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 18 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
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 245 239
Rank change year-on-year -42 -6 +38
Contract jobs citing IBM 421 325 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.09% 0.99%
As % of the Vendors category 2.05% 2.29% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 210 228
10th Percentile £313 £358 £360
25th Percentile £400 £408 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £597 £646 £650
90th Percentile £675 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £460 £492
% change year-on-year +2.83% -6.46% -1.65%
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 20,549 14,166 18,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.77% 47.59% 42.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,890 8,715 11,489
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £401 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 653 1,156
10th Percentile £15.37 £14.87 £12.19
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.50
Median hourly rate £33.98 £25.15 £23.90
Median % change year-on-year +35.11% +5.23% -44.90%
75th Percentile £60.00 £53.95 £58.90
90th Percentile £80.04 £69.47 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £23.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +39.13% +2.22% -43.75%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -48 368 £475 -5.00% 88
UK excluding London -40 242 £473 +2.83% 63
London -41 136 £488 -18.75% 33
Work from Home -52 114 £500 - 39
North of England -41 87 £513 +20.76% 16
North West -21 46 £459 +14.75% 9
South West +7 43 £426 -28.10% 9
South East -42 42 £400 -20.00% 16
Yorkshire -44 40 £533 +12.11% 4
Midlands -55 30 £402 -8.53% 9
West Midlands -45 25 £402 -12.61% 5
Scotland -20 21 £550 +14.82% 4
East of England -16 18 £425 -22.73% 8
East Midlands -30 4 £837 +101.57% 4
Wales -14 1 - - 1
North East -38 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 28 (6.65%) WebSphere
2 20 (4.75%) Confluence
3 18 (4.28%) CICS
3 18 (4.28%) Tomcat
4 16 (3.80%) nginx
5 11 (2.61%) SharePoint
6 10 (2.38%) WebLogic
7 6 (1.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (1.19%) Apache
8 5 (1.19%) WebSphere Application Server
9 4 (0.95%) IIS
9 4 (0.95%) JBoss
9 4 (0.95%) SAS
10 3 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.71%) Camunda
10 3 (0.71%) CMS
11 2 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.48%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.48%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.24%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.99%) Maximo
2 10 (2.38%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.43%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.71%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.71%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.48%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.48%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.24%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 1 (0.24%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.24%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.24%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 62 (14.73%) AWS
2 50 (11.88%) Azure
3 22 (5.23%) GitHub
4 18 (4.28%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.85%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.61%) GitHub Copilot
7 10 (2.38%) GCP
8 9 (2.14%) ChatGPT
9 7 (1.66%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.66%) IBM Watson
9 7 (1.66%) SaaS
10 6 (1.43%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.43%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.43%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.43%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (1.19%) Vertex AI
12 4 (0.95%) Azure AI
12 4 (0.95%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (0.95%) MinIO
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.51%) Firewall
2 16 (3.80%) SNMP
3 15 (3.56%) HTTP
3 15 (3.56%) SSL
4 11 (2.61%) SAN
5 9 (2.14%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.66%) DNS
6 7 (1.66%) VPN
6 7 (1.66%) VSAN
7 6 (1.43%) Fibre Channel
7 6 (1.43%) Network Security
8 4 (0.95%) APPN
8 4 (0.95%) LAN
8 4 (0.95%) NAS
8 4 (0.95%) SNA
9 3 (0.71%) MPLS
9 3 (0.71%) SSH
9 3 (0.71%) WAN
10 2 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
10 2 (0.48%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (9.74%) Db2
2 27 (6.41%) DataStage
3 22 (5.23%) SQL Server
4 20 (4.75%) Relational Database
5 14 (3.33%) Metadata
6 13 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (3.09%) MongoDB
7 11 (2.61%) Elasticsearch
8 9 (2.14%) Oracle Database
8 9 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (1.90%) Big Data
9 8 (1.90%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.66%) GIS
10 7 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
11 3 (0.71%) Apache Hive
11 3 (0.71%) Power BI
12 2 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
12 2 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
12 2 (0.48%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 38 (9.03%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.36%) JIRA
3 19 (4.51%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.33%) Git
5 11 (2.61%) GitLab
6 8 (1.90%) Rational Rhapsody
7 5 (1.19%) Ant
7 5 (1.19%) Liquibase
7 5 (1.19%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (0.95%) JMeter
9 3 (0.71%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.71%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.71%) Gradle
9 3 (0.71%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.71%) JUnit
9 3 (0.71%) Maven
9 3 (0.71%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.48%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio
General
1 115 (27.32%) Finance
2 91 (21.62%) Social Skills
3 81 (19.24%) Banking
4 36 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (7.60%) Public Sector
6 28 (6.65%) Aerospace
7 26 (6.18%) Legal
8 13 (3.09%) Retail
9 12 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.90%) Front Office
10 8 (1.90%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.66%) Law
11 7 (1.66%) Military
12 6 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.19%) Aviation
14 4 (0.95%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.71%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.48%) Advertising
16 2 (0.48%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 43 (10.21%) Architect
2 41 (9.74%) Developer
3 39 (9.26%) Analyst
4 26 (6.18%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.18%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.18%) Product Manager
5 25 (5.94%) Senior
6 24 (5.70%) Administrator
6 24 (5.70%) Consultant
7 21 (4.99%) Systems Delivery Manager
7 21 (4.99%) Systems Manager
8 17 (4.04%) Data Engineer
8 17 (4.04%) Lead
8 17 (4.04%) Software Engineer
9 16 (3.80%) Storage Analyst
10 14 (3.33%) Solutions Architect
11 13 (3.09%) Management Consultant
12 12 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
12 12 (2.85%) Systems Engineer
13 11 (2.61%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (11.88%) Middleware
2 35 (8.31%) REST
3 21 (4.99%) Flash
4 18 (4.28%) ISPF
4 18 (4.28%) Kafka
5 16 (3.80%) Spring Boot
6 15 (3.56%) Spring
7 14 (3.33%) JSON
7 14 (3.33%) XML
8 9 (2.14%) SOAP
9 8 (1.90%) JMS
9 8 (1.90%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (1.90%) WebSphere MQ
10 7 (1.66%) EJB
10 7 (1.66%) Web Services
10 7 (1.66%) ZeroMQ
11 6 (1.43%) J2EE
11 6 (1.43%) JDBC
11 6 (1.43%) JSP
11 6 (1.43%) OpenLayers
Miscellaneous
1 80 (19.00%) Mainframe
2 36 (8.55%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.89%) Clustering
3 29 (6.89%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.65%) Product Ownership
5 25 (5.94%) Linux Command Line
5 25 (5.94%) Replication
6 16 (3.80%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (3.09%) VSAM
8 12 (2.85%) Algorithms
8 12 (2.85%) Cloud Native
8 12 (2.85%) Legacy Applications
8 12 (2.85%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 10 (2.38%) BYOD
9 10 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
9 10 (2.38%) IBM Mainframe
10 8 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.90%) Derivative
10 8 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 107 (25.42%) Linux
2 52 (12.35%) Windows
2 52 (12.35%) zOS
3 45 (10.69%) Unix
4 41 (9.74%) AIX
5 24 (5.70%) Solaris
6 23 (5.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (4.75%) Windows Server
8 13 (3.09%) Windows Server 2008
9 11 (2.61%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (1.90%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (1.19%) MVS
11 5 (1.19%) SUSE
12 2 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.48%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.24%) Android
13 1 (0.24%) VMS
13 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (21.14%) Agile
2 60 (14.25%) CI/CD
3 53 (12.59%) DevOps
4 51 (12.11%) Migration
5 50 (11.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 48 (11.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 43 (10.21%) ITIL
7 43 (10.21%) Problem-Solving
7 43 (10.21%) Roadmaps
8 42 (9.98%) ETL
9 36 (8.55%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 34 (8.08%) Computer Science
10 34 (8.08%) Systems Engineering
11 33 (7.84%) Test Automation
11 33 (7.84%) Workflow
12 32 (7.60%) AI
12 32 (7.60%) Configuration Management
12 32 (7.60%) UML
13 31 (7.36%) Stakeholder Management
14 28 (6.65%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (20.19%) SQL
2 75 (17.81%) Python
3 54 (12.83%) Java
4 36 (8.55%) PowerShell
5 24 (5.70%) Bash
6 21 (4.99%) PL/SQL
7 16 (3.80%) COBOL
7 16 (3.80%) JCL
8 14 (3.33%) REXX
8 14 (3.33%) Search Processing Language
9 11 (2.61%) C++
10 10 (2.38%) Ada
10 10 (2.38%) C
10 10 (2.38%) MATLAB
11 8 (1.90%) Bicep
11 8 (1.90%) Shell Script
12 7 (1.66%) JavaScript
12 7 (1.66%) Perl
13 6 (1.43%) Assembly Language
14 5 (1.19%) C#
Qualifications
1 128 (30.40%) Security Cleared
2 83 (19.71%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.26%) Degree
4 12 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.61%) Azure Certification
5 11 (2.61%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.14%) CISSP
7 8 (1.90%) CISM
7 8 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.66%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.66%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.19%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (1.19%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.71%) CEH
11 2 (0.48%) CISA
11 2 (0.48%) CISMP
11 2 (0.48%) GCIH
11 2 (0.48%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (7.60%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.38%) QA
3 8 (1.90%) SLA
4 7 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.66%) NIST
5 5 (1.19%) GDPR
5 5 (1.19%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.19%) NIST 800
5 5 (1.19%) SEPA
6 3 (0.71%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.48%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.48%) GAAP
7 2 (0.48%) GRC
7 2 (0.48%) IFRS
7 2 (0.48%) NCSC
8 1 (0.24%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.24%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.24%) TARGET2
System Software
1 29 (6.89%) Docker
2 28 (6.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (5.94%) NFS
4 24 (5.70%) VMware ESXi
5 20 (4.75%) GPFS
6 19 (4.51%) RACF
7 16 (3.80%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (3.33%) vSphere
9 10 (2.38%) Time Sharing Option
10 9 (2.14%) Firmware
10 9 (2.14%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (1.66%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.43%) KVM
13 3 (0.71%) ACF2
13 3 (0.71%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.48%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.48%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 2 (0.48%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.48%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.24%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 32 (7.60%) Ansible
2 26 (6.18%) Terraform
3 21 (4.99%) Kubernetes
3 21 (4.99%) Tivoli
4 18 (4.28%) OMEGAMON
5 17 (4.04%) Nagios
5 17 (4.04%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.80%) Netcool
7 14 (3.33%) OpenView
7 14 (3.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (3.33%) vRealize
8 11 (2.61%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.90%) IBM BigFix
9 8 (1.90%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (1.66%) VxRail
11 6 (1.43%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.43%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.95%) Grafana
13 3 (0.71%) Control-M
14 2 (0.48%) TIBCO Hawk
Vendors
1 88 (20.90%) Oracle
2 45 (10.69%) VMware
3 32 (7.60%) Microsoft
4 29 (6.89%) Cisco
4 29 (6.89%) ServiceNow
5 27 (6.41%) Red Hat
5 27 (6.41%) Splunk
6 25 (5.94%) HP
6 25 (5.94%) SAP
7 20 (4.75%) BMC
8 19 (4.51%) Dell
9 16 (3.80%) SolarWinds
10 15 (3.56%) MathWorks
11 14 (3.33%) Brocade
12 13 (3.09%) Broadcom
13 12 (2.85%) Google
14 9 (2.14%) Sybase
15 7 (1.66%) Cognos
15 7 (1.66%) Informatica
16 6 (1.43%) NetApp