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 5 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
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 222 228
Rank change year-on-year -39 +6 +10
Contract jobs citing IBM 496 384 422
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.17% 1.08%
As % of the Vendors category 2.25% 2.47% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 252 209
10th Percentile £325 £350 £355
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
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 £718 £755
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £472
% change year-on-year +5.26% +0.64% -5.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 7 32
10th Percentile £25.18 £24.89 £30.05
25th Percentile £65.00 £25.04 £64.69
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 22,028 15,518 17,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.41% 47.16% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,643 9,508 10,703
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £605 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 786 855
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.48 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £34.97 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.05% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.58 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £27.25
% change year-on-year +52.32% -18.11% -23.24%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -54 423 £500 -4.76% 172
UK excluding London -67 255 £500 +5.26% 91
London -13 174 £488 -18.75% 81
Work from Home -74 122 £525 -4.55% 79
North of England -39 88 £520 +11.96% 28
South East -48 58 £455 -17.27% 23
Yorkshire -25 47 £550 +13.10% 12
North West -52 39 £469 +4.22% 14
South West -25 36 £426 -29.00% 15
Midlands -65 31 £425 -4.44% 14
West Midlands -54 27 £431 -9.21% 8
Scotland -18 25 £550 +14.82% 5
East of England -14 14 £625 +13.64% 6
Wales -11 3 £600 -5.14% 2
East Midlands -22 3 - - 6
North East -39 1 £375 -18.92% 2

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 40 (8.06%) WebSphere
2 35 (7.06%) Confluence
3 28 (5.65%) CICS
4 18 (3.63%) SharePoint
5 16 (3.23%) Tomcat
6 14 (2.82%) nginx
7 8 (1.61%) JBoss
7 8 (1.61%) WebLogic
8 5 (1.01%) Apache
8 5 (1.01%) SAS
8 5 (1.01%) WebSphere Application Server
9 4 (0.81%) Camunda
9 4 (0.81%) IIS
10 3 (0.60%) CMS
11 2 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.40%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.40%) WebSphere Portal
12 1 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 6 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.40%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.20%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.23%) Maximo
2 12 (2.42%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.81%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.01%) Cognos Controller
4 5 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.60%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
5 3 (0.60%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.40%) Teamcenter
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%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 72 (14.52%) AWS
2 62 (12.50%) Azure
3 26 (5.24%) GitHub
4 15 (3.02%) GCP
4 15 (3.02%) GitHub Copilot
4 15 (3.02%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.42%) Anthropic Claude
5 12 (2.42%) ChatGPT
6 10 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (1.81%) IBM Watson
8 8 (1.61%) Amazon S3
9 7 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.21%) Azure AI
10 6 (1.21%) IBM Blueworks
10 6 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
10 6 (1.21%) Vertex AI
11 5 (1.01%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (1.01%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.81%) Azure Key Vault
12 4 (0.81%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.64%) SSL
2 20 (4.03%) Firewall
3 17 (3.43%) HTTP
3 17 (3.43%) SNMP
4 13 (2.62%) SAN
5 8 (1.61%) DNS
5 8 (1.61%) Network Security
5 8 (1.61%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.21%) VSAN
7 5 (1.01%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (1.01%) Fibre Channel
7 5 (1.01%) Wireshark
8 4 (0.81%) NAS
9 3 (0.60%) Internet
9 3 (0.60%) SSH
10 2 (0.40%) APPN
10 2 (0.40%) DMZ
10 2 (0.40%) LAN
10 2 (0.40%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.40%) SNA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (9.27%) Db2
2 31 (6.25%) DataStage
3 30 (6.05%) Relational Database
4 18 (3.63%) SQL Server
5 16 (3.23%) Metadata
6 14 (2.82%) MongoDB
6 14 (2.82%) Oracle Database
7 12 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
9 9 (1.81%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (1.61%) NoSQL
11 6 (1.21%) Big Data
11 6 (1.21%) GIS
12 5 (1.01%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.60%) BusinessObjects
13 3 (0.60%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.60%) IBM InfoSphere
13 3 (0.60%) Power BI
14 2 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
15 1 (0.20%) DataStax
Development Applications
1 52 (10.48%) JIRA
2 42 (8.47%) Rational DOORS
3 23 (4.64%) Jenkins
4 17 (3.43%) GitLab
5 15 (3.02%) Git
6 8 (1.61%) IBM UrbanCode
6 8 (1.61%) Rational Rhapsody
7 6 (1.21%) PowerDesigner
8 5 (1.01%) Liquibase
8 5 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.81%) Ant
9 4 (0.81%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.81%) Gradle
9 4 (0.81%) JMeter
9 4 (0.81%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.60%) JUnit
10 3 (0.60%) Maven
10 3 (0.60%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.60%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 160 (32.26%) Finance
2 119 (23.99%) Social Skills
3 106 (21.37%) Banking
4 59 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (6.65%) Public Sector
6 32 (6.45%) Legal
7 31 (6.25%) Aerospace
8 14 (2.82%) Retail
9 10 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.81%) Military
11 8 (1.61%) Front Office
11 8 (1.61%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.01%) Law
13 5 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.60%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.60%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.60%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.40%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 63 (12.70%) Developer
2 62 (12.50%) Architect
3 50 (10.08%) Analyst
4 36 (7.26%) Senior
5 31 (6.25%) Administrator
6 27 (5.44%) Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.44%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.44%) Product Manager
7 24 (4.84%) Consultant
8 23 (4.64%) Solutions Architect
9 21 (4.23%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 21 (4.23%) Systems Manager
10 20 (4.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 20 (4.03%) Lead
11 18 (3.63%) Middleware Engineer
12 15 (3.02%) Designer
13 14 (2.82%) CICS Engineer
14 13 (2.62%) Management Consultant
15 12 (2.42%) Software Engineer
15 12 (2.42%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (13.91%) Middleware
2 45 (9.07%) REST
3 27 (5.44%) JSON
4 26 (5.24%) XML
5 24 (4.84%) ISPF
6 22 (4.44%) Kafka
7 17 (3.43%) Spring Boot
8 16 (3.23%) RabbitMQ
9 14 (2.82%) Spring
10 13 (2.62%) Flash
10 13 (2.62%) SOAP
11 10 (2.02%) OAuth
11 10 (2.02%) WebSphere MQ
12 9 (1.81%) SAML
13 8 (1.61%) Jakarta EE
13 8 (1.61%) OpenAPI
13 8 (1.61%) Swagger
14 7 (1.41%) PyTorch
14 7 (1.41%) Web Services
14 7 (1.41%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 102 (20.56%) Mainframe
2 41 (8.27%) Data Centre
3 37 (7.46%) Clustering
4 33 (6.65%) Data Structures
5 32 (6.45%) Product Ownership
6 21 (4.23%) Cloud Native
7 20 (4.03%) Replication
8 16 (3.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 14 (2.82%) IBM Mainframe
9 14 (2.82%) Linux Command Line
10 13 (2.62%) AS400
10 13 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
11 12 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
11 12 (2.42%) Management Information System
12 11 (2.22%) VSAM
13 10 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
13 10 (2.02%) Equity Derivative
13 10 (2.02%) Legacy Applications
14 9 (1.81%) iSeries
14 9 (1.81%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 101 (20.36%) Linux
2 75 (15.12%) zOS
3 54 (10.89%) Unix
4 46 (9.27%) Windows
5 41 (8.27%) AIX
6 22 (4.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (3.83%) Solaris
8 13 (2.62%) Windows Server
9 10 (2.02%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (1.61%) SUSE
10 8 (1.61%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (1.41%) MVS
12 4 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.20%) Android
14 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.20%) VMS
14 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (20.36%) Agile
2 72 (14.52%) Migration
3 68 (13.71%) CI/CD
4 64 (12.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 63 (12.70%) DevOps
6 58 (11.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 56 (11.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 53 (10.69%) ITIL
9 50 (10.08%) Problem-Solving
10 48 (9.68%) Roadmaps
11 46 (9.27%) ETL
12 42 (8.47%) Computer Science
12 42 (8.47%) Test Automation
13 39 (7.86%) AI
14 38 (7.66%) Systems Engineering
15 36 (7.26%) Change Management
15 36 (7.26%) Configuration Management
15 36 (7.26%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
15 36 (7.26%) Scrum
16 35 (7.06%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 92 (18.55%) SQL
2 79 (15.93%) Python
3 64 (12.90%) Java
4 35 (7.06%) PowerShell
5 23 (4.64%) Bash
6 20 (4.03%) PL/SQL
7 19 (3.83%) JCL
8 16 (3.23%) COBOL
9 15 (3.02%) REXX
10 14 (2.82%) C++
10 14 (2.82%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (2.62%) Shell Script
12 12 (2.42%) JavaScript
13 11 (2.22%) Perl
14 10 (2.02%) C
14 10 (2.02%) C#
15 7 (1.41%) Ada
16 6 (1.21%) Assembly Language
16 6 (1.21%) CLIST
17 5 (1.01%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 119 (23.99%) Security Cleared
2 77 (15.52%) SC Cleared
3 49 (9.88%) Degree
4 11 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.61%) AWS Certification
6 8 (1.61%) CISSP
7 7 (1.41%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.01%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.01%) CISM
9 4 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 4 (0.81%) CCSP
9 4 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.60%) CEH
10 3 (0.60%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.60%) PMP
11 2 (0.40%) CISA
11 2 (0.40%) CISMP
11 2 (0.40%) GCIH
11 2 (0.40%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (6.25%) Data Quality
2 15 (3.02%) QA
3 8 (1.61%) ISO 20022
4 7 (1.41%) GDPR
4 7 (1.41%) SLA
5 6 (1.21%) ISO 15022
6 5 (1.01%) NIST
6 5 (1.01%) SEPA
7 4 (0.81%) GRC
7 4 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.40%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.40%) GAAP
8 2 (0.40%) IFRS
8 2 (0.40%) NCSC
9 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.20%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) TARGET2
9 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (6.45%) Docker
2 25 (5.04%) RACF
3 23 (4.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (3.43%) NFS
5 16 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (2.62%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (2.42%) Firmware
7 12 (2.42%) GPFS
7 12 (2.42%) Time Sharing Option
8 10 (2.02%) vSphere
9 7 (1.41%) Oracle RAC
9 7 (1.41%) PowerHA
10 6 (1.21%) ACF2
11 4 (0.81%) Hyper-V
12 3 (0.60%) Active Directory
12 3 (0.60%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.60%) KVM
13 2 (0.40%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 1 (0.20%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 25 (5.04%) Ansible
2 24 (4.84%) OMEGAMON
3 21 (4.23%) Tivoli
4 18 (3.63%) Kubernetes
4 18 (3.63%) Terraform
5 17 (3.43%) Nagios
5 17 (3.43%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.23%) Netcool
7 15 (3.02%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 14 (2.82%) OpenView
8 14 (2.82%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 9 (1.81%) vRealize
10 6 (1.21%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (1.21%) VxRail
11 5 (1.01%) Grafana
11 5 (1.01%) Tivoli NetView
12 4 (0.81%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.81%) QRadar
13 3 (0.60%) IBM BigFix
13 3 (0.60%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 92 (18.55%) Oracle
2 39 (7.86%) Microsoft
3 37 (7.46%) VMware
4 30 (6.05%) Splunk
5 27 (5.44%) SAP
6 24 (4.84%) Red Hat
7 23 (4.64%) ServiceNow
8 22 (4.44%) HP
9 21 (4.23%) Cisco
10 18 (3.63%) BMC
10 18 (3.63%) Google
11 16 (3.23%) SolarWinds
12 13 (2.62%) Broadcom
12 13 (2.62%) Brocade
12 13 (2.62%) Dell
12 13 (2.62%) MathWorks
13 12 (2.42%) Cognos
13 12 (2.42%) Sybase
14 10 (2.02%) Informatica
15 9 (1.81%) Temenos