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 20 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
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 284 247 215
Rank change year-on-year -37 -32 +82
Contract jobs citing IBM 397 315 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 1.08% 1.09%
As % of the Vendors category 2.01% 2.27% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 223 191 263
10th Percentile £307 £363 £372
25th Percentile £400 £408 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £583 £669 £644
90th Percentile £685 £708 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £472
% change year-on-year -2.17% -2.54% -5.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 6 34
10th Percentile £25.77 - £59.00
25th Percentile £58.13 £24.18 £65.53
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% +1.82%

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 19,744 13,902 17,995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.01% 47.66% 42.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,505 8,679 11,230
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 £616 £628
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 569 1,096
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.37% +15.91% -48.24%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £22.50 £21.42
% change year-on-year +24.44% +5.07% -44.38%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -47 348 £469 -6.20% 94
UK excluding London -23 228 £450 -2.17% 61
London -55 128 £489 -18.91% 34
Work from Home -51 108 £491 -4.15% 35
North of England -44 75 £477 +12.24% 12
South West -4 42 £401 -33.25% 12
North West -23 42 £459 +15.33% 2
South East -56 39 £400 +6.67% 19
Midlands -49 37 £402 -12.61% 12
West Midlands -37 32 £402 -12.61% 9
Yorkshire -50 32 £500 +3.90% 10
East of England -17 17 £425 -15.00% 3
Scotland -22 17 £550 +14.82% 3
East Midlands -29 4 £837 +105.40% 3
Wales -12 1 - - 1
North East -27 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 25 (6.30%) WebSphere
2 20 (5.04%) CICS
3 19 (4.79%) Confluence
4 14 (3.53%) Tomcat
5 12 (3.02%) nginx
6 10 (2.52%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.02%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.51%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (1.51%) WebSphere Application Server
9 5 (1.26%) Anypoint
9 5 (1.26%) Apache
10 4 (1.01%) IIS
10 4 (1.01%) JBoss
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.76%) CMS
12 2 (0.50%) Camunda
12 2 (0.50%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.50%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.76%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.50%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (4.79%) Maximo
2 9 (2.27%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.76%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.76%) 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%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.25%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.25%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
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 QM
Cloud Services
1 76 (19.14%) AWS
2 53 (13.35%) Azure
3 21 (5.29%) OpenShift
4 16 (4.03%) GitHub
5 12 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (2.27%) GCP
7 8 (2.02%) GitHub Copilot
7 8 (2.02%) IBM Watson
8 7 (1.76%) SaaS
9 6 (1.51%) Amazon S3
9 6 (1.51%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.51%) Azure AKS
9 6 (1.51%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (1.51%) Azure Sentinel
9 6 (1.51%) ChatGPT
10 5 (1.26%) Anthropic Claude
10 5 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 5 (1.26%) Serverless
10 5 (1.26%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.79%) Firewall
2 16 (4.03%) SAN
2 16 (4.03%) SNMP
3 14 (3.53%) HTTP
4 11 (2.77%) TCP/IP
4 11 (2.77%) VSAN
5 10 (2.52%) Fibre Channel
6 9 (2.27%) NAS
7 7 (1.76%) DNS
7 7 (1.76%) VPN
8 6 (1.51%) APPN
8 6 (1.51%) SNA
9 5 (1.26%) HTTPS
9 5 (1.26%) iSCSI
10 4 (1.01%) LAN
11 3 (0.76%) MPLS
11 3 (0.76%) Network Security
11 3 (0.76%) SSL
11 3 (0.76%) WAN
12 2 (0.50%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (10.08%) DB2
2 24 (6.05%) DataStage
3 17 (4.28%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.53%) Relational Database
5 12 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
6 9 (2.27%) Big Data
6 9 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (2.02%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (2.02%) Metadata
7 8 (2.02%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.76%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.76%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (1.51%) GIS
9 6 (1.51%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.01%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (1.01%) Power BI
11 3 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Hive
11 3 (0.76%) IBM InfoSphere
12 2 (0.50%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 41 (10.33%) Rational DOORS
2 29 (7.30%) JIRA
3 13 (3.27%) Git
3 13 (3.27%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.52%) GitLab
5 8 (2.02%) Rational Rhapsody
6 6 (1.51%) Ant
6 6 (1.51%) PVCS
7 5 (1.26%) IBM UrbanCode
7 5 (1.26%) Liquibase
8 4 (1.01%) PowerDesigner
9 3 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.76%) 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%) Selenium
10 2 (0.50%) SoapUI
10 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 90 (22.67%) Finance
2 82 (20.65%) Social Skills
3 66 (16.62%) Banking
4 30 (7.56%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (7.56%) Public Sector
5 29 (7.30%) Aerospace
6 11 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (2.77%) Legal
6 11 (2.77%) Retail
7 7 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (1.76%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.51%) Electronics
8 6 (1.51%) Front Office
9 5 (1.26%) Aviation
9 5 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.26%) Law
10 4 (1.01%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.01%) Military
11 3 (0.76%) Retail Banking
11 3 (0.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 40 (10.08%) Analyst
2 37 (9.32%) Architect
3 33 (8.31%) Developer
4 26 (6.55%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.55%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.55%) Product Manager
5 22 (5.54%) Consultant
6 21 (5.29%) Software Engineer
6 21 (5.29%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.29%) Systems Manager
7 19 (4.79%) Storage Analyst
8 18 (4.53%) Senior
9 16 (4.03%) Infrastructure Analyst
10 15 (3.78%) Data Engineer
11 14 (3.53%) Lead
12 13 (3.27%) Administrator
12 13 (3.27%) Management Consultant
13 11 (2.77%) DevOps Engineer
13 11 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
13 11 (2.77%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.08%) Middleware
2 31 (7.81%) REST
3 23 (5.79%) Flash
4 16 (4.03%) Kafka
5 14 (3.53%) XML
6 10 (2.52%) JSON
6 10 (2.52%) Spring
7 9 (2.27%) SOAP
7 9 (2.27%) Spring Boot
8 7 (1.76%) EJB
8 7 (1.76%) JMS
8 7 (1.76%) WebSphere MQ
8 7 (1.76%) ZeroMQ
9 6 (1.51%) JDBC
9 6 (1.51%) JSP
9 6 (1.51%) OpenLayers
9 6 (1.51%) PyTorch
9 6 (1.51%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.51%) scikit-learn
9 6 (1.51%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 73 (18.39%) Mainframe
2 34 (8.56%) Data Centre
3 31 (7.81%) Linux Command Line
3 31 (7.81%) Replication
4 27 (6.80%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.80%) Product Ownership
5 17 (4.28%) Clustering
6 16 (4.03%) VSAM
7 13 (3.27%) Algorithms
8 12 (3.02%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (3.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 11 (2.77%) Cloud Native
9 11 (2.77%) Hybrid Cloud
10 10 (2.52%) BYOD
10 10 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (2.52%) Legacy Applications
11 9 (2.27%) IBM Mainframe
11 9 (2.27%) Management Information System
12 8 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (2.02%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 93 (23.43%) Linux
2 51 (12.85%) Windows
3 49 (12.34%) zOS
4 41 (10.33%) AIX
5 40 (10.08%) Unix
6 21 (5.29%) Solaris
7 20 (5.04%) Windows Server
8 18 (4.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (2.77%) Windows Server 2008
9 11 (2.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (2.02%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (1.01%) MVS
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.50%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.50%) VMS
13 1 (0.25%) Android
13 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (22.42%) Agile
2 55 (13.85%) Migration
3 53 (13.35%) CI/CD
4 46 (11.59%) Continuous Improvement
5 45 (11.34%) DevOps
6 43 (10.83%) Problem-Solving
7 42 (10.58%) Roadmaps
7 42 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 36 (9.07%) Workflow
9 35 (8.82%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 34 (8.56%) Computer Science
10 34 (8.56%) ETL
11 33 (8.31%) Systems Engineering
12 32 (8.06%) Configuration Management
13 31 (7.81%) Performance Tuning
14 29 (7.30%) Stakeholder Management
14 29 (7.30%) UML
15 28 (7.05%) ITIL
15 28 (7.05%) Programme Management
15 28 (7.05%) Requirements Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (18.89%) SQL
2 66 (16.62%) Python
3 44 (11.08%) Java
4 34 (8.56%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.79%) Bash
5 19 (4.79%) COBOL
5 19 (4.79%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.53%) JCL
7 15 (3.78%) REXX
8 14 (3.53%) C
8 14 (3.53%) Search Processing Language
9 12 (3.02%) C++
10 10 (2.52%) Ada
10 10 (2.52%) MATLAB
11 9 (2.27%) Perl
11 9 (2.27%) Shell Script
12 8 (2.02%) Bicep
13 6 (1.51%) Assembly Language
13 6 (1.51%) Embedded C
13 6 (1.51%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 120 (30.23%) Security Cleared
2 76 (19.14%) SC Cleared
3 40 (10.08%) Degree
4 15 (3.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.77%) Azure Certification
5 11 (2.77%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.27%) CISSP
7 8 (2.02%) CISM
7 8 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.76%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.76%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.26%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.26%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (1.01%) ISTQB
10 4 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.76%) CEH
12 2 (0.50%) CISA
12 2 (0.50%) CISMP
12 2 (0.50%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.30%) Data Quality
2 11 (2.77%) QA
2 11 (2.77%) SLA
3 7 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.76%) NIST
4 5 (1.26%) ISO 20022
4 5 (1.26%) NIST 800
4 5 (1.26%) SEPA
5 3 (0.76%) GDPR
6 2 (0.50%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.50%) GRC
6 2 (0.50%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.50%) NCSC
6 2 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.25%) Basel III
7 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.25%) GAAP
7 1 (0.25%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 36 (9.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (7.81%) NFS
3 24 (6.05%) Docker
3 24 (6.05%) VMware ESXi
4 23 (5.79%) GPFS
5 20 (5.04%) vSphere
6 17 (4.28%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (2.27%) Firmware
7 9 (2.27%) RACF
8 7 (1.76%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.51%) KVM
9 6 (1.51%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (1.51%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.76%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 3 (0.76%) PowerHA
11 2 (0.50%) ACF2
11 2 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.50%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 2 (0.50%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 29 (7.30%) Ansible
2 26 (6.55%) Terraform
3 24 (6.05%) Kubernetes
4 21 (5.29%) Tivoli
5 20 (5.04%) vRealize
6 17 (4.28%) Nagios
6 17 (4.28%) ZABBIX
7 16 (4.03%) Netcool
8 14 (3.53%) OpenView
8 14 (3.53%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (3.02%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 11 (2.77%) VxRail
11 8 (2.02%) IBM BigFix
12 7 (1.76%) Tivoli NetView
13 6 (1.51%) Oracle RMAN
13 6 (1.51%) vCenter Server
14 4 (1.01%) OMEGAMON
15 3 (0.76%) Control-M
15 3 (0.76%) Grafana
16 2 (0.50%) QRadar
Vendors
1 70 (17.63%) Oracle
2 52 (13.10%) VMware
3 35 (8.82%) Cisco
4 34 (8.56%) ServiceNow
5 29 (7.30%) HP
6 26 (6.55%) Microsoft
7 24 (6.05%) Splunk
8 21 (5.29%) BMC
9 20 (5.04%) Dell
9 20 (5.04%) Red Hat
9 20 (5.04%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.79%) SAP
11 12 (3.02%) Broadcom
11 12 (3.02%) Brocade
11 12 (3.02%) Google
12 11 (2.77%) NetApp
13 10 (2.52%) EMC
13 10 (2.52%) MathWorks
14 7 (1.76%) IBM Sterling
14 7 (1.76%) Temenos