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 13 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
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 266 247 221
Rank change year-on-year -19 -26 +11
Contract jobs citing IBM 503 363 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.10% 1.13%
As % of the Vendors category 2.21% 2.34% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 309 235 203
10th Percentile £344 £357 £340
25th Percentile £413 £413 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £545 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% +14.74% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £600
90th Percentile £675 £695 £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 19 7 33
10th Percentile £34.87 £25.04 £30.84
25th Percentile £60.81 £25.09 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -64.07% +7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.88 -
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -17.86% +7.69%

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 22,742 15,523 17,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.83% 47.16% 44.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,950 9,507 10,289
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £476 £500
% change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 789 693
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.68 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.44 £25.15 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.11% -18.87% -27.06%
75th Percentile £62.13 £43.21 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £67.60 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £21.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +24.48% -30.00% -25.00%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -30 426 £500 -8.88% 307
UK excluding London -61 238 £500 +5.26% 195
London -12 194 £488 -19.92% 135
Work from Home -63 120 £550 -12.00% 282
North of England -52 87 £514 +13.73% 44
Yorkshire -5 55 £514 +8.77% 19
South East -62 34 £460 -16.36% 40
South West -25 32 £550 -8.33% 25
North West -75 31 £455 +1.00% 21
Scotland -22 30 £600 +32.74% 22
Midlands -55 28 £475 +8.08% 27
West Midlands -44 26 £500 -13.04% 12
East of England -12 24 £625 +13.64% 29
Wales -14 3 £600 -5.14% 4
East Midlands -31 1 - - 15

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 (7.55%) Confluence
2 32 (6.36%) WebSphere
3 24 (4.77%) CICS
4 20 (3.98%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.58%) Tomcat
6 11 (2.19%) nginx
7 10 (1.99%) Camunda
8 7 (1.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (1.19%) JBoss
9 6 (1.19%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.99%) SAS
11 4 (0.80%) Apache
11 4 (0.80%) WebSphere Application Server
12 3 (0.60%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.60%) IIS
12 3 (0.60%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.20%) FileNet
13 1 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
13 1 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 1 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 8 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 26 (5.17%) Maximo
2 19 (3.78%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.19%) Temenos T24
4 5 (0.99%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.60%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 2 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.20%) Actimize
7 1 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.20%) HFM
7 1 (0.20%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.20%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.20%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 78 (15.51%) Azure
2 76 (15.11%) AWS
3 32 (6.36%) GCP
4 31 (6.16%) GitHub
5 25 (4.97%) OpenShift
6 15 (2.98%) GitHub Copilot
7 14 (2.78%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.39%) ChatGPT
9 9 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.59%) Azure Service Bus
10 8 (1.59%) Boomi
10 8 (1.59%) iPaaS
11 7 (1.39%) Amazon S3
11 7 (1.39%) IBM Blueworks
11 7 (1.39%) IBM Watson
11 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
11 7 (1.39%) Power Platform
12 6 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
13 5 (0.99%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (4.37%) SSL
2 20 (3.98%) HTTP
3 13 (2.58%) SNMP
4 11 (2.19%) SAN
5 9 (1.79%) Firewall
5 9 (1.79%) Network Security
5 9 (1.79%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.19%) Wireshark
7 5 (0.99%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (0.99%) DNS
8 4 (0.80%) Fibre Channel
8 4 (0.80%) SSH
8 4 (0.80%) VSAN
9 3 (0.60%) Internet
9 3 (0.60%) NAS
9 3 (0.60%) WAN
10 2 (0.40%) DMZ
10 2 (0.40%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.40%) LAN
10 2 (0.40%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (9.34%) Db2
2 33 (6.56%) Relational Database
3 30 (5.96%) DataStage
4 24 (4.77%) SQL Server
5 17 (3.38%) Oracle Database
6 16 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (3.18%) Metadata
6 16 (3.18%) MongoDB
7 9 (1.79%) Elasticsearch
8 8 (1.59%) Tableau
9 7 (1.39%) GIS
9 7 (1.39%) NoSQL
10 6 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (1.19%) Power BI
11 5 (0.99%) Big Data
11 5 (0.99%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.40%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.40%) IBM InfoSphere
12 2 (0.40%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 61 (12.13%) JIRA
2 37 (7.36%) Jenkins
3 23 (4.57%) Git
3 23 (4.57%) GitLab
4 16 (3.18%) Rational DOORS
5 15 (2.98%) JMeter
6 14 (2.78%) SonarQube
7 12 (2.39%) LoadRunner
8 11 (2.19%) Gradle
8 11 (2.19%) Sonatype Nexus
9 10 (1.99%) Postman
9 10 (1.99%) Rational Rhapsody
9 10 (1.99%) SoapUI
10 9 (1.79%) JUnit
10 9 (1.79%) Maven
10 9 (1.79%) REST Assured
11 8 (1.59%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (1.59%) IBM UrbanCode
11 8 (1.59%) Mockito
11 8 (1.59%) Selenium
General
1 183 (36.38%) Finance
2 132 (26.24%) Banking
3 125 (24.85%) Social Skills
4 67 (13.32%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (5.77%) Legal
6 22 (4.37%) Public Sector
7 16 (3.18%) Retail
8 10 (1.99%) Military
9 8 (1.59%) Front Office
9 8 (1.59%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.19%) Aerospace
11 6 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.99%) Law
13 4 (0.80%) Spanish Language
14 3 (0.60%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.60%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 82 (16.30%) Developer
2 61 (12.13%) Architect
3 48 (9.54%) Analyst
4 44 (8.75%) Senior
5 31 (6.16%) Lead
6 28 (5.57%) Administrator
7 26 (5.17%) Solutions Architect
8 25 (4.97%) Consultant
9 20 (3.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 17 (3.38%) Java Developer
10 17 (3.38%) Middleware Engineer
11 14 (2.78%) Business Analyst
11 14 (2.78%) CICS Engineer
11 14 (2.78%) DataStage Developer
12 12 (2.39%) Oracle Developer
12 12 (2.39%) Test Engineer
13 11 (2.19%) Applications Support
13 11 (2.19%) Programmer
13 11 (2.19%) Senior Developer
14 10 (1.99%) Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (14.91%) Middleware
2 54 (10.74%) Kafka
3 46 (9.15%) REST
4 41 (8.15%) XML
5 35 (6.96%) JSON
6 30 (5.96%) Spring Boot
7 24 (4.77%) ISPF
7 24 (4.77%) SOAP
8 23 (4.57%) Spring
9 17 (3.38%) HTML
9 17 (3.38%) RabbitMQ
10 15 (2.98%) .NET
11 14 (2.78%) Terraform
12 13 (2.58%) OAuth
12 13 (2.58%) Web Services
13 12 (2.39%) SAML
14 11 (2.19%) Swagger
15 10 (1.99%) Flash
15 10 (1.99%) JWT
15 10 (1.99%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 105 (20.87%) Mainframe
2 30 (5.96%) Clustering
3 25 (4.97%) Data Centre
4 21 (4.17%) Cloud Native
4 21 (4.17%) Replication
5 17 (3.38%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (3.18%) Data Structures
6 16 (3.18%) Distributed Systems
7 15 (2.98%) AS400
8 14 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
8 14 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
8 14 (2.78%) Legacy Applications
8 14 (2.78%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 13 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (2.58%) Product Ownership
10 11 (2.19%) IBM Mainframe
10 11 (2.19%) iSeries
11 10 (1.99%) Equity Derivative
11 10 (1.99%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.99%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 94 (18.69%) Linux
2 84 (16.70%) zOS
3 54 (10.74%) Unix
4 37 (7.36%) Windows
5 25 (4.97%) AIX
6 20 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.19%) Solaris
8 8 (1.59%) SUSE
8 8 (1.59%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.39%) MVS
9 7 (1.39%) Windows Server 2008
10 5 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.20%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.20%) VMS
12 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (17.69%) CI/CD
2 88 (17.50%) Agile
3 80 (15.90%) Migration
4 66 (13.12%) DevOps
4 66 (13.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 63 (12.52%) Test Automation
6 57 (11.33%) ITIL
7 56 (11.13%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (9.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 48 (9.54%) ETL
9 45 (8.95%) Validation
10 41 (8.15%) Change Management
10 41 (8.15%) Scrum
10 41 (8.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 39 (7.75%) Performance Tuning
12 38 (7.55%) Roadmaps
12 38 (7.55%) Root Cause Analysis
13 37 (7.36%) AI
14 34 (6.76%) Performance Optimisation
15 33 (6.56%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 104 (20.68%) SQL
2 93 (18.49%) Python
3 86 (17.10%) Java
4 33 (6.56%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.77%) JCL
5 24 (4.77%) PowerShell
6 21 (4.17%) PL/SQL
7 17 (3.38%) C++
7 17 (3.38%) Shell Script
8 16 (3.18%) Bash
8 16 (3.18%) REXX
9 14 (2.78%) COBOL
10 13 (2.58%) C
11 12 (2.39%) C#
12 10 (1.99%) Perl
12 10 (1.99%) Search Processing Language
13 6 (1.19%) Ada
13 6 (1.19%) Assembly Language
13 6 (1.19%) CLIST
14 5 (0.99%) RPG
Qualifications
1 104 (20.68%) Security Cleared
2 80 (15.90%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.35%) Degree
4 22 (4.37%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (1.59%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.19%) AWS Certification
6 6 (1.19%) ISTQB
7 5 (0.99%) CISSP
8 4 (0.80%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (0.80%) PMI Certification
8 4 (0.80%) PMP
9 3 (0.60%) ACCA
9 3 (0.60%) CIMA
9 3 (0.60%) CISM
9 3 (0.60%) ISEB
9 3 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.40%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (7.16%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.38%) QA
3 10 (1.99%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.59%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.39%) GDPR
6 4 (0.80%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.80%) NIST
6 4 (0.80%) SEPA
6 4 (0.80%) SLA
7 3 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.40%) GAAP
8 2 (0.40%) GRC
8 2 (0.40%) IFRS
8 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.40%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) DO-254
9 1 (0.20%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.20%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 42 (8.35%) Docker
2 27 (5.37%) RACF
3 22 (4.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (3.18%) NFS
5 12 (2.39%) Time Sharing Option
5 12 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.39%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.19%) GPFS
7 8 (1.59%) vSphere
8 7 (1.39%) ACF2
8 7 (1.39%) Firmware
9 6 (1.19%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.99%) PowerHA
11 4 (0.80%) Active Directory
12 3 (0.60%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 1 (0.20%) Hyper-V
13 1 (0.20%) oVirt
13 1 (0.20%) RHEV
13 1 (0.20%) SRDF
13 1 (0.20%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 34 (6.76%) Kubernetes
2 25 (4.97%) Ansible
3 24 (4.77%) OMEGAMON
4 17 (3.38%) Tivoli
5 13 (2.58%) Nagios
5 13 (2.58%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 13 (2.58%) ZABBIX
6 12 (2.39%) Netcool
7 11 (2.19%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 10 (1.99%) OpenView
9 9 (1.79%) Grafana
10 7 (1.39%) Control-M
11 6 (1.19%) vRealize
12 5 (0.99%) HP Fortify
12 5 (0.99%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.99%) QRadar
12 5 (0.99%) Tivoli NetView
13 4 (0.80%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.80%) VxRail
14 3 (0.60%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 111 (22.07%) Oracle
2 52 (10.34%) Microsoft
3 33 (6.56%) Splunk
4 32 (6.36%) VMware
5 31 (6.16%) SAP
6 26 (5.17%) Google
7 22 (4.37%) Red Hat
8 21 (4.17%) ServiceNow
9 20 (3.98%) Cisco
10 19 (3.78%) Broadcom
11 16 (3.18%) HP
12 14 (2.78%) BMC
12 14 (2.78%) Cognos
12 14 (2.78%) Dynatrace
13 13 (2.58%) Brocade
13 13 (2.58%) Dell
13 13 (2.58%) Sybase
14 12 (2.39%) MathWorks
14 12 (2.39%) SolarWinds
15 11 (2.19%) Informatica