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 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
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 238 219
Rank change year-on-year -56 -19 +71
Contract jobs citing IBM 405 319 464
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 1.12% 1.09%
As % of the Vendors category 2.03% 2.34% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 226 201 265
10th Percentile £306 £363 £369
25th Percentile £400 £408 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £585 £663 £650
90th Percentile £694 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £474
% change year-on-year -2.17% -2.85% -5.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 5 35
10th Percentile £25.77 - £54.50
25th Percentile £56.56 - £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £24.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +189.50% -65.46% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £24.66 -
90th Percentile - £120.09 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.18 £70.00
% change year-on-year +263.94% -65.46% +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 19,908 13,646 17,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.98% 47.70% 42.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,512 11,217
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 555 1,097
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.41
Median hourly rate £32.36 £25.50 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% +15.12% -47.88%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £75.40 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £22.50 £21.46
% change year-on-year +31.11% +4.85% -45.74%

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 May 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 May 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 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 -48 354 £473 -5.50% 96
UK excluding London -38 233 £450 -2.17% 68
London -68 130 £498 -17.08% 35
Work from Home -47 111 £498 -2.93% 47
North of England -52 77 £477 +12.24% 19
North West -21 43 £459 +10.60% 6
South West 0 42 £401 -33.25% 10
South East -60 39 £400 -3.03% 19
Midlands -56 38 £402 -12.61% 10
West Midlands -47 33 £402 -12.61% 7
Yorkshire -53 33 £500 +3.90% 13
Scotland -11 19 £550 +14.82% 8
East of England -21 17 £425 -19.05% 2
East Midlands -32 4 £837 +105.40% 3
Wales -12 1 - - 1
North East -29 1 £375 -10.45%

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 27 (6.67%) WebSphere
2 20 (4.94%) CICS
3 19 (4.69%) Confluence
4 14 (3.46%) Tomcat
5 12 (2.96%) nginx
6 10 (2.47%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.98%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (1.48%) WebSphere Application Server
9 5 (1.23%) Anypoint
9 5 (1.23%) Apache
10 4 (0.99%) IIS
10 4 (0.99%) JBoss
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.74%) CMS
12 2 (0.49%) Camunda
12 2 (0.49%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.49%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.74%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.49%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 20 (4.94%) Maximo
2 9 (2.22%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.73%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.74%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.49%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.49%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.25%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.25%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.25%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.25%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 76 (18.77%) AWS
2 56 (13.83%) Azure
3 22 (5.43%) OpenShift
4 19 (4.69%) GitHub
5 12 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.72%) GitHub Copilot
7 10 (2.47%) GCP
8 9 (2.22%) ChatGPT
9 8 (1.98%) IBM Watson
10 7 (1.73%) Anthropic Claude
10 7 (1.73%) SaaS
11 6 (1.48%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.48%) Azure AKS
11 6 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 5 (1.23%) Vertex AI
13 4 (0.99%) Azure AI
13 4 (0.99%) IBM Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.69%) Firewall
2 16 (3.95%) SAN
2 16 (3.95%) SNMP
3 14 (3.46%) HTTP
4 11 (2.72%) VSAN
5 10 (2.47%) Fibre Channel
6 9 (2.22%) NAS
6 9 (2.22%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.73%) DNS
7 7 (1.73%) VPN
8 5 (1.23%) HTTPS
8 5 (1.23%) iSCSI
9 4 (0.99%) APPN
9 4 (0.99%) LAN
9 4 (0.99%) Network Security
9 4 (0.99%) SNA
10 3 (0.74%) MPLS
10 3 (0.74%) SSL
10 3 (0.74%) WAN
11 2 (0.49%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (10.62%) DB2
2 24 (5.93%) DataStage
3 18 (4.44%) SQL Server
4 17 (4.20%) Relational Database
5 12 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (2.47%) Metadata
6 10 (2.47%) MongoDB
6 10 (2.47%) Oracle Database
6 10 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (2.22%) Big Data
8 8 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
9 7 (1.73%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
10 6 (1.48%) GIS
11 4 (0.99%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (0.99%) Power BI
12 3 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.74%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.74%) IBM InfoSphere
13 2 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 40 (9.88%) Rational DOORS
2 28 (6.91%) JIRA
3 14 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.21%) Git
5 8 (1.98%) GitLab
5 8 (1.98%) Rational Rhapsody
6 6 (1.48%) Ant
7 5 (1.23%) IBM UrbanCode
7 5 (1.23%) Liquibase
7 5 (1.23%) PVCS
8 4 (0.99%) JMeter
8 4 (0.99%) PowerDesigner
9 3 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.74%) JUnit
10 2 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.49%) Eclipse
10 2 (0.49%) Introscope
10 2 (0.49%) Selenium
10 2 (0.49%) SoapUI
10 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio
General
1 95 (23.46%) Finance
2 85 (20.99%) Social Skills
3 70 (17.28%) Banking
4 34 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (7.90%) Public Sector
6 29 (7.16%) Aerospace
7 12 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (2.96%) Legal
7 12 (2.96%) Retail
8 9 (2.22%) Investment Banking
9 8 (1.98%) Front Office
10 7 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.48%) Law
12 5 (1.23%) Aviation
12 5 (1.23%) Electronics
12 5 (1.23%) Military
13 4 (0.99%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.74%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.74%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 42 (10.37%) Analyst
2 40 (9.88%) Architect
3 34 (8.40%) Developer
4 26 (6.42%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.42%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.42%) Product Manager
5 22 (5.43%) Consultant
6 21 (5.19%) Software Engineer
6 21 (5.19%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.19%) Systems Manager
7 20 (4.94%) Senior
8 19 (4.69%) Storage Analyst
9 16 (3.95%) Infrastructure Analyst
10 15 (3.70%) Data Engineer
10 15 (3.70%) Lead
11 13 (3.21%) Administrator
11 13 (3.21%) Management Consultant
12 11 (2.72%) DevOps Engineer
12 11 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
12 11 (2.72%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (9.88%) Middleware
2 33 (8.15%) REST
3 23 (5.68%) Flash
4 18 (4.44%) Kafka
5 14 (3.46%) XML
6 11 (2.72%) Spring
7 10 (2.47%) JSON
7 10 (2.47%) Spring Boot
8 9 (2.22%) SOAP
9 8 (1.98%) WebSphere MQ
10 7 (1.73%) EJB
10 7 (1.73%) JMS
10 7 (1.73%) RabbitMQ
10 7 (1.73%) ZeroMQ
11 6 (1.48%) JDBC
11 6 (1.48%) JSP
11 6 (1.48%) OpenLayers
11 6 (1.48%) PyTorch
11 6 (1.48%) scikit-learn
11 6 (1.48%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 70 (17.28%) Mainframe
2 34 (8.40%) Data Centre
3 31 (7.65%) Linux Command Line
3 31 (7.65%) Replication
4 27 (6.67%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.67%) Product Ownership
5 17 (4.20%) Clustering
6 16 (3.95%) VSAM
7 13 (3.21%) Algorithms
8 12 (2.96%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (2.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 11 (2.72%) Cloud Native
10 10 (2.47%) BYOD
10 10 (2.47%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (2.47%) Legacy Applications
11 9 (2.22%) IBM Mainframe
11 9 (2.22%) Management Information System
11 9 (2.22%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.98%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 95 (23.46%) Linux
2 51 (12.59%) Windows
3 47 (11.60%) zOS
4 42 (10.37%) AIX
5 40 (9.88%) Unix
6 22 (5.43%) Solaris
7 20 (4.94%) Windows Server
8 19 (4.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (2.72%) Windows Server 2008
9 11 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (1.98%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.99%) MVS
12 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.49%) VMS
13 1 (0.25%) Android
13 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (22.22%) Agile
2 57 (14.07%) CI/CD
3 56 (13.83%) Migration
4 48 (11.85%) Continuous Improvement
5 46 (11.36%) DevOps
6 45 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
6 45 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 42 (10.37%) Roadmaps
8 35 (8.64%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
8 35 (8.64%) Workflow
9 34 (8.40%) Computer Science
9 34 (8.40%) ETL
10 33 (8.15%) Systems Engineering
11 32 (7.90%) Configuration Management
12 30 (7.41%) ITIL
12 30 (7.41%) Performance Tuning
12 30 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
13 29 (7.16%) Test Automation
13 29 (7.16%) UML
14 28 (6.91%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (19.75%) SQL
2 70 (17.28%) Python
3 47 (11.60%) Java
4 36 (8.89%) PowerShell
5 20 (4.94%) Bash
6 19 (4.69%) COBOL
6 19 (4.69%) PL/SQL
7 18 (4.44%) JCL
8 15 (3.70%) REXX
9 14 (3.46%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (3.21%) C
10 13 (3.21%) C++
11 10 (2.47%) Ada
11 10 (2.47%) MATLAB
12 9 (2.22%) Perl
13 8 (1.98%) Bicep
14 7 (1.73%) Shell Script
15 6 (1.48%) Assembly Language
16 5 (1.23%) Embedded C
16 5 (1.23%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 123 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 77 (19.01%) SC Cleared
3 40 (9.88%) Degree
4 15 (3.70%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.72%) Azure Certification
5 11 (2.72%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.22%) CISSP
7 8 (1.98%) CISM
7 8 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.73%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.73%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.23%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.23%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.99%) ISTQB
10 4 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.74%) CEH
12 2 (0.49%) CISA
12 2 (0.49%) CISMP
12 2 (0.49%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 11 (2.72%) QA
2 11 (2.72%) SLA
3 7 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.73%) NIST
4 5 (1.23%) ISO 20022
4 5 (1.23%) NIST 800
4 5 (1.23%) SEPA
5 3 (0.74%) GDPR
6 2 (0.49%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.49%) GRC
6 2 (0.49%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.49%) NCSC
6 2 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.25%) GAAP
7 1 (0.25%) IFRS
7 1 (0.25%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 35 (8.64%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (7.65%) NFS
3 26 (6.42%) Docker
4 24 (5.93%) VMware ESXi
5 23 (5.68%) GPFS
6 20 (4.94%) vSphere
7 17 (4.20%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (2.22%) Firmware
8 9 (2.22%) RACF
9 7 (1.73%) Hyper-V
9 7 (1.73%) Oracle RAC
10 6 (1.48%) KVM
10 6 (1.48%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.74%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 3 (0.74%) PowerHA
12 2 (0.49%) ACF2
12 2 (0.49%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.49%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
12 2 (0.49%) VMware NSX
13 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 30 (7.41%) Ansible
2 26 (6.42%) Terraform
3 25 (6.17%) Kubernetes
4 21 (5.19%) Tivoli
5 20 (4.94%) vRealize
6 17 (4.20%) Nagios
6 17 (4.20%) ZABBIX
7 16 (3.95%) Netcool
8 14 (3.46%) OpenView
8 14 (3.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (2.96%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 11 (2.72%) VxRail
11 8 (1.98%) IBM BigFix
12 7 (1.73%) Oracle RMAN
13 6 (1.48%) vCenter Server
14 5 (1.23%) Grafana
14 5 (1.23%) Tivoli NetView
15 4 (0.99%) OMEGAMON
16 3 (0.74%) Control-M
17 2 (0.49%) Avamar
Vendors
1 74 (18.27%) Oracle
2 51 (12.59%) VMware
3 35 (8.64%) Cisco
3 35 (8.64%) ServiceNow
4 29 (7.16%) HP
5 27 (6.67%) Microsoft
6 26 (6.42%) Splunk
7 21 (5.19%) BMC
8 20 (4.94%) Dell
8 20 (4.94%) Red Hat
8 20 (4.94%) SolarWinds
9 19 (4.69%) SAP
10 12 (2.96%) Broadcom
10 12 (2.96%) Brocade
10 12 (2.96%) Google
11 11 (2.72%) NetApp
12 10 (2.47%) EMC
12 10 (2.47%) MathWorks
13 7 (1.73%) Sybase
13 7 (1.73%) Temenos