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 May 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 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 250 218
Rank change year-on-year -31 -32 +77
Contract jobs citing IBM 402 305 470
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 1.05% 1.10%
As % of the Vendors category 2.06% 2.21% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 180 267
10th Percentile £313 £360 £369
25th Percentile £400 £408 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £581 £641 £650
90th Percentile £696 £709 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £463
% change year-on-year -2.17% -0.54% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 6 33
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.50
25th Percentile £58.13 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £24.42 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +186.65% -65.11% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £28.10 -
90th Percentile - £106.48 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.42 £70.00
% change year-on-year +260.36% -65.11% +21.74%

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 19,485 13,772 18,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.28% 47.52% 42.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,350 8,611 11,252
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -0.61% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 986 554 1,092
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.44 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.36 £25.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% +13.33% -47.06%
75th Percentile £59.56 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.65 £74.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £23.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +22.13% +6.98% -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 13 May 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 May 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 13 May 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 -36 353 £473 -5.50% 81
UK excluding London -29 230 £450 -2.17% 59
London -50 130 £490 -16.95% 24
Work from Home -42 112 £495 -1.00% 32
North of England -53 74 £476 +12.00% 12
South West +2 42 £401 -33.25% 15
North West -17 42 £459 +20.47% 5
South East -43 40 £400 +107.79% 13
Midlands -35 39 £402 -12.61% 13
West Midlands -39 34 £402 -12.61% 10
Yorkshire -45 31 £500 -2.44% 7
East of England -16 18 £425 -15.00% 3
Scotland -9 16 £550 +12.36% 3
East Midlands -28 4 £837 +105.40% 3
Wales -12 1 - - 1
North East -23 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 23 (5.72%) WebSphere
2 19 (4.73%) CICS
2 19 (4.73%) Confluence
3 13 (3.23%) Tomcat
4 12 (2.99%) nginx
5 9 (2.24%) SharePoint
6 8 (1.99%) WebLogic
7 6 (1.49%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 6 (1.49%) WebSphere Application Server
8 5 (1.24%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.24%) JBoss
9 4 (1.00%) Apache
10 3 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.75%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.75%) CMS
11 2 (0.50%) Camunda
11 2 (0.50%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.50%) IIS
11 2 (0.50%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.50%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.75%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.50%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (5.22%) Maximo
2 9 (2.24%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.74%) Temenos T24
4 6 (1.49%) 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%) SAP QM
6 2 (0.50%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.25%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
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%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.25%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.25%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 76 (18.91%) AWS
2 50 (12.44%) Azure
3 21 (5.22%) OpenShift
4 15 (3.73%) GitHub
5 11 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.49%) GCP
7 8 (1.99%) GitHub Copilot
7 8 (1.99%) IBM Watson
8 7 (1.74%) SaaS
9 6 (1.49%) Amazon S3
9 6 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.49%) Azure AKS
9 6 (1.49%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (1.49%) Azure Sentinel
9 6 (1.49%) ChatGPT
9 6 (1.49%) Serverless
10 5 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 5 (1.24%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 5 (1.24%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.98%) Firewall
2 16 (3.98%) SNMP
3 15 (3.73%) SAN
4 13 (3.23%) HTTP
5 10 (2.49%) Fibre Channel
5 10 (2.49%) VSAN
6 9 (2.24%) NAS
6 9 (2.24%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.74%) VPN
8 6 (1.49%) APPN
8 6 (1.49%) SNA
9 5 (1.24%) DNS
9 5 (1.24%) HTTPS
9 5 (1.24%) iSCSI
10 4 (1.00%) LAN
11 3 (0.75%) MPLS
11 3 (0.75%) Network Security
11 3 (0.75%) SSL
11 3 (0.75%) WAN
12 2 (0.50%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (9.70%) DB2
2 24 (5.97%) DataStage
3 16 (3.98%) SQL Server
4 13 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (3.23%) Relational Database
5 10 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.24%) Big Data
7 8 (1.99%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (1.99%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.74%) Metadata
8 7 (1.74%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (1.49%) GIS
9 6 (1.49%) MongoDB
10 5 (1.24%) NoSQL
11 4 (1.00%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (1.00%) Power BI
12 3 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.75%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.75%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.75%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 40 (9.95%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.71%) JIRA
3 12 (2.99%) Git
3 12 (2.99%) Jenkins
4 11 (2.74%) GitLab
5 7 (1.74%) Rational Rhapsody
6 6 (1.49%) Ant
6 6 (1.49%) PVCS
7 5 (1.24%) IBM UrbanCode
7 5 (1.24%) Liquibase
8 4 (1.00%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (1.00%) Selenium
8 4 (1.00%) SoapUI
9 3 (0.75%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.75%) JUnit
10 2 (0.50%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.50%) Introscope
10 2 (0.50%) JMeter
10 2 (0.50%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 90 (22.39%) Finance
2 85 (21.14%) Social Skills
3 66 (16.42%) Banking
4 32 (7.96%) Public Sector
5 31 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (7.21%) Aerospace
7 11 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (2.74%) Legal
7 11 (2.74%) Retail
8 10 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.74%) Investment Banking
10 6 (1.49%) Electronics
10 6 (1.49%) Front Office
11 5 (1.24%) Aviation
11 5 (1.24%) Law
12 4 (1.00%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.75%) Military
13 3 (0.75%) Retail Banking
13 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 40 (9.95%) Analyst
2 39 (9.70%) Architect
3 34 (8.46%) Developer
4 26 (6.47%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.47%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.47%) Product Manager
5 22 (5.47%) Consultant
6 21 (5.22%) Software Engineer
6 21 (5.22%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.22%) Systems Manager
7 18 (4.48%) Senior
7 18 (4.48%) Storage Analyst
8 15 (3.73%) Data Engineer
8 15 (3.73%) Infrastructure Analyst
9 14 (3.48%) Administrator
10 13 (3.23%) Lead
10 13 (3.23%) Management Consultant
11 12 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
12 11 (2.74%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (2.49%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (9.70%) Middleware
2 29 (7.21%) REST
3 22 (5.47%) Flash
4 16 (3.98%) Kafka
5 13 (3.23%) XML
6 9 (2.24%) JSON
6 9 (2.24%) SOAP
6 9 (2.24%) Spring
7 8 (1.99%) Spring Boot
8 7 (1.74%) EJB
8 7 (1.74%) JMS
8 7 (1.74%) WebSphere MQ
8 7 (1.74%) ZeroMQ
9 6 (1.49%) JDBC
9 6 (1.49%) JSP
9 6 (1.49%) OpenLayers
9 6 (1.49%) PyTorch
9 6 (1.49%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.49%) scikit-learn
9 6 (1.49%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 74 (18.41%) Mainframe
2 33 (8.21%) Data Centre
3 30 (7.46%) Linux Command Line
3 30 (7.46%) Replication
4 27 (6.72%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.72%) Product Ownership
5 18 (4.48%) Clustering
6 15 (3.73%) VSAM
7 13 (3.23%) Algorithms
7 13 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (2.99%) Cloud Native
8 12 (2.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 10 (2.49%) BYOD
9 10 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
9 10 (2.49%) Legacy Applications
10 9 (2.24%) IBM Mainframe
10 9 (2.24%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
11 8 (1.99%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 93 (23.13%) Linux
2 54 (13.43%) Windows
3 49 (12.19%) zOS
4 41 (10.20%) AIX
5 39 (9.70%) Unix
6 21 (5.22%) Solaris
7 19 (4.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (4.73%) Windows Server
8 11 (2.74%) Windows Server 2008
9 10 (2.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (1.99%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (1.00%) MVS
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.50%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.25%) VMS
13 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.25%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (22.64%) Agile
2 56 (13.93%) Migration
3 51 (12.69%) CI/CD
4 48 (11.94%) Continuous Improvement
5 45 (11.19%) Problem-Solving
6 42 (10.45%) DevOps
6 42 (10.45%) Roadmaps
6 42 (10.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 36 (8.96%) Computer Science
8 35 (8.71%) ETL
8 35 (8.71%) Workflow
9 34 (8.46%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 32 (7.96%) Stakeholder Management
11 31 (7.71%) Configuration Management
11 31 (7.71%) Performance Tuning
11 31 (7.71%) Systems Engineering
12 29 (7.21%) UML
13 28 (6.97%) Programme Management
13 28 (6.97%) Requirements Management
13 28 (6.97%) Scaled Agile Framework
Programming Languages
1 77 (19.15%) SQL
2 69 (17.16%) Python
3 41 (10.20%) Java
4 32 (7.96%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.73%) Bash
5 19 (4.73%) COBOL
5 19 (4.73%) JCL
5 19 (4.73%) PL/SQL
6 16 (3.98%) REXX
7 14 (3.48%) C
7 14 (3.48%) Search Processing Language
8 12 (2.99%) C++
9 10 (2.49%) Ada
9 10 (2.49%) MATLAB
9 10 (2.49%) Perl
9 10 (2.49%) Shell Script
10 7 (1.74%) Bicep
11 6 (1.49%) CLIST
11 6 (1.49%) Embedded C
11 6 (1.49%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 124 (30.85%) Security Cleared
2 75 (18.66%) SC Cleared
3 41 (10.20%) Degree
4 16 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.73%) DV Cleared
6 11 (2.74%) Azure Certification
7 10 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (2.24%) CISSP
9 8 (1.99%) CISM
10 7 (1.74%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.74%) IBM Certification
11 6 (1.49%) Master's Degree
12 5 (1.24%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (1.00%) ISTQB
13 4 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (0.75%) CEH
14 3 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.50%) CISMP
15 2 (0.50%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.97%) Data Quality
2 12 (2.99%) QA
3 11 (2.74%) SLA
4 7 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.74%) NIST
5 5 (1.24%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.24%) NIST 800
5 5 (1.24%) SEPA
6 3 (0.75%) GDPR
6 3 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.50%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.50%) GRC
7 2 (0.50%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.50%) NCSC
8 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (8.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (7.46%) NFS
3 23 (5.72%) Docker
3 23 (5.72%) GPFS
3 23 (5.72%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (4.73%) vSphere
5 17 (4.23%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.24%) Firmware
6 9 (2.24%) RACF
7 7 (1.74%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.49%) KVM
8 6 (1.49%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (1.49%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.75%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 3 (0.75%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.75%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.50%) ACF2
10 2 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 2 (0.50%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 1 (0.25%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 29 (7.21%) Ansible
2 24 (5.97%) Kubernetes
2 24 (5.97%) Terraform
3 20 (4.98%) Tivoli
4 19 (4.73%) vRealize
5 17 (4.23%) Nagios
5 17 (4.23%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.98%) Netcool
7 14 (3.48%) OpenView
7 14 (3.48%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 11 (2.74%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 9 (2.24%) VxRail
10 8 (1.99%) IBM BigFix
11 7 (1.74%) Tivoli NetView
12 6 (1.49%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (1.49%) vCenter Server
13 4 (1.00%) OMEGAMON
14 3 (0.75%) Control-M
14 3 (0.75%) Grafana
14 3 (0.75%) zSecure
Vendors
1 68 (16.92%) Oracle
2 51 (12.69%) VMware
3 35 (8.71%) Cisco
4 33 (8.21%) ServiceNow
5 29 (7.21%) HP
6 23 (5.72%) Microsoft
6 23 (5.72%) Splunk
7 22 (5.47%) BMC
8 21 (5.22%) Red Hat
9 20 (4.98%) Dell
9 20 (4.98%) SAP
9 20 (4.98%) SolarWinds
10 13 (3.23%) Google
11 12 (2.99%) Broadcom
11 12 (2.99%) Brocade
12 11 (2.74%) NetApp
13 10 (2.49%) EMC
13 10 (2.49%) MathWorks
14 7 (1.74%) Cognos
14 7 (1.74%) Temenos