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 5 October 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
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 268 243 198
Rank change year-on-year -25 -45 +36
Contract jobs citing IBM 523 364 452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.10% 1.19%
As % of the Vendors category 2.31% 2.32% 2.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 241 216
10th Percentile £350 £350 £330
25th Percentile £425 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +11.58% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 8 27
10th Percentile £28.82 £25.04 £46.18
25th Percentile £57.50 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.33 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.29% -38.78% +3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.75 £70.00
90th Percentile - £73.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.75 £63.75 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -5.56% +3.85%

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 22,593 15,722 16,912
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.54% 47.64% 44.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,661 9,666 9,975
10th Percentile £310 £278 £287
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £619 £613 £625
90th Percentile £710 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,367 815 619
10th Percentile £13.86 £14.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.79 £16.00
Median hourly rate £25.26 £25.15 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.46% -22.63% -24.42%
75th Percentile £57.50 £40.65 £64.38
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.19 £21.30 £30.00
% change year-on-year +13.57% -29.00% -29.41%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -38 447 £500 -8.26% 437
UK excluding London -55 243 £500 +5.26% 287
London +2 207 £505 -17.04% 150
Work from Home -71 125 £547 -8.83% 254
North of England -45 96 £514 +13.84% 74
Yorkshire +9 61 £514 +8.77% 31
South East -62 34 £460 -16.36% 50
North West -65 33 £507 +12.67% 35
Scotland -7 30 £575 +33.10% 22
Midlands -54 30 £500 +13.77% 50
West Midlands -47 27 £500 -13.04% 19
South West -28 26 £550 -8.33% 35
East of England -15 25 £625 +13.64% 38
Wales -12 3 £600 -5.14% 12
East Midlands -24 2 - - 31
North East - 1 £475 - 8

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 38 (7.27%) Confluence
2 36 (6.88%) WebSphere
3 24 (4.59%) CICS
4 18 (3.44%) SharePoint
5 15 (2.87%) Tomcat
6 13 (2.49%) nginx
7 10 (1.91%) Camunda
8 9 (1.72%) WebLogic
9 8 (1.53%) Apache
9 8 (1.53%) SAS
10 7 (1.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (1.15%) JBoss
11 6 (1.15%) WebSphere Application Server
12 5 (0.96%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 3 (0.57%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.57%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.57%) IIS
13 3 (0.57%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 3 (0.57%) WebLogic Portal
13 3 (0.57%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 11 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.34%) Windchill
3 2 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 30 (5.74%) Maximo
2 18 (3.44%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.34%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.76%) Cognos Controller
4 4 (0.76%) Temenos T24
5 3 (0.57%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 1 (0.19%) Actimize
6 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.19%) HFM
6 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 89 (17.02%) Azure
2 82 (15.68%) AWS
3 39 (7.46%) GCP
4 36 (6.88%) GitHub
5 23 (4.40%) OpenShift
6 13 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (2.49%) GitHub Copilot
7 12 (2.29%) Anthropic Claude
8 11 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.91%) ChatGPT
9 10 (1.91%) IBM Watson
9 10 (1.91%) Power Platform
10 9 (1.72%) Azure Service Bus
10 9 (1.72%) Boomi
10 9 (1.72%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.72%) iPaaS
11 8 (1.53%) Microsoft Copilot
12 7 (1.34%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.34%) IBM Blueworks
13 6 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 24 (4.59%) HTTP
2 21 (4.02%) SSL
3 12 (2.29%) SAN
4 9 (1.72%) Network Security
5 8 (1.53%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.34%) Firewall
7 6 (1.15%) DNS
7 6 (1.15%) Internet
7 6 (1.15%) SSH
7 6 (1.15%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.96%) SNMP
8 5 (0.96%) VSAN
9 4 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.76%) NAS
10 3 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.57%) iSCSI
11 2 (0.38%) BGP
11 2 (0.38%) Ethernet
11 2 (0.38%) Multicast
11 2 (0.38%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (9.56%) Db2
2 34 (6.50%) Relational Database
3 29 (5.54%) DataStage
3 29 (5.54%) SQL Server
4 20 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
5 18 (3.44%) Oracle Database
6 15 (2.87%) MongoDB
7 12 (2.29%) Metadata
8 10 (1.91%) Tableau
9 8 (1.53%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (1.53%) Power BI
10 7 (1.34%) GIS
10 7 (1.34%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.96%) Big Data
12 4 (0.76%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.76%) IBM InfoSphere
13 3 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.57%) RDBMS
14 2 (0.38%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 63 (12.05%) JIRA
2 45 (8.60%) Jenkins
3 34 (6.50%) Git
4 24 (4.59%) GitLab
5 21 (4.02%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.63%) JMeter
7 16 (3.06%) LoadRunner
7 16 (3.06%) SonarQube
8 15 (2.87%) Postman
8 15 (2.87%) SoapUI
9 12 (2.29%) Gradle
10 11 (2.10%) IBM UrbanCode
11 10 (1.91%) eggPlant
11 10 (1.91%) JUnit
11 10 (1.91%) Maven
11 10 (1.91%) REST Assured
11 10 (1.91%) Selenium
11 10 (1.91%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (1.72%) Mockito
12 9 (1.72%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 200 (38.24%) Finance
2 137 (26.20%) Banking
2 137 (26.20%) Social Skills
3 73 (13.96%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (4.97%) Legal
5 21 (4.02%) Retail
6 19 (3.63%) Public Sector
7 16 (3.06%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.10%) Military
9 10 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.34%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.34%) Spanish Language
12 6 (1.15%) Aerospace
12 6 (1.15%) Front Office
13 5 (0.96%) Law
14 4 (0.76%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 86 (16.44%) Developer
2 55 (10.52%) Architect
3 50 (9.56%) Analyst
4 43 (8.22%) Senior
5 36 (6.88%) Lead
6 26 (4.97%) Administrator
6 26 (4.97%) Solutions Architect
7 21 (4.02%) Consultant
7 21 (4.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 18 (3.44%) Automation Engineer
9 17 (3.25%) Java Developer
10 16 (3.06%) DataStage Developer
10 16 (3.06%) Middleware Engineer
11 15 (2.87%) Applications Support
11 15 (2.87%) Business Analyst
12 14 (2.68%) CICS Engineer
13 13 (2.49%) Applications Manager
13 13 (2.49%) Applications Support Manager
13 13 (2.49%) Programmer
13 13 (2.49%) Support Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (17.78%) Middleware
2 61 (11.66%) Kafka
3 46 (8.80%) XML
4 44 (8.41%) REST
5 40 (7.65%) JSON
6 30 (5.74%) SOAP
7 29 (5.54%) Spring Boot
8 28 (5.35%) ISPF
9 21 (4.02%) HTML
9 21 (4.02%) Spring
10 17 (3.25%) .NET
11 16 (3.06%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (2.87%) Terraform
13 14 (2.68%) OAuth
14 13 (2.49%) SAML
14 13 (2.49%) Web Services
15 12 (2.29%) GraphQL
15 12 (2.29%) Swagger
16 11 (2.10%) JWT
16 11 (2.10%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 108 (20.65%) Mainframe
2 29 (5.54%) Clustering
3 24 (4.59%) Replication
4 22 (4.21%) Data Centre
4 22 (4.21%) Enterprise Software
5 21 (4.02%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.82%) AS400
7 19 (3.63%) Hybrid Cloud
8 16 (3.06%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (2.87%) Data Structures
10 14 (2.68%) iSeries
10 14 (2.68%) Onboarding
11 13 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
12 12 (2.29%) Legacy Applications
12 12 (2.29%) Product Ownership
13 11 (2.10%) IBM Mainframe
13 11 (2.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.91%) Management Information System
15 8 (1.53%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 89 (17.02%) Linux
2 84 (16.06%) zOS
3 56 (10.71%) Unix
4 31 (5.93%) Windows
5 18 (3.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (2.87%) AIX
7 9 (1.72%) SUSE
7 9 (1.72%) Windows Server
8 7 (1.34%) MVS
8 7 (1.34%) Solaris
9 5 (0.96%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (18.74%) CI/CD
2 92 (17.59%) Agile
3 86 (16.44%) Migration
4 85 (16.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 69 (13.19%) DevOps
6 68 (13.00%) Test Automation
7 65 (12.43%) ITIL
7 65 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
8 60 (11.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 52 (9.94%) Validation
10 49 (9.37%) Performance Tuning
11 47 (8.99%) ETL
12 45 (8.60%) Change Management
12 45 (8.60%) Root Cause Analysis
13 44 (8.41%) Roadmaps
14 42 (8.03%) Scrum
14 42 (8.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 40 (7.65%) AI
16 39 (7.46%) Performance Optimisation
17 35 (6.69%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 112 (21.41%) SQL
2 92 (17.59%) Python
3 86 (16.44%) Java
4 46 (8.80%) JavaScript
5 26 (4.97%) JCL
6 21 (4.02%) PL/SQL
7 20 (3.82%) Shell Script
8 19 (3.63%) PowerShell
9 18 (3.44%) Bash
10 17 (3.25%) REXX
11 16 (3.06%) COBOL
12 15 (2.87%) C++
13 14 (2.68%) C#
14 11 (2.10%) C
15 9 (1.72%) Perl
16 8 (1.53%) TypeScript
17 7 (1.34%) Assembly Language
17 7 (1.34%) CLIST
17 7 (1.34%) RPG
18 4 (0.76%) Ada
Qualifications
1 100 (19.12%) Security Cleared
2 80 (15.30%) SC Cleared
3 46 (8.80%) Degree
4 26 (4.97%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.34%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.34%) CISSP
7 6 (1.15%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.15%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.15%) PMI Certification
7 6 (1.15%) PMP
8 4 (0.76%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.57%) ACCA
9 3 (0.57%) CIMA
9 3 (0.57%) ISEB
9 3 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.38%) CCSP
10 2 (0.38%) CISA
10 2 (0.38%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.31%) Data Quality
2 15 (2.87%) QA
3 10 (1.91%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.53%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.34%) NIST
6 5 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.96%) GDPR
6 5 (0.96%) SLA
7 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 3 (0.57%) SEPA
8 2 (0.38%) GAAP
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) IFRS
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.38%) PMO
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 43 (8.22%) Docker
2 30 (5.74%) RACF
3 20 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.87%) NFS
5 14 (2.68%) Time Sharing Option
6 12 (2.29%) GPFS
7 11 (2.10%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (1.72%) vSphere
9 8 (1.53%) Firmware
10 7 (1.34%) ACF2
11 6 (1.15%) Active Directory
12 4 (0.76%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.76%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.19%) DFS Replication
13 1 (0.19%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
13 1 (0.19%) oVirt
13 1 (0.19%) RHEV
13 1 (0.19%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 39 (7.46%) Kubernetes
2 28 (5.35%) Ansible
3 25 (4.78%) OMEGAMON
4 16 (3.06%) Tivoli
5 11 (2.10%) Grafana
5 11 (2.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 9 (1.72%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (1.53%) Control-M
8 7 (1.34%) Netcool
9 6 (1.15%) HP Fortify
9 6 (1.15%) vRealize
10 5 (0.96%) Nagios
10 5 (0.96%) QRadar
10 5 (0.96%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.76%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.76%) Tivoli NetView
11 4 (0.76%) VxRail
12 3 (0.57%) HP ALM
12 3 (0.57%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 115 (21.99%) Oracle
2 61 (11.66%) Microsoft
3 38 (7.27%) SAP
4 31 (5.93%) Google
5 29 (5.54%) VMware
6 27 (5.16%) ServiceNow
7 25 (4.78%) Splunk
8 19 (3.63%) Broadcom
8 19 (3.63%) Red Hat
9 18 (3.44%) Cisco
9 18 (3.44%) Dynatrace
10 15 (2.87%) Siemens
11 13 (2.49%) Cognos
11 13 (2.49%) Databricks
12 12 (2.29%) Dell
12 12 (2.29%) EMC
13 11 (2.10%) Informatica
13 11 (2.10%) New Relic
13 11 (2.10%) Sybase
13 11 (2.10%) TIBCO