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 4 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
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 246 224
Rank change year-on-year -27 -22 +7
Contract jobs citing IBM 495 352 426
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.09% 1.12%
As % of the Vendors category 2.21% 2.31% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 296 226 200
10th Percentile £347 £353 £341
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £549 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.88% +15.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £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 25 7 30
10th Percentile £45.25 £25.04 £27.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £25.09 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.15 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +178.33% -64.07% +7.69%
75th Percentile £88.00 £66.88 -
90th Percentile - £73.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £57.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +21.74% -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 22,422 15,261 16,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.80% 47.23% 44.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,829 9,339 10,233
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
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 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,171 780 716
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.54 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.15 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.07 £25.15 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% -16.17% -29.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.84 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.75 £21.30 £29.00
% change year-on-year +30.28% -26.55% -27.50%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -29 420 £500 -9.09% 296
UK excluding London -59 235 £500 +5.26% 165
London -16 191 £488 -21.05% 160
Work from Home -55 121 £550 -13.04% 158
North of England -63 83 £514 +14.22% 37
Yorkshire -13 51 £514 +8.77% 14
South East -61 40 £460 -18.22% 33
South West -26 34 £550 -8.33% 26
North West -64 31 £455 +1.00% 19
Scotland -20 28 £600 +27.12% 21
Midlands -59 27 £475 +9.26% 17
West Midlands -44 25 £500 -13.04% 8
East of England -11 20 £625 +13.64% 26
Wales -14 3 £600 -5.14% 2
East Midlands -36 1 - - 9

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 (7.88%) Confluence
2 32 (6.46%) WebSphere
3 23 (4.65%) CICS
4 22 (4.44%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.63%) Tomcat
6 11 (2.22%) nginx
7 10 (2.02%) Camunda
8 8 (1.62%) JBoss
9 7 (1.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (1.21%) WebLogic
11 5 (1.01%) SAS
11 5 (1.01%) WebSphere Application Server
12 4 (0.81%) Apache
13 3 (0.61%) IIS
14 2 (0.40%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
14 2 (0.40%) MQSeries
14 2 (0.40%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.40%) WebSphere Portal
15 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 6 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 23 (4.65%) Maximo
2 17 (3.43%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.82%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.01%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.61%) 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%) MetaTrader
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 74 (14.95%) Azure
2 73 (14.75%) AWS
3 32 (6.46%) GitHub
4 28 (5.66%) GCP
5 23 (4.65%) OpenShift
6 15 (3.03%) GitHub Copilot
7 14 (2.83%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.42%) ChatGPT
9 9 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.62%) Amazon S3
10 8 (1.62%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.41%) Azure Service Bus
11 7 (1.41%) Boomi
11 7 (1.41%) IBM Blueworks
11 7 (1.41%) iPaaS
11 7 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.21%) IBM Watson
12 6 (1.21%) Power Platform
13 5 (1.01%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.65%) SSL
2 20 (4.04%) HTTP
3 14 (2.83%) SNMP
4 11 (2.22%) TCP/IP
5 10 (2.02%) Firewall
5 10 (2.02%) SAN
6 9 (1.82%) Network Security
7 6 (1.21%) DNS
8 5 (1.01%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.01%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.81%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.81%) SSH
9 4 (0.81%) VSAN
10 3 (0.61%) APPN
10 3 (0.61%) Internet
10 3 (0.61%) SNA
11 2 (0.40%) DMZ
11 2 (0.40%) LAN
11 2 (0.40%) NAS
11 2 (0.40%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (9.49%) Db2
2 33 (6.67%) Relational Database
3 31 (6.26%) DataStage
4 24 (4.85%) SQL Server
5 18 (3.64%) Oracle Database
6 17 (3.43%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (3.23%) Metadata
7 16 (3.23%) MongoDB
8 9 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.62%) Tableau
10 7 (1.41%) NoSQL
11 6 (1.21%) GIS
11 6 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (1.01%) Big Data
12 5 (1.01%) Data Lake
12 5 (1.01%) Power BI
13 2 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.40%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.40%) IBM InfoSphere
13 2 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 60 (12.12%) JIRA
2 36 (7.27%) Jenkins
3 24 (4.85%) Rational DOORS
4 23 (4.65%) GitLab
5 21 (4.24%) Git
6 16 (3.23%) JMeter
7 14 (2.83%) SonarQube
8 12 (2.42%) LoadRunner
9 11 (2.22%) Gradle
9 11 (2.22%) Sonatype Nexus
10 10 (2.02%) Postman
10 10 (2.02%) Rational Rhapsody
10 10 (2.02%) SoapUI
11 9 (1.82%) JUnit
11 9 (1.82%) Maven
11 9 (1.82%) REST Assured
12 8 (1.62%) Bitbucket Server
12 8 (1.62%) Mockito
12 8 (1.62%) Selenium
13 7 (1.41%) eggPlant
General
1 176 (35.56%) Finance
2 129 (26.06%) Banking
3 123 (24.85%) Social Skills
4 66 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (5.86%) Legal
6 23 (4.65%) Public Sector
7 13 (2.63%) Aerospace
7 13 (2.63%) Retail
8 10 (2.02%) Military
9 8 (1.62%) Front Office
9 8 (1.62%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.21%) Law
12 3 (0.61%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.61%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.61%) Retail Banking
12 3 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 81 (16.36%) Developer
2 61 (12.32%) Architect
3 46 (9.29%) Analyst
4 44 (8.89%) Senior
5 29 (5.86%) Lead
6 28 (5.66%) Administrator
7 25 (5.05%) Consultant
7 25 (5.05%) Solutions Architect
8 20 (4.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 18 (3.64%) Middleware Engineer
10 16 (3.23%) Java Developer
11 14 (2.83%) CICS Engineer
11 14 (2.83%) DataStage Developer
12 13 (2.63%) Business Analyst
13 12 (2.42%) Delivery Manager
13 12 (2.42%) Oracle Developer
13 12 (2.42%) Test Engineer
14 11 (2.22%) Management Consultant
14 11 (2.22%) Product Manager
14 11 (2.22%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (14.34%) Middleware
2 53 (10.71%) Kafka
3 43 (8.69%) REST
4 41 (8.28%) XML
5 34 (6.87%) JSON
6 30 (6.06%) Spring Boot
7 23 (4.65%) ISPF
7 23 (4.65%) SOAP
8 22 (4.44%) Spring
9 17 (3.43%) HTML
9 17 (3.43%) RabbitMQ
10 15 (3.03%) .NET
11 13 (2.63%) Web Services
12 12 (2.42%) OAuth
12 12 (2.42%) Terraform
13 11 (2.22%) SAML
14 10 (2.02%) CSS
14 10 (2.02%) Flash
14 10 (2.02%) Swagger
15 9 (1.82%) React
Miscellaneous
1 100 (20.20%) Mainframe
2 31 (6.26%) Clustering
3 25 (5.05%) Data Centre
4 24 (4.85%) Data Structures
5 20 (4.04%) Product Ownership
6 19 (3.84%) Cloud Native
7 18 (3.64%) Replication
8 17 (3.43%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 15 (3.03%) AS400
9 15 (3.03%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
11 13 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
11 13 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (2.63%) Legacy Applications
11 13 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (2.42%) IBM Mainframe
13 11 (2.22%) iSeries
14 10 (2.02%) Equity Derivative
14 10 (2.02%) Management Information System
14 10 (2.02%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 93 (18.79%) Linux
2 82 (16.57%) zOS
3 55 (11.11%) Unix
4 37 (7.47%) Windows
5 26 (5.25%) AIX
6 20 (4.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.22%) Solaris
8 8 (1.62%) SUSE
8 8 (1.62%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.41%) MVS
9 7 (1.41%) Windows Server 2008
10 5 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.20%) VMS
13 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (19.39%) Agile
2 85 (17.17%) CI/CD
3 76 (15.35%) Migration
4 65 (13.13%) DevOps
5 61 (12.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 61 (12.32%) Test Automation
6 56 (11.31%) ITIL
6 56 (11.31%) Problem-Solving
7 51 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
8 49 (9.90%) ETL
9 46 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 43 (8.69%) Scrum
11 40 (8.08%) Change Management
11 40 (8.08%) Validation
12 39 (7.88%) Computer Science
13 38 (7.68%) Performance Tuning
14 37 (7.47%) Roadmaps
15 36 (7.27%) Root Cause Analysis
16 35 (7.07%) AI
17 33 (6.67%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 103 (20.81%) SQL
2 93 (18.79%) Python
3 84 (16.97%) Java
4 33 (6.67%) JavaScript
5 26 (5.25%) PowerShell
6 23 (4.65%) JCL
7 21 (4.24%) PL/SQL
8 17 (3.43%) C++
8 17 (3.43%) Shell Script
9 16 (3.23%) Bash
9 16 (3.23%) REXX
10 13 (2.63%) C
10 13 (2.63%) COBOL
11 12 (2.42%) C#
12 11 (2.22%) Search Processing Language
13 10 (2.02%) Perl
14 7 (1.41%) Ada
15 6 (1.21%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.21%) CLIST
16 5 (1.01%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 112 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 80 (16.16%) SC Cleared
3 48 (9.70%) Degree
4 20 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.62%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.41%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.21%) CISSP
7 6 (1.21%) ISTQB
8 4 (0.81%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.81%) CISM
8 4 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 3 (0.61%) ACCA
9 3 (0.61%) CCSP
9 3 (0.61%) CIMA
9 3 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.61%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.61%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.43%) QA
3 10 (2.02%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.62%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.41%) GDPR
6 4 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.81%) NIST
6 4 (0.81%) SEPA
6 4 (0.81%) SLA
7 3 (0.61%) GRC
7 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.40%) GAAP
8 2 (0.40%) IFRS
8 2 (0.40%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) DO-254
9 1 (0.20%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.20%) TARGET2
System Software
1 39 (7.88%) Docker
2 26 (5.25%) RACF
3 22 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (3.03%) NFS
5 12 (2.42%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.42%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.22%) Time Sharing Option
7 10 (2.02%) GPFS
8 8 (1.62%) vSphere
9 7 (1.41%) ACF2
9 7 (1.41%) Firmware
10 6 (1.21%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (1.01%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.61%) Active Directory
12 3 (0.61%) 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 30 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.85%) OMEGAMON
3 23 (4.65%) Ansible
4 18 (3.64%) Tivoli
5 14 (2.83%) Nagios
5 14 (2.83%) ZABBIX
6 13 (2.63%) Netcool
6 13 (2.63%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 11 (2.22%) OpenView
7 11 (2.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 9 (1.82%) Grafana
9 6 (1.21%) Control-M
9 6 (1.21%) Tivoli NetView
9 6 (1.21%) vRealize
10 5 (1.01%) HP Fortify
10 5 (1.01%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.81%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.81%) QRadar
11 4 (0.81%) VxRail
12 3 (0.61%) Avamar
Vendors
1 111 (22.42%) Oracle
2 48 (9.70%) Microsoft
3 33 (6.67%) Splunk
4 32 (6.46%) SAP
4 32 (6.46%) VMware
5 23 (4.65%) Google
6 22 (4.44%) Red Hat
7 21 (4.24%) ServiceNow
8 18 (3.64%) Broadcom
9 17 (3.43%) HP
10 16 (3.23%) Cisco
11 15 (3.03%) BMC
12 14 (2.83%) Cognos
12 14 (2.83%) Dynatrace
13 13 (2.63%) MathWorks
13 13 (2.63%) SolarWinds
13 13 (2.63%) Sybase
14 12 (2.42%) Brocade
15 11 (2.22%) Databricks
16 10 (2.02%) Informatica