IBM Contract Job Trends

IBM
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 23 June 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
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 244 235
Rank change year-on-year -34 -9 +41
Contract jobs citing IBM 435 333 433
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.11% 0.99%
As % of the Vendors category 2.10% 2.34% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 215 231
10th Percentile £313 £358 £360
25th Percentile £400 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £675 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £460 £482
% change year-on-year +5.11% -4.56% -3.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 5 39
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.81 £51.40
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.04 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.08 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +179.16% -64.18% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £72.50 -
90th Percentile - £139.23 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £25.08 £70.00
% change year-on-year +250.95% -64.18% +1.82%

All Vendors
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 20,692 14,246 18,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.75% 47.54% 42.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,970 8,765 11,497
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £403 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.38% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,065 661 1,168
10th Percentile £15.64 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.50
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.50 £24.05
Median % change year-on-year +33.29% +6.03% -43.18%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.75 £23.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +38.04% +1.95% -39.84%

IBM
Job Vacancy Trend

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

IBM job vacancy trend in the UK

IBM
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM

IBM
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IBM over the 6 months to 23 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IBM in the UK

IBM
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM

IBM
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing IBM over the 6 months to 23 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IBM in the UK

IBM
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IBM within the UK over the 6 months to 23 June 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 -55 376 £475 -5.00% 86
UK excluding London -33 250 £484 +5.11% 59
London -61 139 £488 -18.75% 36
Work from Home -46 117 £509 +3.14% 35
North of England -42 90 £514 +20.94% 15
North West -24 49 £459 +14.46% 10
South West 0 44 £426 -28.10% 9
South East -46 42 £400 -20.00% 15
Yorkshire -34 40 £533 +18.33% 2
Midlands -50 31 £402 -7.53% 8
West Midlands -47 26 £402 -12.61% 4
Scotland -23 22 £550 +14.82% 5
East of England -17 18 £425 -19.05% 7
East Midlands -27 4 £837 +101.57% 4
Wales -13 3 £635 - 1
North East -37 1 £375 -10.45% 3

IBM
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 30 (6.90%) WebSphere
2 24 (5.52%) Confluence
3 22 (5.06%) CICS
4 18 (4.14%) Tomcat
5 16 (3.68%) nginx
6 11 (2.53%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.84%) WebLogic
8 5 (1.15%) Apache
8 5 (1.15%) SAS
8 5 (1.15%) WebSphere Application Server
9 4 (0.92%) IIS
9 4 (0.92%) JBoss
9 4 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.69%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.69%) Camunda
10 3 (0.69%) CMS
11 2 (0.46%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.46%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.46%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.46%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.83%) Maximo
2 10 (2.30%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.38%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.69%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.69%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.23%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 1 (0.23%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.23%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.23%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 67 (15.40%) AWS
2 52 (11.95%) Azure
3 23 (5.29%) GitHub
4 18 (4.14%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
5 12 (2.76%) GitHub Copilot
6 10 (2.30%) ChatGPT
6 10 (2.30%) GCP
6 10 (2.30%) IBM Watson
7 8 (1.84%) Amazon S3
7 8 (1.84%) Anthropic Claude
8 7 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
8 7 (1.61%) SaaS
8 7 (1.61%) Vertex AI
9 6 (1.38%) Azure AI
9 6 (1.38%) Azure AKS
9 6 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (1.38%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 22 (5.06%) Firewall
2 17 (3.91%) SNMP
3 15 (3.45%) HTTP
3 15 (3.45%) SSL
4 9 (2.07%) SAN
4 9 (2.07%) TCP/IP
5 8 (1.84%) DNS
6 7 (1.61%) VPN
6 7 (1.61%) VSAN
7 6 (1.38%) Network Security
8 5 (1.15%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.92%) APPN
9 4 (0.92%) LAN
9 4 (0.92%) NAS
9 4 (0.92%) SNA
9 4 (0.92%) WAN
10 3 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.69%) MPLS
10 3 (0.69%) SSH
10 3 (0.69%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (9.20%) Db2
2 26 (5.98%) DataStage
3 23 (5.29%) Relational Database
4 20 (4.60%) SQL Server
5 14 (3.22%) Metadata
6 13 (2.99%) MongoDB
7 12 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (2.53%) Elasticsearch
9 9 (2.07%) Oracle Database
9 9 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
10 8 (1.84%) Big Data
10 8 (1.84%) NoSQL
11 7 (1.61%) GIS
11 7 (1.61%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.69%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.69%) Power BI
13 2 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
13 2 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.46%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.46%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 39 (8.97%) Rational DOORS
2 37 (8.51%) JIRA
3 19 (4.37%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.22%) Git
5 12 (2.76%) GitLab
6 8 (1.84%) Rational Rhapsody
7 5 (1.15%) Ant
7 5 (1.15%) Liquibase
7 5 (1.15%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (0.92%) JMeter
9 3 (0.69%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.69%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.69%) Gradle
9 3 (0.69%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.69%) JUnit
9 3 (0.69%) Maven
9 3 (0.69%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.46%) SonarQube
General
1 122 (28.05%) Finance
2 101 (23.22%) Social Skills
3 85 (19.54%) Banking
4 40 (9.20%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (8.28%) Public Sector
6 29 (6.67%) Aerospace
7 26 (5.98%) Legal
8 13 (2.99%) Retail
9 12 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.84%) Front Office
10 8 (1.84%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.61%) Law
11 7 (1.61%) Military
12 5 (1.15%) Aviation
12 5 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.69%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.46%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 46 (10.57%) Architect
2 41 (9.43%) Analyst
2 41 (9.43%) Developer
3 26 (5.98%) Delivery Manager
3 26 (5.98%) Product Delivery Manager
3 26 (5.98%) Product Manager
3 26 (5.98%) Senior
4 24 (5.52%) Administrator
4 24 (5.52%) Consultant
5 21 (4.83%) Systems Delivery Manager
5 21 (4.83%) Systems Manager
6 18 (4.14%) Software Engineer
7 17 (3.91%) Lead
8 16 (3.68%) Data Engineer
8 16 (3.68%) Storage Analyst
9 14 (3.22%) Solutions Architect
10 13 (2.99%) Management Consultant
11 12 (2.76%) Designer
11 12 (2.76%) DevOps Engineer
11 12 (2.76%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (12.87%) Middleware
2 35 (8.05%) REST
3 20 (4.60%) Flash
4 19 (4.37%) ISPF
5 18 (4.14%) JSON
5 18 (4.14%) Kafka
6 16 (3.68%) Spring Boot
6 16 (3.68%) XML
7 15 (3.45%) Spring
8 12 (2.76%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (1.84%) PyTorch
9 8 (1.84%) WebSphere MQ
10 7 (1.61%) EJB
10 7 (1.61%) LangChain
10 7 (1.61%) scikit-learn
10 7 (1.61%) SOAP
10 7 (1.61%) ZeroMQ
11 6 (1.38%) JDBC
11 6 (1.38%) JMS
11 6 (1.38%) JSP
Miscellaneous
1 85 (19.54%) Mainframe
2 36 (8.28%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.67%) Clustering
3 29 (6.67%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.44%) Product Ownership
5 25 (5.75%) Linux Command Line
5 25 (5.75%) Replication
6 16 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
7 14 (3.22%) Cloud Native
7 14 (3.22%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (2.99%) VSAM
9 12 (2.76%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.76%) Legacy Applications
9 12 (2.76%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 10 (2.30%) BYOD
10 10 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (2.30%) IBM Mainframe
10 10 (2.30%) Management Information System
11 9 (2.07%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.84%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 106 (24.37%) Linux
2 57 (13.10%) zOS
3 52 (11.95%) Windows
4 46 (10.57%) Unix
5 41 (9.43%) AIX
6 24 (5.52%) Solaris
7 22 (5.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.60%) Windows Server
9 13 (2.99%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.53%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.84%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (1.38%) SUSE
13 5 (1.15%) MVS
14 2 (0.46%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.46%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
15 1 (0.23%) Android
15 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
15 1 (0.23%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
15 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (21.61%) Agile
2 62 (14.25%) CI/CD
3 57 (13.10%) DevOps
4 53 (12.18%) Continuous Improvement
5 51 (11.72%) Migration
5 51 (11.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 46 (10.57%) ITIL
7 45 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
8 44 (10.11%) Roadmaps
9 41 (9.43%) ETL
10 37 (8.51%) Stakeholder Management
10 37 (8.51%) Test Automation
11 36 (8.28%) Computer Science
11 36 (8.28%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
12 35 (8.05%) AI
12 35 (8.05%) Configuration Management
13 34 (7.82%) Systems Engineering
14 33 (7.59%) UML
14 33 (7.59%) Workflow
15 30 (6.90%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (19.54%) SQL
2 77 (17.70%) Python
3 58 (13.33%) Java
4 36 (8.28%) PowerShell
5 24 (5.52%) Bash
6 21 (4.83%) PL/SQL
7 18 (4.14%) COBOL
8 17 (3.91%) JCL
9 15 (3.45%) REXX
10 14 (3.22%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (2.76%) C++
12 11 (2.53%) Ada
13 10 (2.30%) C
13 10 (2.30%) MATLAB
14 9 (2.07%) Shell Script
15 8 (1.84%) Bicep
16 7 (1.61%) Assembly Language
16 7 (1.61%) JavaScript
16 7 (1.61%) Perl
17 6 (1.38%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 126 (28.97%) Security Cleared
2 81 (18.62%) SC Cleared
3 43 (9.89%) Degree
4 13 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.53%) CISSP
5 11 (2.53%) DV Cleared
6 10 (2.30%) Azure Certification
6 10 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.84%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.84%) CISM
8 7 (1.61%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.15%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (1.15%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.92%) PMI Certification
10 4 (0.92%) PMP
11 3 (0.69%) CEH
12 2 (0.46%) CISMP
12 2 (0.46%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (7.36%) Data Quality
2 11 (2.53%) QA
3 9 (2.07%) SLA
4 7 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.61%) NIST
5 5 (1.15%) GDPR
5 5 (1.15%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.15%) NIST 800
5 5 (1.15%) SEPA
6 3 (0.69%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.46%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.46%) GAAP
7 2 (0.46%) GRC
7 2 (0.46%) IFRS
7 2 (0.46%) NCSC
8 1 (0.23%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.23%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.23%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 28 (6.44%) Docker
1 28 (6.44%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (5.75%) NFS
3 24 (5.52%) VMware ESXi
4 20 (4.60%) GPFS
5 19 (4.37%) RACF
6 16 (3.68%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (3.45%) vSphere
8 11 (2.53%) Time Sharing Option
9 9 (2.07%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (1.84%) Firmware
11 7 (1.61%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.38%) KVM
13 3 (0.69%) ACF2
13 3 (0.69%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.46%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.46%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.46%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.23%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 31 (7.13%) Ansible
2 25 (5.75%) Terraform
3 21 (4.83%) Tivoli
4 20 (4.60%) Kubernetes
5 19 (4.37%) OMEGAMON
6 17 (3.91%) Nagios
6 17 (3.91%) ZABBIX
7 16 (3.68%) Netcool
8 14 (3.22%) OpenView
8 14 (3.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 14 (3.22%) vRealize
9 11 (2.53%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 8 (1.84%) IBM BigFix
10 8 (1.84%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (1.61%) VxRail
12 6 (1.38%) Tivoli NetView
12 6 (1.38%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.92%) Grafana
14 3 (0.69%) Control-M
15 2 (0.46%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 86 (19.77%) Oracle
2 46 (10.57%) VMware
3 33 (7.59%) Microsoft
4 30 (6.90%) Cisco
5 28 (6.44%) Red Hat
5 28 (6.44%) ServiceNow
5 28 (6.44%) Splunk
6 25 (5.75%) HP
6 25 (5.75%) SAP
7 20 (4.60%) BMC
8 19 (4.37%) Dell
9 16 (3.68%) MathWorks
9 16 (3.68%) SolarWinds
10 14 (3.22%) Google
11 13 (2.99%) Broadcom
12 12 (2.76%) Brocade
13 10 (2.30%) Sybase
14 7 (1.61%) Cognos
14 7 (1.61%) Informatica
15 6 (1.38%) NetApp