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 3 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
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 235 212
Rank change year-on-year -63 -23 +70
Contract jobs citing IBM 401 321 474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 1.12% 1.10%
As % of the Vendors category 2.01% 2.34% 2.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 208 266
10th Percentile £313 £362 £368
25th Percentile £400 £408 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £650
90th Percentile £693 £701 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £460 £471
% change year-on-year -0.22% -2.34% -5.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 2 38
10th Percentile £25.77 £40.32 £48.35
25th Percentile £55.00 £63.80 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £103.57 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.41% +47.95% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £143.95 -
90th Percentile - £167.81 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £103.57 £70.00
% change year-on-year -15.03% +47.95% +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 19,935 13,729 18,203
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.81% 47.72% 42.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,521 8,508 11,350
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.78% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.87% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 599 1,121
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.04 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +24.81% +15.43% -46.92%
75th Percentile £58.75 £55.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -45.64%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -57 352 £475 -5.00% 108
UK excluding London -32 234 £459 -0.22% 65
London -82 127 £515 -14.21% 51
Work from Home -51 112 £505 +0.91% 54
North of England -51 81 £490 +15.29% 9
South West +5 43 £426 -27.18% 13
North West -18 43 £459 +14.46% 2
South East -49 41 £400 -20.00% 19
Yorkshire -47 37 £514 +8.21% 7
Midlands -50 33 £402 -9.61% 10
West Midlands -48 28 £402 -12.61% 7
Scotland -10 19 £550 +15.30% 4
East of England -20 16 £425 -19.05% 7
East Midlands -32 4 £837 +99.17% 3
Wales -13 1 - - 4
North East -33 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 28 (6.98%) WebSphere
2 21 (5.24%) Confluence
3 18 (4.49%) CICS
4 16 (3.99%) Tomcat
5 14 (3.49%) nginx
6 11 (2.74%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.00%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (1.50%) WebSphere Application Server
9 5 (1.25%) Anypoint
9 5 (1.25%) Apache
10 4 (1.00%) IIS
10 4 (1.00%) JBoss
10 4 (1.00%) SAS
11 3 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.75%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.75%) Camunda
11 3 (0.75%) CMS
12 2 (0.50%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.50%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.50%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.50%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (4.74%) Maximo
2 8 (2.00%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.75%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.75%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.50%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.50%) 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%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.25%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 69 (17.21%) AWS
2 50 (12.47%) Azure
3 21 (5.24%) GitHub
4 20 (4.99%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.74%) GitHub Copilot
7 10 (2.49%) GCP
8 9 (2.24%) ChatGPT
9 7 (1.75%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.75%) IBM Watson
9 7 (1.75%) SaaS
10 6 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.50%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.50%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.25%) Amazon S3
11 5 (1.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (1.25%) Vertex AI
12 4 (1.00%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (1.00%) MinIO
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.74%) Firewall
2 16 (3.99%) SNMP
3 14 (3.49%) SAN
4 13 (3.24%) HTTP
5 9 (2.24%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.24%) VSAN
6 8 (2.00%) Fibre Channel
7 7 (1.75%) DNS
7 7 (1.75%) SSL
7 7 (1.75%) VPN
8 6 (1.50%) NAS
9 5 (1.25%) HTTPS
10 4 (1.00%) APPN
10 4 (1.00%) LAN
10 4 (1.00%) Network Security
10 4 (1.00%) SNA
11 3 (0.75%) MPLS
11 3 (0.75%) SSH
11 3 (0.75%) WAN
12 2 (0.50%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (9.98%) DB2
2 24 (5.99%) DataStage
3 20 (4.99%) SQL Server
4 17 (4.24%) Relational Database
5 12 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (2.99%) Metadata
6 10 (2.49%) MongoDB
7 9 (2.24%) Elasticsearch
7 9 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
8 8 (2.00%) Oracle Database
9 7 (1.75%) Big Data
9 7 (1.75%) GIS
9 7 (1.75%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.75%) Amazon Aurora
10 3 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.75%) Apache Hive
10 3 (0.75%) Power BI
11 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.50%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 40 (9.98%) Rational DOORS
2 29 (7.23%) JIRA
3 16 (3.99%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.24%) Git
5 9 (2.24%) GitLab
5 9 (2.24%) Rational Rhapsody
6 5 (1.25%) Ant
6 5 (1.25%) Liquibase
7 4 (1.00%) JMeter
7 4 (1.00%) PowerDesigner
7 4 (1.00%) PVCS
8 3 (0.75%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.75%) IBM UrbanCode
8 3 (0.75%) JUnit
8 3 (0.75%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.50%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.50%) Selenium
9 2 (0.50%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 97 (24.19%) Finance
2 87 (21.70%) Social Skills
3 70 (17.46%) Banking
4 36 (8.98%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (7.98%) Public Sector
6 29 (7.23%) Aerospace
7 16 (3.99%) Legal
8 12 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.99%) Retail
9 8 (2.00%) Front Office
9 8 (2.00%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.50%) Law
11 6 (1.50%) Military
12 5 (1.25%) Aviation
13 4 (1.00%) Electronics
13 4 (1.00%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.50%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 42 (10.47%) Architect
2 35 (8.73%) Analyst
3 33 (8.23%) Developer
4 26 (6.48%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.48%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.48%) Product Manager
5 24 (5.99%) Consultant
6 21 (5.24%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.24%) Systems Manager
7 20 (4.99%) Senior
7 20 (4.99%) Software Engineer
8 18 (4.49%) Storage Analyst
9 16 (3.99%) Administrator
10 15 (3.74%) Data Engineer
10 15 (3.74%) Lead
11 13 (3.24%) Management Consultant
12 12 (2.99%) DevOps Engineer
12 12 (2.99%) Infrastructure Analyst
12 12 (2.99%) Systems Engineer
13 11 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (10.72%) Middleware
2 33 (8.23%) REST
3 22 (5.49%) Flash
4 17 (4.24%) Kafka
5 12 (2.99%) JSON
5 12 (2.99%) XML
6 10 (2.49%) ISPF
6 10 (2.49%) Spring
6 10 (2.49%) Spring Boot
7 9 (2.24%) WebSphere MQ
8 7 (1.75%) EJB
8 7 (1.75%) JMS
8 7 (1.75%) RabbitMQ
8 7 (1.75%) SOAP
8 7 (1.75%) ZeroMQ
9 6 (1.50%) ARM Templates
9 6 (1.50%) JDBC
9 6 (1.50%) JSP
9 6 (1.50%) OpenLayers
9 6 (1.50%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 72 (17.96%) Mainframe
2 35 (8.73%) Data Centre
3 28 (6.98%) Replication
4 27 (6.73%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.73%) Linux Command Line
4 27 (6.73%) Product Ownership
5 21 (5.24%) Clustering
6 13 (3.24%) VSAM
7 12 (2.99%) Algorithms
7 12 (2.99%) Legacy Applications
7 12 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (2.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 11 (2.74%) Cloud Native
9 10 (2.49%) BYOD
9 10 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
9 10 (2.49%) IBM Mainframe
10 9 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (2.24%) Onboarding
11 8 (2.00%) Derivative
11 8 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 96 (23.94%) Linux
2 52 (12.97%) Windows
3 47 (11.72%) zOS
4 42 (10.47%) Unix
5 41 (10.22%) AIX
6 24 (5.99%) Solaris
7 21 (5.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.99%) Windows Server
9 13 (3.24%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (2.00%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (1.25%) MVS
13 2 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.50%) 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 2003
14 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (20.70%) Agile
2 59 (14.71%) CI/CD
3 49 (12.22%) DevOps
3 49 (12.22%) Migration
4 48 (11.97%) Continuous Improvement
5 46 (11.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 42 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (10.22%) Roadmaps
8 36 (8.98%) ETL
8 36 (8.98%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 34 (8.48%) Computer Science
9 34 (8.48%) Systems Engineering
9 34 (8.48%) Workflow
10 33 (8.23%) ITIL
11 32 (7.98%) Configuration Management
12 30 (7.48%) Stakeholder Management
13 29 (7.23%) Test Automation
13 29 (7.23%) UML
14 28 (6.98%) AI
14 28 (6.98%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 81 (20.20%) SQL
2 73 (18.20%) Python
3 47 (11.72%) Java
4 36 (8.98%) PowerShell
5 22 (5.49%) Bash
6 18 (4.49%) PL/SQL
7 17 (4.24%) JCL
8 16 (3.99%) COBOL
9 15 (3.74%) REXX
10 14 (3.49%) C++
10 14 (3.49%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (3.24%) C
12 10 (2.49%) Ada
12 10 (2.49%) MATLAB
13 8 (2.00%) Bicep
14 7 (1.75%) JavaScript
14 7 (1.75%) Perl
15 6 (1.50%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.50%) CLIST
15 6 (1.50%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 125 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 80 (19.95%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.73%) Degree
4 13 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.74%) Azure Certification
5 11 (2.74%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.24%) CISSP
7 8 (2.00%) CISM
7 8 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.75%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.75%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.25%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.25%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.75%) CEH
12 2 (0.50%) CISMP
12 2 (0.50%) CSSLP
12 2 (0.50%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (7.23%) Data Quality
2 11 (2.74%) SLA
3 10 (2.49%) QA
4 7 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.75%) NIST
5 5 (1.25%) GDPR
5 5 (1.25%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.25%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.00%) SEPA
7 3 (0.75%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.50%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.50%) GRC
8 2 (0.50%) NCSC
9 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
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 32 (7.98%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (6.98%) NFS
3 26 (6.48%) Docker
4 25 (6.23%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.49%) GPFS
6 16 (3.99%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (3.99%) vSphere
7 12 (2.99%) RACF
8 10 (2.49%) Time Sharing Option
9 9 (2.24%) Firmware
9 9 (2.24%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (1.75%) Hyper-V
11 6 (1.50%) KVM
12 3 (0.75%) ACF2
12 3 (0.75%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 3 (0.75%) PowerHA
13 2 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.50%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
13 2 (0.50%) VMware NSX
14 1 (0.25%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 30 (7.48%) Ansible
2 27 (6.73%) Terraform
3 21 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 21 (5.24%) Tivoli
4 17 (4.24%) Nagios
4 17 (4.24%) ZABBIX
5 16 (3.99%) Netcool
5 16 (3.99%) vRealize
6 14 (3.49%) OpenView
6 14 (3.49%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 12 (2.99%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 10 (2.49%) OMEGAMON
9 9 (2.24%) VxRail
10 8 (2.00%) IBM BigFix
10 8 (2.00%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.50%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.50%) vCenter Server
12 5 (1.25%) Grafana
13 3 (0.75%) Control-M
14 2 (0.50%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 76 (18.95%) Oracle
2 49 (12.22%) VMware
3 32 (7.98%) Cisco
3 32 (7.98%) ServiceNow
4 28 (6.98%) Microsoft
5 26 (6.48%) HP
5 26 (6.48%) Splunk
6 21 (5.24%) BMC
6 21 (5.24%) Red Hat
7 20 (4.99%) Dell
8 19 (4.74%) SAP
9 17 (4.24%) SolarWinds
10 14 (3.49%) Broadcom
10 14 (3.49%) Brocade
11 11 (2.74%) Google
12 10 (2.49%) MathWorks
13 8 (2.00%) EMC
13 8 (2.00%) NetApp
14 7 (1.75%) Sybase
14 7 (1.75%) Temenos