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 17 May 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
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 117 146
Rank change year-on-year -50 +29 +23
Contract jobs citing IBM 40 30 46
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.67% 1.00% 0.85%
As % of the Vendors category 1.61% 1.88% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 16 24
10th Percentile £312 £152 £350
25th Percentile £315 £168 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £284 £531
Median % change year-on-year +40.97% -46.59% +0.24%
75th Percentile £538 £541 £603
90th Percentile £570 £575 £666
England median daily rate £469 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 2
10th Percentile - - £23.18
25th Percentile - £24.18 £23.81
Median hourly rate £88.00 £24.42 £25.75
Median % change year-on-year +260.36% -5.17% -
75th Percentile - £28.10 £27.81
90th Percentile - £106.48 £28.53
England median hourly rate £70.00 £24.42 £70.00
% change year-on-year +186.65% -65.11% -12.50%

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 2,491 1,600 2,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.80% 53.09% 46.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,721 1,071 1,542
10th Percentile £300 £225 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% +1.50% -
75th Percentile £610 £603 £600
90th Percentile £700 £663 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -2.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 88 181
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £26.40 £16.95 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.54 £24.66 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +92.78% -48.08% +5.56%
75th Percentile £85.44 £58.70 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £72.00 £67.02
England median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.50
% change year-on-year +22.87% +17.56% -40.00%

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 17 May 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 17 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
Thames Valley -24 37 £358 -35.00% 5
Berkshire +1 34 £400 -31.91% 2
Buckinghamshire -38 3 £313 -43.09% 2
Hampshire -22 2 £525 - 3
Surrey -25 1 £475 +182.74% 2
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 (10.00%) WebSphere
1 4 (10.00%) WebSphere Application Server
2 3 (7.50%) CMS
3 2 (5.00%) IBM HTTP Server
3 2 (5.00%) JBoss
3 2 (5.00%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (5.00%) WebSphere Portal
Business Applications
1 3 (7.50%) SAP R/3
1 3 (7.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (5.00%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 2 (5.00%) AWS
1 2 (5.00%) OpenShift
2 1 (2.50%) Azure
Communications & Networking
1 2 (5.00%) DNS
1 2 (5.00%) Firewall
1 2 (5.00%) HTTP
1 2 (5.00%) SSL
1 2 (5.00%) TCP/IP
2 1 (2.50%) DMVPN
2 1 (2.50%) LAN
2 1 (2.50%) MPLS
2 1 (2.50%) SD-WAN
2 1 (2.50%) TETRA
2 1 (2.50%) WAN
Development Applications
1 28 (70.00%) Rational DOORS
2 2 (5.00%) GitLab
2 2 (5.00%) Introscope
2 2 (5.00%) Jenkins
2 2 (5.00%) JIRA
General
1 28 (70.00%) Aerospace
2 5 (12.50%) Finance
3 3 (7.50%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (7.50%) Social Skills
4 2 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (5.00%) Telecoms
5 1 (2.50%) Banking
5 1 (2.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 26 (65.00%) Delivery Manager
1 26 (65.00%) Product Delivery Manager
1 26 (65.00%) Product Manager
2 21 (52.50%) Systems Delivery Manager
2 21 (52.50%) Systems Manager
3 4 (10.00%) Middleware Engineer
3 4 (10.00%) Senior
4 3 (7.50%) Analyst
4 3 (7.50%) Data Analyst
4 3 (7.50%) Engineering Manager
4 3 (7.50%) Requirements Manager
5 2 (5.00%) Administrator
5 2 (5.00%) Buyer
5 2 (5.00%) IT Buyer
5 2 (5.00%) Linux Engineer
5 2 (5.00%) Migration Engineer
5 2 (5.00%) SAP Analyst
5 2 (5.00%) SAP Data Analyst
5 2 (5.00%) Senior Middleware Engineer
5 2 (5.00%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (10.00%) Middleware
2 2 (5.00%) JDBC
2 2 (5.00%) JMS
2 2 (5.00%) Kafka
2 2 (5.00%) RabbitMQ
2 2 (5.00%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 25 (62.50%) Product Ownership
2 24 (60.00%) Data Structures
3 3 (7.50%) Clustering
3 3 (7.50%) Management Information System
3 3 (7.50%) Taxonomies
4 2 (5.00%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.50%) IBM Mainframe
5 1 (2.50%) Mainframe
5 1 (2.50%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 5 (12.50%) Linux
2 3 (7.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (7.50%) Unix
3 2 (5.00%) Oracle Linux
3 2 (5.00%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 2 (5.00%) Windows
4 1 (2.50%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (70.00%) Agile
1 28 (70.00%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
2 27 (67.50%) Scaled Agile Framework
3 26 (65.00%) PRINCE2
3 26 (65.00%) Programme Management
3 26 (65.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 25 (62.50%) Computer Science
4 25 (62.50%) Continuous Improvement
4 25 (62.50%) Requirements Management
4 25 (62.50%) SysML
4 25 (62.50%) Systems Engineering
4 25 (62.50%) UML
5 24 (60.00%) Configuration Management
6 23 (57.50%) Change Control
6 23 (57.50%) DoDAF
7 10 (25.00%) Migration
8 5 (12.50%) Roadmaps
9 4 (10.00%) DevOps
9 4 (10.00%) PLM
10 3 (7.50%) Data Reconciliation
Programming Languages
1 5 (12.50%) Perl
1 5 (12.50%) Python
2 4 (10.00%) Bash
3 2 (5.00%) Jython
3 2 (5.00%) PowerShell
3 2 (5.00%) Shell Script
4 1 (2.50%) REXX
Qualifications
1 30 (75.00%) Security Cleared
2 25 (62.50%) Degree
3 5 (12.50%) SC Cleared
4 2 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (7.50%) Data Quality
System Software
1 1 (2.50%) GPFS
1 1 (2.50%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 5 (12.50%) Ansible
2 2 (5.00%) CA Wily
2 2 (5.00%) Tivoli
3 1 (2.50%) BladeLogic
Vendors
1 5 (12.50%) Red Hat
2 3 (7.50%) Cisco
2 3 (7.50%) Microsoft
2 3 (7.50%) SAP
3 2 (5.00%) AppDynamics
3 2 (5.00%) Oracle
4 1 (2.50%) Avaya
4 1 (2.50%) Dell
4 1 (2.50%) Fortinet
4 1 (2.50%) HP
4 1 (2.50%) MapR
4 1 (2.50%) Mellanox
4 1 (2.50%) Solarflare
4 1 (2.50%) VMware