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 12 August 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
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 232 225
Rank change year-on-year -27 -7 +20
Contract jobs citing IBM 514 375 421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.14% 1.08%
As % of the Vendors category 2.32% 2.41% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 300 248 207
10th Percentile £316 £350 £354
25th Percentile £406 £408 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £644
90th Percentile £675 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 7 31
10th Percentile £25.18 £24.89 £27.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £25.04 £64.38
Median hourly rate £88.00 £57.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.04% -17.86% +3.70%
75th Percentile - £73.75 -
90th Percentile - £118.49 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £57.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +53.04% -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 22,198 15,572 17,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.59% 47.24% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,745 9,526 10,606
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,146 796 841
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.48 £13.69
25th Percentile £18.27 £17.24 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.77
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -15.52% -27.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.43 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.96 £21.30 £28.00
% change year-on-year +50.06% -23.93% -18.84%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 -29 440 £500 -4.76% 272
UK excluding London -50 263 £500 +5.26% 138
London -17 183 £488 -18.07% 144
Work from Home -63 125 £548 -0.45% 136
North of England -48 92 £514 +11.14% 37
South East -42 59 £460 -17.30% 30
Yorkshire -16 53 £525 +7.96% 13
North West -49 37 £477 +10.29% 23
South West -20 36 £426 -29.00% 32
Midlands -60 32 £438 -1.63% 18
West Midlands -43 28 £450 -5.26% 12
Scotland -11 25 £575 +21.05% 11
East of England -14 16 £625 +13.64% 6
Wales -11 3 £600 -5.14% 3
East Midlands -20 3 - - 6
North East -42 1 £375 -18.92% 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 39 (7.59%) WebSphere
2 35 (6.81%) Confluence
3 25 (4.86%) CICS
4 21 (4.09%) SharePoint
5 16 (3.11%) Tomcat
6 14 (2.72%) nginx
7 8 (1.56%) JBoss
7 8 (1.56%) WebLogic
8 5 (0.97%) Apache
8 5 (0.97%) SAS
8 5 (0.97%) WebSphere Application Server
9 4 (0.78%) Camunda
9 4 (0.78%) IIS
9 4 (0.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.58%) CMS
11 2 (0.39%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.39%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.39%) WebSphere Portal
12 1 (0.19%) Alfresco
12 1 (0.19%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.19%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.09%) Maximo
2 14 (2.72%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.75%) Temenos T24
4 5 (0.97%) Cognos Controller
4 5 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.58%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
5 3 (0.58%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.39%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.19%) Actimize
7 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.19%) HFM
7 1 (0.19%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.19%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 79 (15.37%) AWS
2 72 (14.01%) Azure
3 33 (6.42%) GitHub
4 21 (4.09%) GCP
5 16 (3.11%) OpenShift
6 14 (2.72%) GitHub Copilot
7 12 (2.33%) Anthropic Claude
7 12 (2.33%) ChatGPT
8 11 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.75%) IBM Watson
11 8 (1.56%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (1.17%) Azure AI
13 6 (1.17%) IBM Blueworks
13 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (1.17%) Vertex AI
14 5 (0.97%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (0.97%) Boomi
14 5 (0.97%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.47%) SSL
2 18 (3.50%) HTTP
3 17 (3.31%) Firewall
3 17 (3.31%) SNMP
4 13 (2.53%) SAN
5 9 (1.75%) Network Security
5 9 (1.75%) TCP/IP
6 8 (1.56%) DNS
7 6 (1.17%) VSAN
8 5 (0.97%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (0.97%) Fibre Channel
8 5 (0.97%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.78%) NAS
9 4 (0.78%) SSH
10 3 (0.58%) APPN
10 3 (0.58%) Internet
10 3 (0.58%) SNA
11 2 (0.39%) DMZ
11 2 (0.39%) LAN
11 2 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (8.75%) Db2
2 30 (5.84%) Relational Database
3 29 (5.64%) DataStage
4 18 (3.50%) SQL Server
5 17 (3.31%) Oracle Database
6 16 (3.11%) Metadata
7 13 (2.53%) MongoDB
8 12 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
9 9 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (1.56%) Big Data
10 8 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (1.36%) NoSQL
12 6 (1.17%) GIS
12 6 (1.17%) Tableau
13 5 (0.97%) Data Lake
14 3 (0.58%) IBM InfoSphere
14 3 (0.58%) Power BI
15 2 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
15 2 (0.39%) BusinessObjects
15 2 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 51 (9.92%) JIRA
2 42 (8.17%) Rational DOORS
3 32 (6.23%) Jenkins
4 21 (4.09%) Git
5 18 (3.50%) GitLab
6 13 (2.53%) JMeter
7 9 (1.75%) LoadRunner
8 8 (1.56%) IBM UrbanCode
8 8 (1.56%) Rational Rhapsody
9 7 (1.36%) Postman
9 7 (1.36%) Selenium
9 7 (1.36%) SoapUI
10 6 (1.17%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (1.17%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.97%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.97%) eggPlant
11 5 (0.97%) Liquibase
11 5 (0.97%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.78%) Gradle
12 4 (0.78%) Zephyr
General
1 161 (31.32%) Finance
2 117 (22.76%) Social Skills
3 114 (22.18%) Banking
4 62 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 31 (6.03%) Aerospace
6 31 (6.03%) Legal
7 12 (2.33%) Retail
8 9 (1.75%) Military
9 8 (1.56%) Front Office
9 8 (1.56%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.97%) Law
12 5 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.58%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.58%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.58%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.39%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 68 (13.23%) Developer
2 62 (12.06%) Architect
3 49 (9.53%) Analyst
4 42 (8.17%) Senior
5 31 (6.03%) Administrator
6 27 (5.25%) Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.25%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.25%) Product Manager
7 26 (5.06%) Consultant
8 25 (4.86%) Lead
9 24 (4.67%) Solutions Architect
10 21 (4.09%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 21 (4.09%) Systems Manager
11 20 (3.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (3.50%) Middleware Engineer
13 14 (2.72%) CICS Engineer
14 13 (2.53%) Management Consultant
15 12 (2.33%) DataStage Developer
15 12 (2.33%) Software Engineer
15 12 (2.33%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (13.62%) Middleware
2 46 (8.95%) REST
3 37 (7.20%) Kafka
4 32 (6.23%) XML
5 29 (5.64%) JSON
6 24 (4.67%) ISPF
7 18 (3.50%) SOAP
8 17 (3.31%) RabbitMQ
8 17 (3.31%) Spring Boot
9 14 (2.72%) Spring
10 13 (2.53%) Flash
11 11 (2.14%) OAuth
12 10 (1.95%) .NET
12 10 (1.95%) SAML
12 10 (1.95%) Web Services
12 10 (1.95%) WebSphere MQ
13 9 (1.75%) OpenAPI
13 9 (1.75%) Swagger
14 8 (1.56%) Jakarta EE
15 7 (1.36%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 99 (19.26%) Mainframe
2 38 (7.39%) Data Centre
3 35 (6.81%) Clustering
4 34 (6.61%) Product Ownership
5 33 (6.42%) Data Structures
6 22 (4.28%) Cloud Native
7 20 (3.89%) Replication
8 15 (2.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 14 (2.72%) AS400
9 14 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (2.72%) Linux Command Line
10 13 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
10 13 (2.53%) IBM Mainframe
11 12 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (2.33%) Legacy Applications
11 12 (2.33%) Management Information System
12 10 (1.95%) Equity Derivative
12 10 (1.95%) iSeries
13 9 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 101 (19.65%) Linux
2 75 (14.59%) zOS
3 55 (10.70%) Unix
4 45 (8.75%) Windows
5 38 (7.39%) AIX
6 23 (4.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (3.11%) Solaris
8 13 (2.53%) Windows Server
9 10 (1.95%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (1.56%) SUSE
10 8 (1.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (1.36%) MVS
12 4 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.39%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.19%) VMS
14 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (20.43%) Agile
2 79 (15.37%) CI/CD
3 77 (14.98%) Migration
4 67 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement
5 66 (12.84%) DevOps
6 63 (12.26%) Stakeholder Management
7 57 (11.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 54 (10.51%) ITIL
8 54 (10.51%) Test Automation
9 52 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
10 47 (9.14%) ETL
11 46 (8.95%) Roadmaps
12 42 (8.17%) Computer Science
13 38 (7.39%) Systems Engineering
14 37 (7.20%) AI
14 37 (7.20%) Configuration Management
15 36 (7.00%) Change Management
15 36 (7.00%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
15 36 (7.00%) Scrum
16 35 (6.81%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 95 (18.48%) SQL
2 93 (18.09%) Python
3 72 (14.01%) Java
4 35 (6.81%) PowerShell
5 23 (4.47%) Bash
6 22 (4.28%) JavaScript
7 20 (3.89%) PL/SQL
8 19 (3.70%) JCL
9 15 (2.92%) REXX
10 14 (2.72%) C++
10 14 (2.72%) COBOL
10 14 (2.72%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (2.53%) Shell Script
12 11 (2.14%) Perl
13 10 (1.95%) C
13 10 (1.95%) C#
14 7 (1.36%) Ada
15 6 (1.17%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.17%) CLIST
16 5 (0.97%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 132 (25.68%) Security Cleared
2 90 (17.51%) SC Cleared
3 49 (9.53%) Degree
4 12 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.56%) AWS Certification
5 8 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (1.56%) CISSP
5 8 (1.56%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.97%) Azure Certification
6 5 (0.97%) CISM
7 4 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (0.78%) CCSP
7 4 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.58%) CEH
8 3 (0.58%) ISTQB
8 3 (0.58%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.58%) PMP
9 2 (0.39%) CISA
9 2 (0.39%) CISMP
9 2 (0.39%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (5.84%) Data Quality
2 14 (2.72%) QA
3 7 (1.36%) GDPR
3 7 (1.36%) ISO 20022
3 7 (1.36%) SLA
4 6 (1.17%) ISO 15022
5 5 (0.97%) NIST
6 4 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.78%) GRC
6 4 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.78%) SEPA
7 2 (0.39%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.39%) GAAP
7 2 (0.39%) IFRS
7 2 (0.39%) NCSC
8 1 (0.19%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.19%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.19%) PMO
8 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 40 (7.78%) Docker
2 25 (4.86%) RACF
3 24 (4.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (3.31%) NFS
5 16 (3.11%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (2.33%) Firmware
7 12 (2.33%) GPFS
7 12 (2.33%) Time Sharing Option
8 11 (2.14%) vSphere
9 7 (1.36%) Oracle RAC
9 7 (1.36%) PowerHA
10 6 (1.17%) ACF2
11 4 (0.78%) Hyper-V
12 3 (0.58%) Active Directory
12 3 (0.58%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.58%) KVM
13 1 (0.19%) RHEV
13 1 (0.19%) SRDF
13 1 (0.19%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 26 (5.06%) Ansible
2 25 (4.86%) Kubernetes
3 24 (4.67%) OMEGAMON
4 20 (3.89%) Tivoli
5 18 (3.50%) Terraform
6 17 (3.31%) Nagios
6 17 (3.31%) ZABBIX
7 16 (3.11%) Netcool
8 15 (2.92%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 14 (2.72%) OpenView
9 14 (2.72%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 9 (1.75%) Grafana
10 9 (1.75%) vRealize
11 6 (1.17%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.17%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.17%) VxRail
12 4 (0.78%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.78%) QRadar
13 3 (0.58%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (0.58%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 100 (19.46%) Oracle
2 42 (8.17%) Microsoft
3 36 (7.00%) VMware
4 35 (6.81%) Splunk
5 30 (5.84%) SAP
6 26 (5.06%) Red Hat
7 22 (4.28%) HP
7 22 (4.28%) ServiceNow
8 21 (4.09%) Cisco
9 19 (3.70%) Google
10 18 (3.50%) BMC
11 16 (3.11%) SolarWinds
12 14 (2.72%) Broadcom
13 13 (2.53%) Brocade
13 13 (2.53%) Cognos
13 13 (2.53%) Dell
13 13 (2.53%) Dynatrace
13 13 (2.53%) MathWorks
14 12 (2.33%) Sybase
15 11 (2.14%) Databricks