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 28 September 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
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 254 205
Rank change year-on-year -15 -49 +30
Contract jobs citing IBM 525 355 446
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.08% 1.17%
As % of the Vendors category 2.32% 2.28% 2.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 235 212
10th Percentile £350 £353 £340
25th Percentile £425 £415 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £545 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% +14.74% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £603
90th Percentile £685 £688 £738
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 30
10th Percentile £34.87 £25.04 £27.00
25th Percentile £60.81 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.33 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +57.29% -39.89% +5.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.75 £70.00
90th Percentile - £73.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £68.75
% change year-on-year +1.96% -7.27% +5.77%

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 22,633 15,596 17,004
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.61% 47.53% 44.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,770 9,609 10,048
10th Percentile £310 £275 £287
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £613 £625
90th Percentile £705 £700 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,319 808 642
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.75 £14.51
25th Percentile £16.44 £17.67 £15.65
Median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -19.52% -28.75%
75th Percentile £57.50 £42.68 £64.25
90th Percentile £77.65 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £21.30 £30.00
% change year-on-year +17.37% -29.00% -30.23%

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 28 September 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 28 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IBM in the UK

IBM
Top 15 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 28 September 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 -20 449 £500 -9.09% 313
UK excluding London -58 245 £500 +5.26% 195
London +8 208 £515 -15.40% 112
Work from Home -49 126 £547 -10.69% 170
North of England -43 96 £513 +13.62% 49
Yorkshire +4 63 £514 +8.77% 19
South East -57 34 £460 -17.30% 29
North West -75 32 £459 +2.00% 23
Scotland -19 31 £600 +38.89% 19
South West -23 29 £550 -8.33% 29
Midlands -56 28 £500 +13.77% 37
West Midlands -44 26 £500 -13.04% 14
East of England -12 25 £625 +13.64% 20
Wales -13 3 £600 -5.14% 6
East Midlands -30 1 - - 23

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 (7.24%) Confluence
2 36 (6.86%) WebSphere
3 26 (4.95%) CICS
4 18 (3.43%) SharePoint
5 16 (3.05%) Tomcat
6 14 (2.67%) nginx
7 11 (2.10%) Camunda
8 9 (1.71%) WebLogic
9 8 (1.52%) Apache
9 8 (1.52%) SAS
10 7 (1.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (1.14%) JBoss
11 6 (1.14%) WebSphere Application Server
12 5 (0.95%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 3 (0.57%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.57%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.57%) MQSeries
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 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.33%) Windchill
3 2 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 26 (4.95%) Maximo
2 19 (3.62%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.33%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.95%) Cognos Controller
5 4 (0.76%) Temenos T24
6 3 (0.57%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 2 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.19%) Actimize
8 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.19%) HFM
8 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.19%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 87 (16.57%) Azure
2 81 (15.43%) AWS
3 38 (7.24%) GCP
4 36 (6.86%) GitHub
5 25 (4.76%) OpenShift
6 14 (2.67%) GitHub Copilot
7 13 (2.48%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (2.10%) ChatGPT
10 10 (1.90%) IBM Watson
10 10 (1.90%) Power Platform
11 9 (1.71%) Azure Service Bus
11 9 (1.71%) Boomi
11 9 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 9 (1.71%) iPaaS
12 8 (1.52%) IBM Blueworks
12 8 (1.52%) Microsoft Copilot
13 7 (1.33%) Amazon S3
14 6 (1.14%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 25 (4.76%) HTTP
2 21 (4.00%) SSL
3 10 (1.90%) SAN
4 9 (1.71%) Network Security
5 8 (1.52%) Firewall
5 8 (1.52%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.33%) SNMP
7 6 (1.14%) Internet
7 6 (1.14%) SSH
7 6 (1.14%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.95%) DNS
9 4 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.76%) VSAN
10 3 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.57%) NAS
11 2 (0.38%) Ethernet
11 2 (0.38%) iSCSI
11 2 (0.38%) Multicast
11 2 (0.38%) OSPF
11 2 (0.38%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (8.95%) Db2
2 35 (6.67%) Relational Database
3 33 (6.29%) DataStage
4 26 (4.95%) SQL Server
5 21 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (3.24%) Oracle Database
7 15 (2.86%) Metadata
7 15 (2.86%) MongoDB
8 10 (1.90%) Tableau
9 8 (1.52%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.52%) Power BI
10 7 (1.33%) GIS
10 7 (1.33%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
11 5 (0.95%) Big Data
11 5 (0.95%) Data Lake
11 5 (0.95%) IBM InfoSphere
12 4 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.57%) RDBMS
14 2 (0.38%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 63 (12.00%) JIRA
2 45 (8.57%) Jenkins
3 33 (6.29%) Git
4 24 (4.57%) GitLab
5 21 (4.00%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.62%) JMeter
7 16 (3.05%) LoadRunner
7 16 (3.05%) SonarQube
8 14 (2.67%) Postman
8 14 (2.67%) SoapUI
9 12 (2.29%) Gradle
10 11 (2.10%) IBM UrbanCode
11 10 (1.90%) eggPlant
11 10 (1.90%) JUnit
11 10 (1.90%) Maven
11 10 (1.90%) REST Assured
11 10 (1.90%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (1.71%) Mockito
12 9 (1.71%) Rational Rhapsody
12 9 (1.71%) Selenium
General
1 202 (38.48%) Finance
2 140 (26.67%) Social Skills
3 139 (26.48%) Banking
4 71 (13.52%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (5.33%) Legal
6 18 (3.43%) Public Sector
6 18 (3.43%) Retail
7 15 (2.86%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.10%) Military
9 10 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.33%) Front Office
11 7 (1.33%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.33%) Spanish Language
12 6 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.95%) Aerospace
13 5 (0.95%) Law
14 4 (0.76%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 84 (16.00%) Developer
2 56 (10.67%) Architect
3 49 (9.33%) Analyst
4 43 (8.19%) Senior
5 37 (7.05%) Lead
6 26 (4.95%) Administrator
6 26 (4.95%) Solutions Architect
7 22 (4.19%) Consultant
8 20 (3.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 17 (3.24%) Automation Engineer
10 16 (3.05%) DataStage Developer
10 16 (3.05%) Java Developer
10 16 (3.05%) Middleware Engineer
11 15 (2.86%) Business Analyst
12 14 (2.67%) Applications Support
12 14 (2.67%) CICS Engineer
13 12 (2.29%) Applications Manager
13 12 (2.29%) Applications Support Manager
13 12 (2.29%) Oracle Developer
13 12 (2.29%) Support Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (17.90%) Middleware
2 60 (11.43%) Kafka
3 47 (8.95%) XML
4 46 (8.76%) REST
5 40 (7.62%) JSON
6 31 (5.90%) SOAP
7 30 (5.71%) Spring Boot
8 28 (5.33%) ISPF
9 22 (4.19%) Spring
10 20 (3.81%) HTML
11 17 (3.24%) .NET
12 16 (3.05%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.86%) Terraform
14 14 (2.67%) OAuth
15 13 (2.48%) SAML
15 13 (2.48%) Web Services
16 12 (2.29%) GraphQL
16 12 (2.29%) Swagger
17 11 (2.10%) JWT
17 11 (2.10%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 110 (20.95%) Mainframe
2 28 (5.33%) Clustering
3 23 (4.38%) Data Centre
4 22 (4.19%) Cloud Native
4 22 (4.19%) Replication
5 20 (3.81%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (3.62%) Hybrid Cloud
7 17 (3.24%) AS400
8 16 (3.05%) Data Structures
8 16 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (2.86%) Onboarding
10 14 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (2.48%) Legacy Applications
12 12 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
12 12 (2.29%) iSeries
12 12 (2.29%) Product Ownership
13 11 (2.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.90%) IBM Mainframe
14 10 (1.90%) Management Information System
15 9 (1.71%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 93 (17.71%) Linux
2 83 (15.81%) zOS
3 57 (10.86%) Unix
4 32 (6.10%) Windows
5 19 (3.62%) AIX
6 18 (3.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (1.90%) Solaris
8 8 (1.52%) SUSE
9 7 (1.33%) MVS
9 7 (1.33%) Windows Server
10 6 (1.14%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.19%) VMS
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (18.67%) CI/CD
2 91 (17.33%) Agile
3 86 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 80 (15.24%) Migration
5 74 (14.10%) DevOps
6 70 (13.33%) Test Automation
7 65 (12.38%) ITIL
7 65 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
8 58 (11.05%) Continuous Improvement
9 49 (9.33%) ETL
9 49 (9.33%) Validation
10 48 (9.14%) Performance Tuning
10 48 (9.14%) Roadmaps
11 45 (8.57%) Change Management
12 44 (8.38%) Root Cause Analysis
13 43 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 42 (8.00%) Scrum
15 41 (7.81%) AI
16 37 (7.05%) Performance Optimisation
17 35 (6.67%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 113 (21.52%) SQL
2 93 (17.71%) Python
3 87 (16.57%) Java
4 45 (8.57%) JavaScript
5 25 (4.76%) JCL
6 22 (4.19%) PL/SQL
7 20 (3.81%) PowerShell
7 20 (3.81%) Shell Script
8 18 (3.43%) Bash
9 17 (3.24%) COBOL
9 17 (3.24%) REXX
10 16 (3.05%) C++
11 14 (2.67%) C#
12 12 (2.29%) C
13 9 (1.71%) Perl
14 7 (1.33%) Assembly Language
14 7 (1.33%) CLIST
14 7 (1.33%) TypeScript
15 6 (1.14%) RPG
15 6 (1.14%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 101 (19.24%) Security Cleared
2 81 (15.43%) SC Cleared
3 46 (8.76%) Degree
4 26 (4.95%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.33%) CISSP
6 7 (1.33%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.14%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.14%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.95%) PMI Certification
8 5 (0.95%) PMP
9 4 (0.76%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (0.57%) ACCA
10 3 (0.57%) CIMA
10 3 (0.57%) ISEB
10 3 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.38%) CCSP
11 2 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.05%) QA
3 10 (1.90%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.52%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.33%) GDPR
5 7 (1.33%) NIST
6 5 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.95%) 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%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 44 (8.38%) Docker
2 30 (5.71%) RACF
3 22 (4.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (2.67%) NFS
4 14 (2.67%) Time Sharing Option
5 11 (2.10%) GPFS
5 11 (2.10%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.52%) vSphere
8 7 (1.33%) ACF2
8 7 (1.33%) Firmware
9 5 (0.95%) Active Directory
9 5 (0.95%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.76%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.19%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.19%) oVirt
11 1 (0.19%) RHEV
11 1 (0.19%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 39 (7.43%) Kubernetes
2 27 (5.14%) Ansible
3 25 (4.76%) OMEGAMON
4 18 (3.43%) Tivoli
5 11 (2.10%) Grafana
5 11 (2.10%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 11 (2.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 9 (1.71%) Netcool
7 8 (1.52%) Control-M
8 7 (1.33%) Nagios
8 7 (1.33%) ZABBIX
9 6 (1.14%) HP Fortify
9 6 (1.14%) vRealize
10 5 (0.95%) QRadar
11 4 (0.76%) OpenView
11 4 (0.76%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.76%) Tivoli NetView
11 4 (0.76%) VxRail
12 3 (0.57%) CA Endevor
12 3 (0.57%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 116 (22.10%) Oracle
2 59 (11.24%) Microsoft
3 36 (6.86%) SAP
4 31 (5.90%) VMware
5 30 (5.71%) Google
6 28 (5.33%) Splunk
7 26 (4.95%) ServiceNow
8 20 (3.81%) Red Hat
9 19 (3.62%) Broadcom
10 18 (3.43%) Cisco
10 18 (3.43%) Dynatrace
11 15 (2.86%) Siemens
12 14 (2.67%) Cognos
13 13 (2.48%) Databricks
14 12 (2.29%) Dell
14 12 (2.29%) Informatica
14 12 (2.29%) Sybase
15 11 (2.10%) EMC
15 11 (2.10%) MathWorks
15 11 (2.10%) TIBCO