 4 (7.41%) Bash
4 4 (7.41%) C
4 4 (7.41%) Perl
5 3 (5.56%) Java
5 3 (5.56%) Lua
6 2 (3.70%) Jython
6 2 (3.70%) Shell Script
7 1 (1.85%) Ada
7 1 (1.85%) C++
7 1 (1.85%) COBOL
7 1 (1.85%) JCL
Qualifications
1 29 (53.70%) Degree
2 27 (50.00%) Security Cleared
3 2 (3.70%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (9.26%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.85%) DO-254
2 1 (1.85%) GAAP
2 1 (1.85%) IEC 61508
2 1 (1.85%) IFRS
2 1 (1.85%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 3 (5.56%) Docker
1 3 (5.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.85%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 4 (7.41%) Ansible
2 2 (3.70%) CA Wily
2 2 (3.70%) Tivoli
3 1 (1.85%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 10 (18.52%) Oracle
2 6 (11.11%) Google
2 6 (11.11%) Informatica
2 6 (11.11%) MuleSoft
2 6 (11.11%) TIBCO
2 6 (11.11%) WSO2
3 4 (7.41%) Red Hat
3 4 (7.41%) VMware
4 3 (5.56%) Microsoft
5 2 (3.70%) AppDynamics
5 2 (3.70%) Cognos
5 2 (3.70%) ESRI
5 2 (3.70%) SAP
6 1 (1.85%) Avaya
6 1 (1.85%) Cisco
6 1 (1.85%) Fortinet