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 9 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
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 246 217
Rank change year-on-year -30 -29 +13
Contract jobs citing IBM 507 360 426
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.10% 1.12%
As % of the Vendors category 2.22% 2.33% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 232 203
10th Percentile £347 £356 £342
25th Percentile £413 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £549 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.88% +15.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £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 23 7 32
10th Percentile £40.06 £25.04 £28.92
25th Percentile £63.13 £25.09 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.15 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +178.33% -64.07% +7.69%
75th Percentile £88.00 £66.88 -
90th Percentile - £73.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £57.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +21.74% -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 22,818 15,440 16,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.89% 47.16% 44.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,031 9,437 10,155
10th Percentile £313 £275 £289
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £627
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,217 780 691
10th Percentile £14.07 £14.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.83 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £28.00 £25.15 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.33% -18.87% -27.49%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.70 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £21.28 £30.00
% change year-on-year +25.56% -29.07% -25.00%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -31 431 £500 -9.09% 275
UK excluding London -80 237 £500 +5.26% 161
London -8 200 £488 -19.92% 148
Work from Home -68 122 £550 -13.04% 170
North of England -54 84 £514 +14.22% 42
Yorkshire -4 52 £514 +8.77% 17
South East -61 39 £460 -17.30% 39
South West -28 34 £550 -8.33% 21
North West -69 31 £455 +1.00% 21
Scotland -24 29 £600 +32.74% 20
Midlands -63 27 £475 +8.08% 15
West Midlands -45 25 £500 -13.04% 9
East of England -16 21 £625 +13.64% 19
Wales -16 3 £600 -5.14% 2
East Midlands -30 1 - - 6

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 39 (7.69%) Confluence
2 32 (6.31%) WebSphere
3 24 (4.73%) CICS
4 22 (4.34%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.56%) Tomcat
6 11 (2.17%) nginx
7 10 (1.97%) Camunda
8 8 (1.58%) JBoss
9 7 (1.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (1.18%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.99%) SAS
11 5 (0.99%) WebSphere Application Server
12 4 (0.79%) Apache
13 3 (0.59%) IIS
13 3 (0.59%) MQSeries
14 2 (0.39%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.39%) IBM HTTP Server
14 2 (0.39%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.39%) WebSphere Portal
15 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 7 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 24 (4.73%) Maximo
2 18 (3.55%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.78%) Temenos T24
4 5 (0.99%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.59%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
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%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.20%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 77 (15.19%) Azure
2 74 (14.60%) AWS
3 32 (6.31%) GitHub
4 30 (5.92%) GCP
5 24 (4.73%) OpenShift
6 15 (2.96%) GitHub Copilot
7 14 (2.76%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.37%) ChatGPT
9 9 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.58%) Amazon S3
10 8 (1.58%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.58%) Azure Service Bus
10 8 (1.58%) Boomi
10 8 (1.58%) iPaaS
11 7 (1.38%) IBM Blueworks
11 7 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.18%) IBM Watson
12 6 (1.18%) Power Platform
13 5 (0.99%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.54%) SSL
2 21 (4.14%) HTTP
3 14 (2.76%) SNMP
4 11 (2.17%) SAN
4 11 (2.17%) TCP/IP
5 10 (1.97%) Firewall
6 9 (1.78%) Network Security
7 6 (1.18%) DNS
8 5 (0.99%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (0.99%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.79%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.79%) SSH
9 4 (0.79%) VSAN
10 3 (0.59%) APPN
10 3 (0.59%) Internet
10 3 (0.59%) NAS
10 3 (0.59%) SNA
11 2 (0.39%) LAN
11 2 (0.39%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (9.27%) Db2
2 34 (6.71%) Relational Database
3 31 (6.11%) DataStage
4 24 (4.73%) SQL Server
5 18 (3.55%) Oracle Database
6 17 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (3.16%) Metadata
7 16 (3.16%) MongoDB
8 9 (1.78%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.58%) Tableau
10 7 (1.38%) NoSQL
11 6 (1.18%) GIS
11 6 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.99%) Big Data
12 5 (0.99%) Data Lake
12 5 (0.99%) Power BI
13 2 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.39%) IBM InfoSphere
13 2 (0.39%) Redis
Development Applications
1 61 (12.03%) JIRA
2 37 (7.30%) Jenkins
3 23 (4.54%) GitLab
4 22 (4.34%) Git
4 22 (4.34%) Rational DOORS
5 16 (3.16%) JMeter
6 14 (2.76%) SonarQube
7 12 (2.37%) LoadRunner
8 11 (2.17%) Gradle
8 11 (2.17%) Sonatype Nexus
9 10 (1.97%) Postman
9 10 (1.97%) Rational Rhapsody
9 10 (1.97%) SoapUI
10 9 (1.78%) JUnit
10 9 (1.78%) Maven
10 9 (1.78%) REST Assured
11 8 (1.58%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (1.58%) IBM UrbanCode
11 8 (1.58%) Mockito
11 8 (1.58%) Selenium
General
1 180 (35.50%) Finance
2 133 (26.23%) Banking
3 125 (24.65%) Social Skills
4 66 (13.02%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (5.72%) Legal
6 22 (4.34%) Public Sector
7 14 (2.76%) Retail
8 11 (2.17%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.97%) Military
10 8 (1.58%) Front Office
10 8 (1.58%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.18%) Law
13 4 (0.79%) Spanish Language
14 3 (0.59%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.59%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 84 (16.57%) Developer
2 61 (12.03%) Architect
3 47 (9.27%) Analyst
4 44 (8.68%) Senior
5 30 (5.92%) Lead
6 28 (5.52%) Administrator
7 26 (5.13%) Solutions Architect
8 25 (4.93%) Consultant
9 20 (3.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 18 (3.55%) Middleware Engineer
11 17 (3.35%) Java Developer
12 14 (2.76%) CICS Engineer
12 14 (2.76%) DataStage Developer
13 13 (2.56%) Business Analyst
13 13 (2.56%) Delivery Manager
14 12 (2.37%) Oracle Developer
14 12 (2.37%) Test Engineer
15 11 (2.17%) Management Consultant
15 11 (2.17%) Programmer
15 11 (2.17%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (14.40%) Middleware
2 55 (10.85%) Kafka
3 45 (8.88%) REST
4 42 (8.28%) XML
5 35 (6.90%) JSON
6 30 (5.92%) Spring Boot
7 24 (4.73%) ISPF
7 24 (4.73%) SOAP
8 23 (4.54%) Spring
9 18 (3.55%) RabbitMQ
10 17 (3.35%) HTML
11 15 (2.96%) .NET
12 13 (2.56%) OAuth
12 13 (2.56%) Web Services
13 12 (2.37%) SAML
13 12 (2.37%) Terraform
14 11 (2.17%) Swagger
15 10 (1.97%) ActiveMQ
15 10 (1.97%) JWT
15 10 (1.97%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 107 (21.10%) Mainframe
2 31 (6.11%) Clustering
3 25 (4.93%) Data Centre
4 22 (4.34%) Data Structures
5 21 (4.14%) Replication
6 20 (3.94%) Cloud Native
7 18 (3.55%) Product Ownership
8 17 (3.35%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 16 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (2.96%) AS400
10 15 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
11 14 (2.76%) Hybrid Cloud
12 13 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (2.56%) Legacy Applications
12 13 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
13 12 (2.37%) IBM Mainframe
14 11 (2.17%) iSeries
15 10 (1.97%) Equity Derivative
15 10 (1.97%) Management Information System
15 10 (1.97%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 94 (18.54%) Linux
2 85 (16.77%) zOS
3 55 (10.85%) Unix
4 38 (7.50%) Windows
5 26 (5.13%) AIX
6 21 (4.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.17%) Solaris
8 8 (1.58%) SUSE
8 8 (1.58%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.38%) MVS
9 7 (1.38%) Windows Server 2008
10 5 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.39%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.20%) VMS
13 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (18.93%) Agile
2 88 (17.36%) CI/CD
3 77 (15.19%) Migration
4 66 (13.02%) DevOps
5 63 (12.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 62 (12.23%) Test Automation
7 58 (11.44%) ITIL
8 57 (11.24%) Problem-Solving
9 52 (10.26%) Continuous Improvement
10 49 (9.66%) ETL
11 45 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 43 (8.48%) Scrum
13 42 (8.28%) Validation
14 41 (8.09%) Change Management
15 39 (7.69%) Performance Tuning
16 38 (7.50%) Computer Science
16 38 (7.50%) Root Cause Analysis
17 37 (7.30%) Roadmaps
18 36 (7.10%) AI
19 34 (6.71%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 105 (20.71%) SQL
2 94 (18.54%) Python
3 85 (16.77%) Java
4 33 (6.51%) JavaScript
5 26 (5.13%) PowerShell
6 24 (4.73%) JCL
7 21 (4.14%) PL/SQL
8 17 (3.35%) C++
8 17 (3.35%) Shell Script
9 16 (3.16%) Bash
9 16 (3.16%) REXX
10 14 (2.76%) COBOL
11 13 (2.56%) C
12 12 (2.37%) C#
13 11 (2.17%) Search Processing Language
14 10 (1.97%) Perl
15 7 (1.38%) Ada
16 6 (1.18%) Assembly Language
16 6 (1.18%) CLIST
17 5 (0.99%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 112 (22.09%) Security Cleared
2 82 (16.17%) SC Cleared
3 47 (9.27%) Degree
4 21 (4.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.58%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.38%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.18%) CISSP
7 6 (1.18%) ISTQB
8 4 (0.79%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.79%) CISM
8 4 (0.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 3 (0.59%) ACCA
9 3 (0.59%) CCSP
9 3 (0.59%) CIMA
9 3 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.59%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.59%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (6.90%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.35%) QA
3 10 (1.97%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.58%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.38%) GDPR
6 5 (0.99%) NIST
7 4 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.79%) SEPA
7 4 (0.79%) SLA
8 3 (0.59%) GRC
8 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.39%) GAAP
9 2 (0.39%) IFRS
9 2 (0.39%) PMO
10 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.20%) DO-254
10 1 (0.20%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 41 (8.09%) Docker
2 27 (5.33%) RACF
3 22 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (3.16%) NFS
5 12 (2.37%) Time Sharing Option
5 12 (2.37%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.37%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.17%) GPFS
7 8 (1.58%) vSphere
8 7 (1.38%) ACF2
8 7 (1.38%) Firmware
9 6 (1.18%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.99%) PowerHA
11 4 (0.79%) Active Directory
12 3 (0.59%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 1 (0.20%) Hyper-V
13 1 (0.20%) oVirt
13 1 (0.20%) RHEV
13 1 (0.20%) SRDF
13 1 (0.20%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 32 (6.31%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.73%) Ansible
2 24 (4.73%) OMEGAMON
3 18 (3.55%) Tivoli
4 14 (2.76%) Nagios
4 14 (2.76%) ZABBIX
5 13 (2.56%) Netcool
5 13 (2.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 11 (2.17%) OpenView
6 11 (2.17%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 9 (1.78%) Grafana
8 6 (1.18%) Control-M
8 6 (1.18%) Tivoli NetView
8 6 (1.18%) vRealize
9 5 (0.99%) HP Fortify
9 5 (0.99%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (0.99%) QRadar
10 4 (0.79%) CA Endevor
10 4 (0.79%) VxRail
11 3 (0.59%) Avamar
Vendors
1 112 (22.09%) Oracle
2 50 (9.86%) Microsoft
3 33 (6.51%) Splunk
4 32 (6.31%) SAP
4 32 (6.31%) VMware
5 25 (4.93%) Google
6 22 (4.34%) Red Hat
7 21 (4.14%) ServiceNow
8 19 (3.75%) Broadcom
9 17 (3.35%) Cisco
9 17 (3.35%) HP
10 15 (2.96%) BMC
11 14 (2.76%) Cognos
11 14 (2.76%) Dynatrace
12 13 (2.56%) Brocade
12 13 (2.56%) MathWorks
12 13 (2.56%) SolarWinds
12 13 (2.56%) Sybase
13 11 (2.17%) Dell
13 11 (2.17%) Informatica