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 28 July 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
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 229 230
Rank change year-on-year -42 +1 +20
Contract jobs citing IBM 495 376 429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.15% 1.07%
As % of the Vendors category 2.27% 2.43% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 246 217
10th Percentile £325 £353 £354
25th Percentile £413 £408 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £625
90th Percentile £675 £712 £760
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 6 36
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.85 £42.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £25.04 £64.69
Median hourly rate £88.00 £47.54 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +85.12% -32.09% +3.70%
75th Percentile - £74.38 -
90th Percentile - £129.36 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £47.54 £70.00
% change year-on-year +85.12% -32.09% +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 21,831 15,499 17,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.30% 47.33% 43.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,562 9,484 10,956
10th Percentile £313 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,092 777 916
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.67 £13.28
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.08 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.11 £25.15 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.60% -6.85% -35.41%
75th Percentile £65.33 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.00 £22.32 £25.00
% change year-on-year +52.36% -10.74% -28.06%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 -43 420 £498 -1.73% 92
UK excluding London -51 258 £500 +5.26% 58
London -27 169 £488 -18.75% 43
Work from Home -75 124 £520 -5.11% 43
North of England -46 92 £514 +12.66% 8
South East -51 55 £425 -20.93% 13
Yorkshire -19 46 £563 +12.50% 4
North West -40 45 £459 +8.00% 3
South West -14 36 £426 -29.00% 14
Midlands -60 31 £413 -7.25% 11
West Midlands -49 27 £413 -13.16% 7
Scotland -20 26 £550 +14.82% 4
East of England -18 14 £625 +13.64% 7
Wales -13 4 £600 -5.14% 3
East Midlands -25 3 - - 4
North East -43 1 £375 -10.45% 1

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 (7.68%) WebSphere
2 34 (6.87%) Confluence
3 30 (6.06%) CICS
4 18 (3.64%) SharePoint
5 17 (3.43%) Tomcat
6 15 (3.03%) nginx
7 8 (1.62%) JBoss
7 8 (1.62%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.21%) Apache
9 5 (1.01%) SAS
9 5 (1.01%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (0.81%) Apache Spark
10 4 (0.81%) Camunda
10 4 (0.81%) IIS
11 3 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.61%) CMS
12 2 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.40%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.40%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 5 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.61%) 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 20 (4.04%) Maximo
2 12 (2.42%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.82%) Temenos T24
4 6 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.01%) Cognos Controller
6 3 (0.61%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 3 (0.61%) SAP R/3
7 2 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.40%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.20%) HFM
8 1 (0.20%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.20%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.20%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.20%) SAP AFS
8 1 (0.20%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 69 (13.94%) AWS
2 59 (11.92%) Azure
3 26 (5.25%) GitHub
4 15 (3.03%) GitHub Copilot
4 15 (3.03%) OpenShift
5 14 (2.83%) GCP
6 13 (2.63%) ChatGPT
7 11 (2.22%) Anthropic Claude
8 10 (2.02%) Amazon S3
8 10 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.62%) IBM Watson
10 7 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (1.41%) Vertex AI
11 6 (1.21%) Azure AI
11 6 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (1.01%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (1.01%) IBM Blueworks
12 5 (1.01%) IBM Cloud
12 5 (1.01%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.81%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.65%) Firewall
2 22 (4.44%) SSL
3 17 (3.43%) HTTP
3 17 (3.43%) SNMP
4 13 (2.63%) SAN
5 8 (1.62%) DNS
5 8 (1.62%) Network Security
6 7 (1.41%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.21%) VSAN
8 5 (1.01%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.81%) Cisco Nexus
9 4 (0.81%) NAS
9 4 (0.81%) Wireshark
10 3 (0.61%) SSH
11 2 (0.40%) APPN
11 2 (0.40%) Internet
11 2 (0.40%) LAN
11 2 (0.40%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.40%) SNA
11 2 (0.40%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (10.10%) Db2
2 34 (6.87%) DataStage
3 30 (6.06%) Relational Database
4 21 (4.24%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (3.03%) Metadata
6 14 (2.83%) MongoDB
7 13 (2.63%) Oracle Database
8 11 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
9 10 (2.02%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (1.82%) NoSQL
11 8 (1.62%) Big Data
12 6 (1.21%) GIS
13 5 (1.01%) Data Lake
14 3 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
14 3 (0.61%) Apache Hive
14 3 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
14 3 (0.61%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 3 (0.61%) IBM InfoSphere
15 2 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 49 (9.90%) JIRA
2 41 (8.28%) Rational DOORS
3 23 (4.65%) Jenkins
4 19 (3.84%) GitLab
5 15 (3.03%) Git
6 8 (1.62%) IBM UrbanCode
6 8 (1.62%) Rational Rhapsody
7 5 (1.01%) Ant
7 5 (1.01%) Liquibase
7 5 (1.01%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (0.81%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.81%) Gradle
8 4 (0.81%) JMeter
8 4 (0.81%) JUnit
8 4 (0.81%) Maven
8 4 (0.81%) REST Assured
8 4 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.81%) Zephyr
9 3 (0.61%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.61%) Visual Studio
General
1 153 (30.91%) Finance
2 118 (23.84%) Social Skills
3 100 (20.20%) Banking
4 54 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (7.27%) Public Sector
6 31 (6.26%) Legal
7 30 (6.06%) Aerospace
8 13 (2.63%) Retail
9 12 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.02%) Military
11 9 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.62%) Front Office
13 7 (1.41%) Investment Banking
14 6 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (1.01%) Law
15 5 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.81%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.61%) Telecoms
18 2 (0.40%) Back Office
18 2 (0.40%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 64 (12.93%) Architect
2 63 (12.73%) Developer
3 48 (9.70%) Analyst
4 35 (7.07%) Senior
5 31 (6.26%) Administrator
6 26 (5.25%) Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.25%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.25%) Product Manager
7 24 (4.85%) Consultant
8 23 (4.65%) Solutions Architect
9 21 (4.24%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 21 (4.24%) Systems Manager
10 20 (4.04%) Lead
11 19 (3.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (3.64%) Designer
13 17 (3.43%) Middleware Engineer
14 15 (3.03%) Data Engineer
15 13 (2.63%) CICS Engineer
15 13 (2.63%) Management Consultant
16 12 (2.42%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (13.94%) Middleware
2 43 (8.69%) REST
3 26 (5.25%) JSON
4 24 (4.85%) ISPF
4 24 (4.85%) XML
5 21 (4.24%) Kafka
6 18 (3.64%) Spring Boot
7 15 (3.03%) RabbitMQ
7 15 (3.03%) Spring
8 14 (2.83%) Flash
8 14 (2.83%) SOAP
9 9 (1.82%) Jakarta EE
9 9 (1.82%) OAuth
9 9 (1.82%) Web Services
9 9 (1.82%) WebSphere MQ
10 8 (1.62%) PyTorch
10 8 (1.62%) SAML
11 7 (1.41%) JDBC
11 7 (1.41%) LangChain
11 7 (1.41%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 105 (21.21%) Mainframe
2 43 (8.69%) Data Centre
3 37 (7.47%) Clustering
4 32 (6.46%) Data Structures
5 30 (6.06%) Product Ownership
6 20 (4.04%) Cloud Native
6 20 (4.04%) Replication
7 17 (3.43%) Linux Command Line
8 15 (3.03%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 15 (3.03%) VSAM
9 14 (2.83%) IBM Mainframe
9 14 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (2.63%) AS400
11 12 (2.42%) Management Information System
12 11 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (2.22%) Legacy Applications
13 10 (2.02%) BYOD
13 10 (2.02%) Equity Derivative
14 9 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.82%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 106 (21.41%) Linux
2 74 (14.95%) zOS
3 60 (12.12%) Unix
4 51 (10.30%) Windows
5 46 (9.29%) AIX
6 23 (4.65%) Solaris
7 22 (4.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 17 (3.43%) Windows Server
9 11 (2.22%) Windows Server 2008
10 9 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.62%) SUSE
12 7 (1.41%) MVS
13 5 (1.01%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
15 1 (0.20%) Android
15 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
15 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
15 1 (0.20%) VMS
15 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (19.60%) Agile
2 73 (14.75%) CI/CD
3 72 (14.55%) Migration
4 64 (12.93%) DevOps
5 61 (12.32%) Continuous Improvement
6 54 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 53 (10.71%) ITIL
7 53 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
8 51 (10.30%) ETL
9 50 (10.10%) Problem-Solving
9 50 (10.10%) Roadmaps
10 43 (8.69%) Test Automation
11 40 (8.08%) Computer Science
12 37 (7.47%) AI
12 37 (7.47%) Systems Engineering
13 36 (7.27%) Change Management
13 36 (7.27%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 35 (7.07%) Configuration Management
14 35 (7.07%) Root Cause Analysis
14 35 (7.07%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 95 (19.19%) SQL
2 84 (16.97%) Python
3 69 (13.94%) Java
4 38 (7.68%) PowerShell
5 24 (4.85%) Bash
6 19 (3.84%) COBOL
6 19 (3.84%) JCL
6 19 (3.84%) PL/SQL
7 15 (3.03%) REXX
8 14 (2.83%) Search Processing Language
9 13 (2.63%) C++
10 12 (2.42%) JavaScript
10 12 (2.42%) Shell Script
11 11 (2.22%) Perl
12 10 (2.02%) C
13 9 (1.82%) C#
14 7 (1.41%) Ada
15 6 (1.21%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.21%) CLIST
16 5 (1.01%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 125 (25.25%) Security Cleared
2 81 (16.36%) SC Cleared
3 50 (10.10%) Degree
4 11 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.62%) CISSP
7 7 (1.41%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.41%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.01%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.01%) CISM
8 5 (1.01%) IBM Certification
8 5 (1.01%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 4 (0.81%) CCSP
9 4 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.61%) CEH
10 3 (0.61%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.61%) PMP
11 2 (0.40%) CISMP
11 2 (0.40%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 15 (3.03%) QA
3 8 (1.62%) GDPR
3 8 (1.62%) SLA
4 7 (1.41%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.01%) ISO 15022
5 5 (1.01%) NIST
5 5 (1.01%) SEPA
6 4 (0.81%) GRC
6 4 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.40%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.40%) GAAP
7 2 (0.40%) IFRS
7 2 (0.40%) NCSC
8 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.20%) PMO
8 1 (0.20%) TARGET2
8 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (6.67%) Docker
2 25 (5.05%) RACF
2 25 (5.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (3.64%) NFS
4 17 (3.43%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.03%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (2.63%) GPFS
7 12 (2.42%) Firmware
7 12 (2.42%) Time Sharing Option
8 10 (2.02%) vSphere
9 8 (1.62%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (1.41%) PowerHA
11 6 (1.21%) ACF2
11 6 (1.21%) Hyper-V
12 5 (1.01%) KVM
13 3 (0.61%) Active Directory
13 3 (0.61%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.40%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
15 1 (0.20%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 26 (5.25%) Ansible
2 23 (4.65%) OMEGAMON
3 21 (4.24%) Tivoli
4 19 (3.84%) Terraform
5 18 (3.64%) Kubernetes
6 17 (3.43%) Nagios
6 17 (3.43%) ZABBIX
7 16 (3.23%) Netcool
8 15 (3.03%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 14 (2.83%) OpenView
9 14 (2.83%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 9 (1.82%) vRealize
11 7 (1.41%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (1.21%) VxRail
13 5 (1.01%) Grafana
13 5 (1.01%) IBM BigFix
13 5 (1.01%) Tivoli NetView
13 5 (1.01%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.81%) CA Endevor
15 3 (0.61%) QRadar
Vendors
1 90 (18.18%) Oracle
2 41 (8.28%) VMware
3 37 (7.47%) Microsoft
4 29 (5.86%) Splunk
5 28 (5.66%) SAP
6 25 (5.05%) Red Hat
7 24 (4.85%) ServiceNow
8 22 (4.44%) HP
9 20 (4.04%) Cisco
10 18 (3.64%) BMC
11 16 (3.23%) Google
11 16 (3.23%) SolarWinds
12 13 (2.63%) Broadcom
12 13 (2.63%) Brocade
12 13 (2.63%) Dell
12 13 (2.63%) MathWorks
13 12 (2.42%) Sybase
14 11 (2.22%) Cognos
15 9 (1.82%) Informatica
15 9 (1.82%) Temenos