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 June 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 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 300 237 213
Rank change year-on-year -63 -24 +79
Contract jobs citing IBM 405 319 476
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 1.10% 1.11%
As % of the Vendors category 2.02% 2.31% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 206 267
10th Percentile £313 £361 £367
25th Percentile £400 £408 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £650
90th Percentile £683 £694 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £460 £470
% change year-on-year +0.87% -2.13% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 2 38
10th Percentile £25.77 £40.32 £48.35
25th Percentile £55.00 £63.80 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £103.57 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.41% +47.95% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £143.95 -
90th Percentile - £167.81 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £103.57 £70.00
% change year-on-year -15.03% +47.95% +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 20,004 13,790 18,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.73% 47.66% 42.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,509 11,310
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £515
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -1.94% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,027 604 1,116
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.07
25th Percentile £18.59 £17.34 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +22.87% +17.24% -46.92%
75th Percentile £59.38 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.90 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -45.67%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -44 355 £475 -5.00% 109
UK excluding London -42 237 £464 +0.87% 64
London -64 128 £500 -16.67% 51
Work from Home -43 111 £500 - 55
North of England -47 84 £500 +17.65% 5
North West -17 44 £459 +12.36% 3
South West +2 43 £426 -28.10% 14
South East -52 41 £400 -15.79% 23
Yorkshire -37 39 £525 +10.53% 2
Midlands -47 32 £402 -9.61% 9
West Midlands -47 27 £402 -12.61% 6
Scotland -14 20 £550 +14.82% 4
East of England -18 16 £425 -19.05% 7
East Midlands -29 4 £837 +99.17% 3
Wales -19 1 - - 3
North East -31 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 27 (6.67%) WebSphere
2 20 (4.94%) Confluence
3 18 (4.44%) CICS
4 17 (4.20%) Tomcat
5 15 (3.70%) nginx
6 11 (2.72%) SharePoint
7 9 (2.22%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (1.23%) Anypoint
9 5 (1.23%) Apache
9 5 (1.23%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (0.99%) IIS
10 4 (0.99%) JBoss
10 4 (0.99%) SAS
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.74%) Camunda
11 3 (0.74%) CMS
12 2 (0.49%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.49%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 20 (4.94%) Maximo
2 8 (1.98%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.48%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.74%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.49%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.49%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.25%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.25%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 1 (0.25%) MetaTrader
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 QM
7 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 66 (16.30%) AWS
2 49 (12.10%) Azure
3 21 (5.19%) GitHub
4 20 (4.94%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.72%) GitHub Copilot
7 10 (2.47%) GCP
8 9 (2.22%) ChatGPT
9 7 (1.73%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.73%) IBM Watson
9 7 (1.73%) SaaS
10 6 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.48%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (1.23%) Vertex AI
12 4 (0.99%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.99%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (0.99%) MinIO
Communications & Networking
1 19 (4.69%) Firewall
2 16 (3.95%) SNMP
3 14 (3.46%) HTTP
4 13 (3.21%) SAN
5 11 (2.72%) SSL
6 9 (2.22%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.73%) DNS
7 7 (1.73%) Fibre Channel
7 7 (1.73%) VPN
7 7 (1.73%) VSAN
8 5 (1.23%) HTTPS
8 5 (1.23%) NAS
8 5 (1.23%) Network Security
9 4 (0.99%) APPN
9 4 (0.99%) LAN
9 4 (0.99%) SNA
10 3 (0.74%) MPLS
10 3 (0.74%) SSH
10 3 (0.74%) WAN
11 2 (0.49%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (9.63%) Db2
2 25 (6.17%) DataStage
3 20 (4.94%) SQL Server
4 17 (4.20%) Relational Database
5 13 (3.21%) Metadata
6 12 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.47%) Elasticsearch
7 10 (2.47%) MongoDB
8 8 (1.98%) Oracle Database
8 8 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
9 7 (1.73%) Big Data
9 7 (1.73%) GIS
9 7 (1.73%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.74%) Apache Hive
10 3 (0.74%) Power BI
11 2 (0.49%) Amazon Aurora
11 2 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.49%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.49%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 40 (9.88%) Rational DOORS
2 29 (7.16%) JIRA
3 17 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.46%) Git
5 9 (2.22%) Rational Rhapsody
6 8 (1.98%) GitLab
7 5 (1.23%) Ant
7 5 (1.23%) Liquibase
8 4 (0.99%) JMeter
8 4 (0.99%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (0.99%) PVCS
9 3 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.74%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.74%) JUnit
9 3 (0.74%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.74%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.49%) Eclipse
10 2 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio
General
1 100 (24.69%) Finance
2 88 (21.73%) Social Skills
3 74 (18.27%) Banking
4 36 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (7.90%) Public Sector
6 29 (7.16%) Aerospace
7 21 (5.19%) Legal
8 12 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
9 11 (2.72%) Retail
10 8 (1.98%) Front Office
10 8 (1.98%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.48%) Law
12 6 (1.48%) Military
13 5 (1.23%) Aviation
14 4 (0.99%) Electronics
14 4 (0.99%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.74%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.49%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 41 (10.12%) Architect
2 35 (8.64%) Developer
3 34 (8.40%) Analyst
4 26 (6.42%) Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.42%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.42%) Product Manager
5 24 (5.93%) Consultant
6 21 (5.19%) Senior
6 21 (5.19%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.19%) Systems Manager
7 20 (4.94%) Administrator
7 20 (4.94%) Software Engineer
8 16 (3.95%) Data Engineer
8 16 (3.95%) Lead
8 16 (3.95%) Storage Analyst
9 13 (3.21%) Management Consultant
10 12 (2.96%) DevOps Engineer
10 12 (2.96%) Systems Engineer
11 11 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.47%) Infrastructure Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (11.36%) Middleware
2 33 (8.15%) REST
3 21 (5.19%) Flash
4 16 (3.95%) Kafka
5 14 (3.46%) ISPF
6 13 (3.21%) JSON
6 13 (3.21%) XML
7 11 (2.72%) Spring
7 11 (2.72%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.98%) WebSphere MQ
9 7 (1.73%) EJB
9 7 (1.73%) JMS
9 7 (1.73%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (1.73%) SOAP
9 7 (1.73%) ZeroMQ
10 6 (1.48%) ARM Templates
10 6 (1.48%) JDBC
10 6 (1.48%) JSP
10 6 (1.48%) OpenLayers
10 6 (1.48%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 76 (18.77%) Mainframe
2 35 (8.64%) Data Centre
3 28 (6.91%) Data Structures
4 27 (6.67%) Product Ownership
5 26 (6.42%) Replication
6 25 (6.17%) Clustering
6 25 (6.17%) Linux Command Line
7 14 (3.46%) Legacy Systems
8 13 (3.21%) VSAM
9 12 (2.96%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.96%) Legacy Applications
10 11 (2.72%) Cloud Native
10 11 (2.72%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 10 (2.47%) BYOD
11 10 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
11 10 (2.47%) IBM Mainframe
12 9 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (2.22%) Onboarding
13 8 (1.98%) Derivative
13 8 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 96 (23.70%) Linux
2 51 (12.59%) Windows
3 50 (12.35%) zOS
4 42 (10.37%) Unix
5 41 (10.12%) AIX
6 24 (5.93%) Solaris
7 22 (5.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.94%) Windows Server
9 13 (3.21%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.98%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (1.23%) MVS
13 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.25%) Android
14 1 (0.25%) SUSE
14 1 (0.25%) VMS
14 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (19.75%) Agile
2 58 (14.32%) CI/CD
3 50 (12.35%) Continuous Improvement
4 49 (12.10%) DevOps
4 49 (12.10%) Migration
5 47 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 41 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (10.12%) Roadmaps
7 38 (9.38%) ETL
7 38 (9.38%) ITIL
8 36 (8.89%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 34 (8.40%) Computer Science
9 34 (8.40%) Systems Engineering
9 34 (8.40%) Workflow
10 32 (7.90%) Configuration Management
11 30 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
11 30 (7.41%) UML
12 29 (7.16%) Test Automation
13 28 (6.91%) Programme Management
13 28 (6.91%) Requirements Management
Programming Languages
1 81 (20.00%) SQL
2 73 (18.02%) Python
3 48 (11.85%) Java
4 36 (8.89%) PowerShell
5 23 (5.68%) Bash
6 19 (4.69%) PL/SQL
7 17 (4.20%) JCL
8 16 (3.95%) COBOL
9 15 (3.70%) REXX
10 14 (3.46%) C++
10 14 (3.46%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (3.21%) C
12 10 (2.47%) Ada
12 10 (2.47%) MATLAB
13 8 (1.98%) Bicep
14 7 (1.73%) JavaScript
14 7 (1.73%) Perl
15 6 (1.48%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.48%) CLIST
15 6 (1.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 126 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 81 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.63%) Degree
4 11 (2.72%) Azure Certification
4 11 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 9 (2.22%) CISSP
6 8 (1.98%) CISM
6 8 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (1.73%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.73%) IBM Certification
8 5 (1.23%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 5 (1.23%) Master's Degree
8 5 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.74%) CEH
11 2 (0.49%) CISA
11 2 (0.49%) CISMP
11 2 (0.49%) GCIH
11 2 (0.49%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (7.41%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.47%) QA
2 10 (2.47%) SLA
3 7 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.73%) NIST
4 5 (1.23%) GDPR
4 5 (1.23%) ISO 20022
4 5 (1.23%) NIST 800
5 4 (0.99%) SEPA
6 3 (0.74%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.49%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.49%) GRC
7 2 (0.49%) NCSC
8 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (7.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (6.67%) Docker
3 26 (6.42%) NFS
4 24 (5.93%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (5.19%) GPFS
6 17 (4.20%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (3.95%) RACF
8 14 (3.46%) vSphere
9 10 (2.47%) Time Sharing Option
10 9 (2.22%) Firmware
10 9 (2.22%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (1.73%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.48%) KVM
13 3 (0.74%) ACF2
13 3 (0.74%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 3 (0.74%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.49%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.49%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.49%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.25%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 31 (7.65%) Ansible
2 26 (6.42%) Terraform
3 21 (5.19%) Tivoli
4 20 (4.94%) Kubernetes
5 17 (4.20%) Nagios
5 17 (4.20%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.95%) Netcool
7 14 (3.46%) OMEGAMON
7 14 (3.46%) OpenView
7 14 (3.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (3.46%) vRealize
8 12 (2.96%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.98%) IBM BigFix
9 8 (1.98%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (1.73%) VxRail
11 6 (1.48%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.48%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.99%) Grafana
13 3 (0.74%) Control-M
14 2 (0.49%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 77 (19.01%) Oracle
2 47 (11.60%) VMware
3 31 (7.65%) ServiceNow
4 30 (7.41%) Cisco
5 29 (7.16%) Microsoft
6 26 (6.42%) Splunk
7 25 (6.17%) HP
8 22 (5.43%) Red Hat
9 21 (5.19%) BMC
10 20 (4.94%) SAP
11 19 (4.69%) Dell
12 16 (3.95%) SolarWinds
13 14 (3.46%) Broadcom
13 14 (3.46%) Brocade
14 11 (2.72%) Google
14 11 (2.72%) MathWorks
15 7 (1.73%) EMC
15 7 (1.73%) Informatica
15 7 (1.73%) NetApp
15 7 (1.73%) Sybase