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 10 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
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 246 221
Rank change year-on-year -47 -25 +71
Contract jobs citing IBM 406 319 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 1.09% 1.07%
As % of the Vendors category 2.02% 2.28% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 204 260
10th Percentile £313 £363 £362
25th Percentile £400 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £650
90th Percentile £675 £696 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £461 £472
% change year-on-year +1.68% -2.28% -5.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 4 39
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.77 £51.40
25th Percentile £56.56 £24.94 £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 £64.76 -
90th Percentile - £136.13 -
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 20,080 13,989 18,443
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.58% 47.63% 42.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,626 8,611 11,465
10th Percentile £313 £280 £269
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £515
Median % change year-on-year -0.20% -2.72% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +4.06% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,022 624 1,139
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.34 £14.49
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% +8.51% -45.35%
75th Percentile £59.56 £55.00 £58.49
90th Percentile £78.54 £69.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.94 £22.00
% change year-on-year +30.79% +4.26% -45.00%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -58 354 £475 -5.00% 81
UK excluding London -30 235 £469 +1.68% 52
London -70 129 £490 -18.33% 32
Work from Home -46 112 £495 -2.22% 43
North of England -45 83 £500 +17.65% 10
North West -17 45 £459 +10.60% 3
South West +9 43 £426 -28.10% 10
South East -57 41 £400 -20.00% 15
Yorkshire -43 37 £525 +10.53% 6
Midlands -65 28 £413 -7.25% 7
West Midlands -48 23 £402 -12.61% 4
Scotland -22 20 £550 +14.82% 2
East of England -11 19 £425 -19.05% 9
East Midlands -34 4 £837 +99.17% 3
Wales -14 1 - - 1
North East -26 1 £375 -10.45% 1

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 28 (6.90%) WebSphere
2 20 (4.93%) Confluence
3 18 (4.43%) CICS
4 17 (4.19%) Tomcat
5 15 (3.69%) nginx
6 11 (2.71%) SharePoint
7 9 (2.22%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (1.23%) Apache
9 5 (1.23%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (0.99%) IIS
10 4 (0.99%) JBoss
10 4 (0.99%) SAS
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.74%) Camunda
11 3 (0.74%) CMS
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 Office
2 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.49%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (5.17%) Maximo
2 8 (1.97%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.48%) 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%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 1 (0.25%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.25%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.25%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 61 (15.02%) AWS
2 47 (11.58%) Azure
3 22 (5.42%) GitHub
4 18 (4.43%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.71%) GitHub Copilot
7 10 (2.46%) GCP
8 9 (2.22%) ChatGPT
9 7 (1.72%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.72%) IBM Watson
9 7 (1.72%) SaaS
10 6 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.48%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (1.23%) Vertex AI
12 4 (0.99%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.99%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (0.99%) MinIO
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.68%) Firewall
2 16 (3.94%) SNMP
3 14 (3.45%) HTTP
4 12 (2.96%) SAN
5 11 (2.71%) SSL
6 9 (2.22%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.72%) DNS
7 7 (1.72%) VPN
7 7 (1.72%) VSAN
8 6 (1.48%) Fibre Channel
9 5 (1.23%) Network Security
10 4 (0.99%) APPN
10 4 (0.99%) LAN
10 4 (0.99%) NAS
10 4 (0.99%) SNA
11 3 (0.74%) MPLS
11 3 (0.74%) SSH
11 3 (0.74%) WAN
12 2 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
12 2 (0.49%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (10.10%) Db2
2 27 (6.65%) DataStage
3 20 (4.93%) SQL Server
4 19 (4.68%) Relational Database
5 14 (3.45%) Metadata
6 13 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (2.96%) MongoDB
8 10 (2.46%) Elasticsearch
9 9 (2.22%) Oracle Database
10 8 (1.97%) NoSQL
10 8 (1.97%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (1.72%) Big Data
11 7 (1.72%) GIS
11 7 (1.72%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.74%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.74%) Power BI
13 2 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.49%) BusinessObjects
13 2 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 2 (0.49%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 39 (9.61%) Rational DOORS
2 32 (7.88%) JIRA
3 18 (4.43%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.45%) Git
5 11 (2.71%) GitLab
6 8 (1.97%) Rational Rhapsody
7 5 (1.23%) Ant
7 5 (1.23%) Liquibase
8 4 (0.99%) JMeter
8 4 (0.99%) PowerDesigner
9 3 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.74%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.74%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.74%) JUnit
9 3 (0.74%) PVCS
9 3 (0.74%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.74%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.49%) Gradle
10 2 (0.49%) SonarQube
General
1 102 (25.12%) Finance
2 89 (21.92%) Social Skills
3 75 (18.47%) Banking
4 36 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (7.88%) Public Sector
6 28 (6.90%) Aerospace
7 21 (5.17%) Legal
8 12 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.96%) Retail
9 8 (1.97%) Front Office
9 8 (1.97%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.72%) Law
10 7 (1.72%) Military
11 6 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.23%) Aviation
13 4 (0.99%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.74%) Electronics
14 3 (0.74%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.49%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 41 (10.10%) Architect
2 37 (9.11%) Developer
3 35 (8.62%) Analyst
4 26 (6.40%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.40%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.40%) Product Manager
5 24 (5.91%) Consultant
6 22 (5.42%) Senior
7 21 (5.17%) Systems Delivery Manager
7 21 (5.17%) Systems Manager
8 20 (4.93%) Administrator
9 18 (4.43%) Software Engineer
10 17 (4.19%) Data Engineer
11 16 (3.94%) Lead
11 16 (3.94%) Storage Analyst
12 13 (3.20%) Management Consultant
13 12 (2.96%) DevOps Engineer
13 12 (2.96%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (2.96%) Systems Engineer
14 10 (2.46%) Infrastructure Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (11.08%) Middleware
2 34 (8.37%) REST
3 21 (5.17%) Flash
4 17 (4.19%) Kafka
5 14 (3.45%) ISPF
5 14 (3.45%) JSON
5 14 (3.45%) Spring Boot
5 14 (3.45%) XML
6 13 (3.20%) Spring
7 8 (1.97%) SOAP
7 8 (1.97%) WebSphere MQ
8 7 (1.72%) EJB
8 7 (1.72%) JMS
8 7 (1.72%) RabbitMQ
8 7 (1.72%) ZeroMQ
9 6 (1.48%) ARM Templates
9 6 (1.48%) J2EE
9 6 (1.48%) OpenLayers
9 6 (1.48%) PyTorch
9 6 (1.48%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 76 (18.72%) Mainframe
2 35 (8.62%) Data Centre
3 29 (7.14%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.65%) Product Ownership
5 25 (6.16%) Clustering
5 25 (6.16%) Linux Command Line
5 25 (6.16%) Replication
6 15 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (3.20%) VSAM
8 12 (2.96%) Algorithms
8 12 (2.96%) Cloud Native
8 12 (2.96%) Legacy Applications
9 11 (2.71%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 10 (2.46%) BYOD
10 10 (2.46%) Hybrid Cloud
10 10 (2.46%) IBM Mainframe
11 8 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.97%) Derivative
11 8 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (1.72%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 102 (25.12%) Linux
2 52 (12.81%) Windows
3 49 (12.07%) zOS
4 44 (10.84%) Unix
5 41 (10.10%) AIX
6 24 (5.91%) Solaris
7 22 (5.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.93%) Windows Server
9 13 (3.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.71%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.97%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (1.23%) MVS
13 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.49%) SUSE
13 2 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.25%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (21.18%) Agile
2 60 (14.78%) CI/CD
3 52 (12.81%) DevOps
4 49 (12.07%) Continuous Improvement
4 49 (12.07%) Migration
5 48 (11.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 43 (10.59%) Problem-Solving
7 42 (10.34%) Roadmaps
8 41 (10.10%) ETL
9 37 (9.11%) ITIL
10 36 (8.87%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
11 34 (8.37%) Computer Science
11 34 (8.37%) Systems Engineering
12 33 (8.13%) Test Automation
12 33 (8.13%) Workflow
13 32 (7.88%) AI
13 32 (7.88%) Configuration Management
13 32 (7.88%) UML
14 28 (6.90%) Programme Management
14 28 (6.90%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 83 (20.44%) SQL
2 74 (18.23%) Python
3 51 (12.56%) Java
4 36 (8.87%) PowerShell
5 23 (5.67%) Bash
6 20 (4.93%) PL/SQL
7 17 (4.19%) JCL
8 16 (3.94%) COBOL
9 15 (3.69%) REXX
10 14 (3.45%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (2.96%) C++
12 11 (2.71%) C
13 10 (2.46%) Ada
13 10 (2.46%) MATLAB
14 8 (1.97%) Bicep
14 8 (1.97%) Shell Script
15 7 (1.72%) JavaScript
15 7 (1.72%) Perl
16 6 (1.48%) Assembly Language
16 6 (1.48%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 127 (31.28%) Security Cleared
2 82 (20.20%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.61%) Degree
4 12 (2.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.71%) Azure Certification
5 11 (2.71%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.22%) CISSP
7 8 (1.97%) CISM
7 8 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.72%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.72%) 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%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.74%) CEH
12 2 (0.49%) CISMP
12 2 (0.49%) CSSLP
12 2 (0.49%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (7.88%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.46%) QA
3 8 (1.97%) SLA
4 7 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.72%) NIST
5 5 (1.23%) GDPR
5 5 (1.23%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.23%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.99%) SEPA
7 3 (0.74%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.49%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.49%) GRC
8 2 (0.49%) NCSC
9 1 (0.25%) Basel III
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (6.90%) Docker
3 25 (6.16%) NFS
4 24 (5.91%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (5.17%) GPFS
6 16 (3.94%) RACF
6 16 (3.94%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (3.45%) vSphere
8 10 (2.46%) Time Sharing Option
9 9 (2.22%) Firmware
9 9 (2.22%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (1.72%) Hyper-V
11 6 (1.48%) KVM
12 3 (0.74%) ACF2
12 3 (0.74%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 3 (0.74%) PowerHA
13 2 (0.49%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.49%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
13 2 (0.49%) VMware NSX
14 1 (0.25%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 31 (7.64%) Ansible
2 26 (6.40%) Terraform
3 21 (5.17%) Kubernetes
3 21 (5.17%) Tivoli
4 17 (4.19%) Nagios
4 17 (4.19%) ZABBIX
5 16 (3.94%) Netcool
6 14 (3.45%) OMEGAMON
6 14 (3.45%) OpenView
6 14 (3.45%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 14 (3.45%) vRealize
7 12 (2.96%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 8 (1.97%) IBM BigFix
8 8 (1.97%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (1.72%) VxRail
10 6 (1.48%) Tivoli NetView
10 6 (1.48%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.99%) Grafana
12 3 (0.74%) Control-M
13 2 (0.49%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 81 (19.95%) Oracle
2 46 (11.33%) VMware
3 30 (7.39%) Cisco
3 30 (7.39%) Microsoft
4 29 (7.14%) ServiceNow
5 27 (6.65%) Splunk
6 25 (6.16%) HP
7 24 (5.91%) Red Hat
8 21 (5.17%) BMC
8 21 (5.17%) SAP
9 19 (4.68%) Dell
10 16 (3.94%) SolarWinds
11 14 (3.45%) Broadcom
11 14 (3.45%) Brocade
12 12 (2.96%) MathWorks
13 11 (2.71%) Google
14 8 (1.97%) Sybase
15 7 (1.72%) Informatica
16 6 (1.48%) EMC
16 6 (1.48%) NetApp