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 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
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 221 236
Rank change year-on-year -48 +15 +28
Contract jobs citing IBM 461 382 450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 1.18% 1.04%
As % of the Vendors category 2.13% 2.49% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 247 240
10th Percentile £315 £357 £360
25th Percentile £400 £408 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £513 £492
Median % change year-on-year -4.39% +4.11% -6.24%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £625
90th Percentile £673 £703 £753
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 5 39
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.81 £51.40
25th Percentile £52.19 £25.04 £65.00
Median hourly rate £83.00 £25.08 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +231.01% -64.18% +3.70%
75th Percentile £88.00 £72.50 -
90th Percentile - £139.23 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £25.08 £70.00
% change year-on-year +250.95% -64.18% +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 21,630 15,345 18,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.21% 47.51% 43.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,453 9,410 11,635
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,107 728 1,145
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.84 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £34.38 £25.15 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.68% +0.60% -38.27%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.70 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £24.18
% change year-on-year +43.61% -6.41% -22.00%

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 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 9 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 9 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 -61 391 £475 -8.43% 130
UK excluding London -67 246 £500 +5.26% 110
London -53 156 £475 -20.83% 35
Work from Home -72 123 £520 -4.68% 52
North of England -59 91 £514 +20.94% 32
South East -42 49 £425 -22.73% 28
North West -35 47 £459 +12.36% 21
Yorkshire -34 43 £550 +13.10% 6
South West -11 37 £426 -29.00% 19
Midlands -65 29 £401 -8.76% 12
Scotland -16 24 £550 +10.94% 4
West Midlands -59 24 £400 -14.44% 7
East of England -20 13 £437 -20.55% 10
East Midlands -24 4 £837 +101.57% 5
Wales -14 3 £635 +0.40% 6
North East -34 1 £375 -10.45% 5

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 35 (7.59%) WebSphere
2 29 (6.29%) Confluence
3 27 (5.86%) CICS
4 18 (3.90%) Tomcat
5 16 (3.47%) nginx
6 14 (3.04%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.74%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.52%) JBoss
9 5 (1.08%) Apache
9 5 (1.08%) SAS
9 5 (1.08%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (0.87%) IIS
11 3 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.65%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.65%) Camunda
11 3 (0.65%) CMS
12 2 (0.43%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.43%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.43%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 5 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.43%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.22%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (3.90%) Maximo
2 9 (1.95%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 9 (1.95%) Temenos T24
3 5 (1.08%) Cognos Controller
3 5 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.65%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
4 3 (0.65%) SAP R/3
5 2 (0.43%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.22%) HFM
6 1 (0.22%) MetaTrader
6 1 (0.22%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.22%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP AFS
6 1 (0.22%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 65 (14.10%) AWS
2 49 (10.63%) Azure
3 24 (5.21%) GitHub
4 13 (2.82%) GitHub Copilot
4 13 (2.82%) OpenShift
5 11 (2.39%) ChatGPT
6 10 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.17%) IBM Watson
7 9 (1.95%) Anthropic Claude
8 8 (1.74%) Amazon S3
9 7 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (1.52%) GCP
9 7 (1.52%) Vertex AI
10 6 (1.30%) Azure AI
11 5 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (0.87%) IBM Blueworks
12 4 (0.87%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (0.87%) MinIO
13 3 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
13 3 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.99%) Firewall
2 20 (4.34%) SSL
3 17 (3.69%) SNMP
4 15 (3.25%) HTTP
5 9 (1.95%) SAN
5 9 (1.95%) TCP/IP
6 8 (1.74%) DNS
7 7 (1.52%) VSAN
8 6 (1.30%) Network Security
9 5 (1.08%) Fibre Channel
10 4 (0.87%) APPN
10 4 (0.87%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (0.87%) LAN
10 4 (0.87%) NAS
10 4 (0.87%) SNA
10 4 (0.87%) WAN
10 4 (0.87%) Wireshark
11 3 (0.65%) MPLS
11 3 (0.65%) SSH
12 2 (0.43%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (9.54%) Db2
2 28 (6.07%) DataStage
3 27 (5.86%) Relational Database
4 19 (4.12%) SQL Server
5 14 (3.04%) Metadata
5 14 (3.04%) MongoDB
6 13 (2.82%) Oracle Database
7 11 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (2.39%) Elasticsearch
8 10 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
9 9 (1.95%) NoSQL
10 8 (1.74%) Big Data
11 7 (1.52%) GIS
12 3 (0.65%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 2 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
13 2 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.43%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.43%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.43%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 40 (8.68%) JIRA
2 39 (8.46%) Rational DOORS
3 21 (4.56%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.04%) Git
4 14 (3.04%) GitLab
5 8 (1.74%) Rational Rhapsody
6 5 (1.08%) Ant
6 5 (1.08%) IBM UrbanCode
6 5 (1.08%) Liquibase
6 5 (1.08%) PowerDesigner
7 4 (0.87%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.87%) JMeter
8 3 (0.65%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.65%) Gradle
8 3 (0.65%) JUnit
8 3 (0.65%) Maven
8 3 (0.65%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.65%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.43%) Introscope
General
1 134 (29.07%) Finance
2 102 (22.13%) Social Skills
3 93 (20.17%) Banking
4 47 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (7.81%) Public Sector
6 30 (6.51%) Aerospace
7 29 (6.29%) Legal
8 15 (3.25%) Retail
9 12 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.74%) Front Office
10 8 (1.74%) Investment Banking
10 8 (1.74%) Military
11 7 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.08%) Law
13 4 (0.87%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.87%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.43%) Advertising
14 2 (0.43%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 53 (11.50%) Developer
2 50 (10.85%) Architect
3 46 (9.98%) Analyst
4 30 (6.51%) Senior
5 28 (6.07%) Administrator
6 26 (5.64%) Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.64%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.64%) Product Manager
7 22 (4.77%) Consultant
8 21 (4.56%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 21 (4.56%) Systems Manager
9 18 (3.90%) Lead
10 17 (3.69%) Solutions Architect
11 16 (3.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (3.25%) Middleware Engineer
13 14 (3.04%) Data Engineer
13 14 (3.04%) Designer
13 14 (3.04%) Software Engineer
14 13 (2.82%) Management Consultant
15 12 (2.60%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (14.10%) Middleware
2 37 (8.03%) REST
3 24 (5.21%) ISPF
4 21 (4.56%) JSON
5 19 (4.12%) XML
6 17 (3.69%) Flash
6 17 (3.69%) Spring Boot
7 16 (3.47%) Kafka
7 16 (3.47%) Spring
8 12 (2.60%) RabbitMQ
9 9 (1.95%) WebSphere MQ
10 8 (1.74%) PyTorch
10 8 (1.74%) SOAP
11 7 (1.52%) EJB
11 7 (1.52%) JDBC
11 7 (1.52%) JMS
11 7 (1.52%) LangChain
11 7 (1.52%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.52%) ZeroMQ
12 6 (1.30%) JSP
Miscellaneous
1 99 (21.48%) Mainframe
2 36 (7.81%) Data Centre
3 33 (7.16%) Clustering
4 31 (6.72%) Data Structures
4 31 (6.72%) Product Ownership
5 21 (4.56%) Linux Command Line
5 21 (4.56%) Replication
6 17 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
7 15 (3.25%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 15 (3.25%) VSAM
8 14 (3.04%) Cloud Native
9 12 (2.60%) IBM Mainframe
9 12 (2.60%) Legacy Applications
10 11 (2.39%) Algorithms
11 10 (2.17%) BYOD
11 10 (2.17%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.95%) Equity Derivative
12 9 (1.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 9 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (1.52%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 109 (23.64%) Linux
2 69 (14.97%) zOS
3 54 (11.71%) Windows
4 52 (11.28%) Unix
5 43 (9.33%) AIX
6 24 (5.21%) Solaris
7 23 (4.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.34%) Windows Server
9 13 (2.82%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.39%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.74%) SUSE
11 8 (1.74%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (1.08%) MVS
13 2 (0.43%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.43%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.22%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.22%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (20.39%) Agile
2 66 (14.32%) CI/CD
3 57 (12.36%) DevOps
4 53 (11.50%) Continuous Improvement
4 53 (11.50%) Migration
5 51 (11.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 47 (10.20%) Roadmaps
7 45 (9.76%) ITIL
7 45 (9.76%) Problem-Solving
8 41 (8.89%) ETL
9 40 (8.68%) Stakeholder Management
10 38 (8.24%) Test Automation
11 36 (7.81%) Computer Science
11 36 (7.81%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
12 35 (7.59%) Configuration Management
12 35 (7.59%) Systems Engineering
13 34 (7.38%) AI
14 33 (7.16%) UML
15 32 (6.94%) Change Management
16 31 (6.72%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 93 (20.17%) SQL
2 80 (17.35%) Python
3 68 (14.75%) Java
4 37 (8.03%) PowerShell
5 24 (5.21%) Bash
6 20 (4.34%) COBOL
6 20 (4.34%) JCL
7 19 (4.12%) PL/SQL
8 15 (3.25%) REXX
9 14 (3.04%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (2.82%) C++
11 10 (2.17%) C
11 10 (2.17%) Shell Script
12 9 (1.95%) Ada
13 8 (1.74%) JavaScript
14 7 (1.52%) Assembly Language
14 7 (1.52%) C#
14 7 (1.52%) MATLAB
14 7 (1.52%) Perl
15 6 (1.30%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 125 (27.11%) Security Cleared
2 80 (17.35%) SC Cleared
3 45 (9.76%) Degree
4 13 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.30%) CISSP
6 6 (1.30%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.08%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.08%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.87%) IBM Certification
9 3 (0.65%) CEH
9 3 (0.65%) CISM
9 3 (0.65%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.65%) PMP
10 2 (0.43%) CISA
10 2 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.43%) CISMP
10 2 (0.43%) GCIH
10 2 (0.43%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.51%) Data Quality
2 11 (2.39%) QA
3 9 (1.95%) SLA
4 6 (1.30%) GDPR
4 6 (1.30%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.08%) SEPA
6 4 (0.87%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.43%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.43%) GAAP
7 2 (0.43%) GRC
7 2 (0.43%) IFRS
7 2 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.43%) NCSC
7 2 (0.43%) NIST
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.22%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.22%) PMO
8 1 (0.22%) TARGET2
8 1 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (6.51%) Docker
2 26 (5.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (4.99%) RACF
4 22 (4.77%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (4.56%) NFS
6 16 (3.47%) GPFS
7 15 (3.25%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (2.82%) vSphere
9 12 (2.60%) Time Sharing Option
10 9 (1.95%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (1.74%) Firmware
12 7 (1.52%) Hyper-V
13 6 (1.30%) KVM
14 3 (0.65%) ACF2
14 3 (0.65%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.65%) PowerHA
15 2 (0.43%) Job Entry Subsystem
15 2 (0.43%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
15 2 (0.43%) VMware NSX
16 1 (0.22%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 28 (6.07%) Ansible
2 23 (4.99%) OMEGAMON
3 21 (4.56%) Tivoli
4 17 (3.69%) Nagios
4 17 (3.69%) Terraform
4 17 (3.69%) ZABBIX
5 16 (3.47%) Netcool
6 15 (3.25%) Kubernetes
7 14 (3.04%) OpenView
7 14 (3.04%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 12 (2.60%) vRealize
9 11 (2.39%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 8 (1.74%) IBM BigFix
10 8 (1.74%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (1.52%) VxRail
12 6 (1.30%) Tivoli NetView
12 6 (1.30%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.87%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.87%) Grafana
14 3 (0.65%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 87 (18.87%) Oracle
2 44 (9.54%) VMware
3 30 (6.51%) Microsoft
4 29 (6.29%) Splunk
5 28 (6.07%) Cisco
6 26 (5.64%) SAP
7 25 (5.42%) HP
7 25 (5.42%) Red Hat
8 23 (4.99%) ServiceNow
9 20 (4.34%) BMC
10 18 (3.90%) Dell
11 16 (3.47%) SolarWinds
12 15 (3.25%) MathWorks
13 13 (2.82%) Broadcom
13 13 (2.82%) Brocade
14 11 (2.39%) Google
14 11 (2.39%) Sybase
15 10 (2.17%) Cognos
16 9 (1.95%) Temenos
17 8 (1.74%) Siemens