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 29 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
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 253 213
Rank change year-on-year -16 -40 +18
Contract jobs citing IBM 531 354 441
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.09% 1.16%
As % of the Vendors category 2.33% 2.28% 2.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 235 210
10th Percentile £350 £353 £339
25th Percentile £425 £415 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £545 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% +14.74% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £608
90th Percentile £681 £688 £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 17 8 27
10th Percentile £34.87 £25.04 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.81 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.33 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.29% -40.96% +7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.75 -
90th Percentile - £73.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year +1.96% -8.93% +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 22,749 15,514 16,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.65% 47.59% 44.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,847 9,563 9,961
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £613 £625
90th Percentile £705 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,319 804 634
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.75 £14.59
25th Percentile £16.44 £17.74 £15.65
Median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -19.52% -28.57%
75th Percentile £57.50 £42.50 £64.25
90th Percentile £78.30 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £21.30 £30.00
% change year-on-year +17.37% -29.00% -30.23%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -30 454 £500 -9.09% 331
UK excluding London -61 249 £500 +5.26% 210
London +7 210 £525 -13.76% 113
Work from Home -49 129 £547 -10.69% 172
North of England -51 97 £514 +13.73% 56
Yorkshire +5 64 £514 +8.77% 21
South East -66 34 £460 -17.30% 30
Scotland -17 32 £600 +38.89% 19
North West -70 32 £459 +2.00% 27
Midlands -53 30 £500 +13.77% 45
South West -25 29 £550 -8.33% 30
West Midlands -42 27 £500 -13.04% 16
East of England -18 25 £625 +13.64% 20
Wales -12 3 £600 -5.14% 4
East Midlands -31 2 - - 29

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 (7.16%) Confluence
2 36 (6.78%) WebSphere
3 26 (4.90%) CICS
4 18 (3.39%) SharePoint
5 16 (3.01%) Tomcat
6 14 (2.64%) nginx
7 11 (2.07%) Camunda
8 9 (1.69%) WebLogic
9 8 (1.51%) Apache
9 8 (1.51%) SAS
10 7 (1.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (1.13%) JBoss
11 6 (1.13%) WebSphere Application Server
12 5 (0.94%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 3 (0.56%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.56%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.56%) MQSeries
13 3 (0.56%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 3 (0.56%) WebLogic Portal
13 3 (0.56%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 11 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.32%) Windchill
3 2 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 28 (5.27%) Maximo
2 19 (3.58%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.32%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.94%) Cognos Controller
5 4 (0.75%) Temenos T24
6 3 (0.56%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 2 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.19%) Actimize
8 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.19%) HFM
8 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.19%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 89 (16.76%) Azure
2 83 (15.63%) AWS
3 39 (7.34%) GCP
4 36 (6.78%) GitHub
5 26 (4.90%) OpenShift
6 14 (2.64%) GitHub Copilot
7 13 (2.45%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (2.07%) ChatGPT
10 10 (1.88%) IBM Watson
10 10 (1.88%) Power Platform
11 9 (1.69%) Azure Service Bus
11 9 (1.69%) Boomi
11 9 (1.69%) Entra ID
11 9 (1.69%) iPaaS
12 8 (1.51%) IBM Blueworks
12 8 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
13 7 (1.32%) Amazon S3
14 6 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 25 (4.71%) HTTP
2 21 (3.95%) SSL
3 11 (2.07%) SAN
4 9 (1.69%) Network Security
5 8 (1.51%) Firewall
5 8 (1.51%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.32%) SNMP
7 6 (1.13%) Internet
7 6 (1.13%) SSH
7 6 (1.13%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.94%) DNS
9 4 (0.75%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.75%) NAS
9 4 (0.75%) VSAN
10 3 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.56%) iSCSI
11 2 (0.38%) Ethernet
11 2 (0.38%) Multicast
11 2 (0.38%) OSPF
11 2 (0.38%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (9.04%) Db2
2 35 (6.59%) Relational Database
3 32 (6.03%) DataStage
4 26 (4.90%) SQL Server
5 21 (3.95%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (3.20%) Oracle Database
7 15 (2.82%) Metadata
7 15 (2.82%) MongoDB
8 10 (1.88%) Tableau
9 8 (1.51%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.51%) Power BI
10 7 (1.32%) GIS
10 7 (1.32%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
11 5 (0.94%) Big Data
11 5 (0.94%) Data Lake
11 5 (0.94%) IBM InfoSphere
12 4 (0.75%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.56%) RDBMS
14 2 (0.38%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 63 (11.86%) JIRA
2 45 (8.47%) Jenkins
3 34 (6.40%) Git
4 24 (4.52%) GitLab
5 21 (3.95%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.58%) JMeter
7 16 (3.01%) LoadRunner
7 16 (3.01%) SonarQube
8 14 (2.64%) Postman
8 14 (2.64%) SoapUI
9 12 (2.26%) Gradle
10 11 (2.07%) IBM UrbanCode
11 10 (1.88%) eggPlant
11 10 (1.88%) JUnit
11 10 (1.88%) Maven
11 10 (1.88%) REST Assured
11 10 (1.88%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (1.69%) Mockito
12 9 (1.69%) Rational Rhapsody
12 9 (1.69%) Selenium
General
1 204 (38.42%) Finance
2 141 (26.55%) Social Skills
3 140 (26.37%) Banking
4 72 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (5.46%) Legal
6 21 (3.95%) Retail
7 18 (3.39%) Public Sector
8 15 (2.82%) Manufacturing
9 11 (2.07%) Military
10 10 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.51%) Investment Banking
11 8 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.32%) Front Office
12 7 (1.32%) Spanish Language
13 6 (1.13%) Aerospace
13 6 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.94%) Law
15 4 (0.75%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.56%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 86 (16.20%) Developer
2 56 (10.55%) Architect
3 50 (9.42%) Analyst
4 43 (8.10%) Senior
5 38 (7.16%) Lead
6 26 (4.90%) Administrator
6 26 (4.90%) Solutions Architect
7 22 (4.14%) Consultant
8 20 (3.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 17 (3.20%) Automation Engineer
9 17 (3.20%) Java Developer
10 16 (3.01%) DataStage Developer
10 16 (3.01%) Middleware Engineer
11 15 (2.82%) Business Analyst
12 14 (2.64%) Applications Support
12 14 (2.64%) CICS Engineer
13 13 (2.45%) Test Engineer
14 12 (2.26%) Oracle Developer
14 12 (2.26%) Programmer
14 12 (2.26%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (17.89%) Middleware
2 60 (11.30%) Kafka
3 47 (8.85%) REST
3 47 (8.85%) XML
4 41 (7.72%) JSON
5 31 (5.84%) SOAP
6 30 (5.65%) Spring Boot
7 28 (5.27%) ISPF
8 22 (4.14%) Spring
9 20 (3.77%) HTML
10 17 (3.20%) .NET
11 16 (3.01%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (2.82%) Terraform
13 14 (2.64%) OAuth
14 13 (2.45%) SAML
14 13 (2.45%) Web Services
15 12 (2.26%) GraphQL
15 12 (2.26%) Swagger
16 11 (2.07%) JWT
16 11 (2.07%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 111 (20.90%) Mainframe
2 29 (5.46%) Clustering
3 24 (4.52%) Data Centre
4 22 (4.14%) Cloud Native
4 22 (4.14%) Replication
5 21 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (3.58%) Hybrid Cloud
7 18 (3.39%) AS400
8 16 (3.01%) Data Structures
8 16 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (2.82%) Onboarding
10 14 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (2.45%) iSeries
11 13 (2.45%) Legacy Applications
12 12 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
12 12 (2.26%) Product Ownership
13 11 (2.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 10 (1.88%) IBM Mainframe
14 10 (1.88%) Management Information System
15 9 (1.69%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 94 (17.70%) Linux
2 84 (15.82%) zOS
3 57 (10.73%) Unix
4 32 (6.03%) Windows
5 19 (3.58%) AIX
5 19 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.88%) Solaris
7 8 (1.51%) SUSE
8 7 (1.32%) MVS
8 7 (1.32%) Windows Server
9 6 (1.13%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (18.83%) CI/CD
2 91 (17.14%) Agile
3 87 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 84 (15.82%) Migration
5 74 (13.94%) DevOps
6 71 (13.37%) Test Automation
7 66 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
8 65 (12.24%) ITIL
9 60 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
10 51 (9.60%) Validation
11 50 (9.42%) ETL
12 49 (9.23%) Roadmaps
13 48 (9.04%) Performance Tuning
14 45 (8.47%) Change Management
15 44 (8.29%) Root Cause Analysis
16 43 (8.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 42 (7.91%) Scrum
18 41 (7.72%) AI
19 37 (6.97%) Performance Optimisation
20 35 (6.59%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 116 (21.85%) SQL
2 94 (17.70%) Python
3 88 (16.57%) Java
4 46 (8.66%) JavaScript
5 25 (4.71%) JCL
6 22 (4.14%) PL/SQL
7 20 (3.77%) PowerShell
7 20 (3.77%) Shell Script
8 18 (3.39%) Bash
9 17 (3.20%) COBOL
9 17 (3.20%) REXX
10 16 (3.01%) C++
11 14 (2.64%) C#
12 12 (2.26%) C
13 9 (1.69%) Perl
14 8 (1.51%) TypeScript
15 7 (1.32%) Assembly Language
15 7 (1.32%) CLIST
16 6 (1.13%) RPG
16 6 (1.13%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 102 (19.21%) Security Cleared
2 82 (15.44%) SC Cleared
3 46 (8.66%) Degree
4 26 (4.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.32%) CISSP
6 7 (1.32%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.13%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.94%) PMI Certification
8 5 (0.94%) PMP
9 4 (0.75%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (0.56%) ACCA
10 3 (0.56%) CIMA
10 3 (0.56%) ISEB
10 3 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.38%) CCSP
11 2 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (6.78%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.01%) QA
3 10 (1.88%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.51%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.32%) GDPR
5 7 (1.32%) NIST
6 5 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.94%) SLA
7 3 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 3 (0.56%) SEPA
8 2 (0.38%) GAAP
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) IFRS
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.38%) PMO
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.19%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 45 (8.47%) Docker
2 30 (5.65%) RACF
3 22 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.82%) NFS
5 14 (2.64%) Time Sharing Option
6 12 (2.26%) GPFS
7 11 (2.07%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (1.51%) vSphere
10 7 (1.32%) ACF2
10 7 (1.32%) Firmware
11 5 (0.94%) Active Directory
11 5 (0.94%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.75%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.19%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
13 1 (0.19%) oVirt
13 1 (0.19%) RHEV
13 1 (0.19%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 40 (7.53%) Kubernetes
2 27 (5.08%) Ansible
3 25 (4.71%) OMEGAMON
4 18 (3.39%) Tivoli
5 11 (2.07%) Grafana
5 11 (2.07%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 11 (2.07%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 9 (1.69%) Netcool
7 8 (1.51%) Control-M
8 7 (1.32%) Nagios
8 7 (1.32%) ZABBIX
9 6 (1.13%) HP Fortify
9 6 (1.13%) vRealize
10 5 (0.94%) QRadar
11 4 (0.75%) OpenView
11 4 (0.75%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.75%) Tivoli NetView
11 4 (0.75%) VxRail
12 3 (0.56%) CA Endevor
12 3 (0.56%) Netcool/OMNIbus
Vendors
1 117 (22.03%) Oracle
2 60 (11.30%) Microsoft
3 36 (6.78%) SAP
4 31 (5.84%) VMware
5 30 (5.65%) Google
6 28 (5.27%) Splunk
7 26 (4.90%) ServiceNow
8 20 (3.77%) Red Hat
9 19 (3.58%) Broadcom
10 18 (3.39%) Cisco
10 18 (3.39%) Dynatrace
11 15 (2.82%) Siemens
12 14 (2.64%) Cognos
13 13 (2.45%) Databricks
14 12 (2.26%) Dell
14 12 (2.26%) Informatica
14 12 (2.26%) Sybase
15 11 (2.07%) EMC
15 11 (2.07%) MathWorks
15 11 (2.07%) TIBCO