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 14 August 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
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 233 215
Rank change year-on-year -27 -18 +29
Contract jobs citing IBM 511 371 419
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.13% 1.08%
As % of the Vendors category 2.30% 2.38% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 298 246 203
10th Percentile £316 £357 £352
25th Percentile £408 £408 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £641
90th Percentile £675 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £461
% change year-on-year +5.26% +3.04% -12.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 7 30
10th Percentile £34.87 £25.04 £27.00
25th Percentile £70.00 £25.09 £64.06
Median hourly rate £88.00 £57.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.04% -17.86% +3.70%
75th Percentile - £73.75 -
90th Percentile - £118.49 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £63.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year +38.04% -8.93% +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 22,262 15,561 17,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.70% 47.27% 43.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,777 9,523 10,618
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £522
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.21% -0.57%
75th Percentile £610 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £702 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,140 803 837
10th Percentile £14.69 £14.56 £13.67
25th Percentile £18.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -28.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.88 £67.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.23 £21.35 £28.00
% change year-on-year +50.97% -23.77% -17.57%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -27 437 £500 -6.54% 237
UK excluding London -38 263 £500 +5.26% 102
London -21 179 £488 -18.07% 139
Work from Home -56 122 £550 -5.58% 102
North of England -39 92 £514 +10.78% 26
South East -41 59 £460 -18.22% 29
Yorkshire -12 53 £525 +5.00% 10
North West -44 38 £477 +10.29% 13
South West -26 36 £426 -29.00% 26
Midlands -57 32 £438 -2.78% 11
West Midlands -50 28 £450 -7.69% 6
Scotland -11 25 £575 +21.05% 8
East of England -15 16 £625 +13.64% 1
Wales -15 3 £600 -5.14% 1
East Midlands -33 3 - - 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 36 (7.05%) WebSphere
2 33 (6.46%) Confluence
3 25 (4.89%) CICS
4 23 (4.50%) SharePoint
5 14 (2.74%) Tomcat
6 12 (2.35%) nginx
7 8 (1.57%) JBoss
8 7 (1.37%) WebLogic
9 6 (1.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.98%) Apache
10 5 (0.98%) SAS
10 5 (0.98%) WebSphere Application Server
11 4 (0.78%) Camunda
11 4 (0.78%) IIS
12 3 (0.59%) CMS
13 2 (0.39%) IBM HTTP Server
13 2 (0.39%) MQSeries
13 2 (0.39%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.39%) WebSphere Portal
14 1 (0.20%) Documentum
Applications
1 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.20%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.11%) Maximo
2 15 (2.94%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.76%) Temenos T24
4 5 (0.98%) Cognos Controller
4 5 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.59%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
5 3 (0.59%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.39%) Teamcenter
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
Cloud Services
1 78 (15.26%) AWS
2 76 (14.87%) Azure
3 33 (6.46%) GitHub
4 24 (4.70%) GCP
5 16 (3.13%) OpenShift
6 14 (2.74%) GitHub Copilot
7 12 (2.35%) Anthropic Claude
7 12 (2.35%) ChatGPT
8 11 (2.15%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.76%) IBM Watson
11 8 (1.57%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
12 7 (1.37%) IBM Blueworks
13 6 (1.17%) Azure AI
13 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (1.17%) Vertex AI
14 5 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.98%) Azure Service Bus
14 5 (0.98%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.50%) SSL
2 17 (3.33%) Firewall
2 17 (3.33%) HTTP
2 17 (3.33%) SNMP
3 13 (2.54%) SAN
4 9 (1.76%) Network Security
4 9 (1.76%) TCP/IP
5 8 (1.57%) DNS
6 6 (1.17%) VSAN
7 5 (0.98%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (0.98%) Fibre Channel
7 5 (0.98%) Wireshark
8 4 (0.78%) NAS
8 4 (0.78%) SSH
9 3 (0.59%) APPN
9 3 (0.59%) Internet
9 3 (0.59%) SNA
10 2 (0.39%) DMZ
10 2 (0.39%) LAN
10 2 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (8.61%) Db2
2 30 (5.87%) DataStage
2 30 (5.87%) Relational Database
3 18 (3.52%) Oracle Database
3 18 (3.52%) SQL Server
4 16 (3.13%) Metadata
5 13 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (2.54%) MongoDB
6 8 (1.57%) Big Data
6 8 (1.57%) Elasticsearch
6 8 (1.57%) Tableau
7 7 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 7 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.98%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.98%) GIS
9 3 (0.59%) Power BI
10 2 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.39%) IBM InfoSphere
11 1 (0.20%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 48 (9.39%) JIRA
2 41 (8.02%) Rational DOORS
3 29 (5.68%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.52%) Git
4 18 (3.52%) GitLab
5 15 (2.94%) JMeter
6 11 (2.15%) LoadRunner
7 9 (1.76%) Postman
7 9 (1.76%) SoapUI
8 8 (1.57%) IBM UrbanCode
8 8 (1.57%) Rational Rhapsody
8 8 (1.57%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.37%) eggPlant
9 7 (1.37%) Selenium
10 6 (1.17%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.98%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.98%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.78%) Gatling
12 4 (0.78%) Gradle
12 4 (0.78%) Zephyr
General
1 168 (32.88%) Finance
2 118 (23.09%) Social Skills
3 115 (22.50%) Banking
4 65 (12.72%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (6.07%) Aerospace
5 31 (6.07%) Legal
6 26 (5.09%) Public Sector
7 12 (2.35%) Retail
8 9 (1.76%) Military
9 8 (1.57%) Front Office
9 8 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.57%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (0.98%) Law
11 5 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.59%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.59%) Retail Banking
13 3 (0.59%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.39%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 69 (13.50%) Developer
2 63 (12.33%) Architect
3 50 (9.78%) Analyst
4 42 (8.22%) Senior
5 31 (6.07%) Administrator
6 27 (5.28%) Consultant
6 27 (5.28%) Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.28%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (5.28%) Product Manager
7 26 (5.09%) Lead
8 24 (4.70%) Solutions Architect
9 21 (4.11%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 21 (4.11%) Systems Manager
10 20 (3.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 18 (3.52%) Middleware Engineer
12 14 (2.74%) CICS Engineer
13 13 (2.54%) DataStage Developer
13 13 (2.54%) Management Consultant
14 12 (2.35%) Designer
14 12 (2.35%) Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (13.70%) Middleware
2 46 (9.00%) REST
3 39 (7.63%) Kafka
4 35 (6.85%) XML
5 29 (5.68%) JSON
6 24 (4.70%) ISPF
7 20 (3.91%) SOAP
8 17 (3.33%) RabbitMQ
8 17 (3.33%) Spring Boot
9 13 (2.54%) Flash
9 13 (2.54%) Spring
10 12 (2.35%) .NET
10 12 (2.35%) Web Services
11 11 (2.15%) OAuth
12 10 (1.96%) SAML
13 9 (1.76%) OpenAPI
13 9 (1.76%) Swagger
14 8 (1.57%) HTML
15 7 (1.37%) Jakarta EE
15 7 (1.37%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 99 (19.37%) Mainframe
2 35 (6.85%) Clustering
3 34 (6.65%) Data Centre
3 34 (6.65%) Product Ownership
4 33 (6.46%) Data Structures
5 21 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.91%) Replication
7 15 (2.94%) AS400
7 15 (2.94%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 14 (2.74%) Linux Command Line
9 13 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
9 13 (2.54%) IBM Mainframe
9 13 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
10 12 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
10 12 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
10 12 (2.35%) Management Information System
11 11 (2.15%) iSeries
11 11 (2.15%) Legacy Applications
12 10 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.96%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 100 (19.57%) Linux
2 75 (14.68%) zOS
3 57 (11.15%) Unix
4 43 (8.41%) Windows
5 38 (7.44%) AIX
6 20 (3.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (2.74%) Solaris
8 11 (2.15%) Windows Server
9 8 (1.57%) SUSE
9 8 (1.57%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (1.37%) MVS
11 6 (1.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.39%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.20%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.20%) VMS
14 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (20.74%) Agile
2 76 (14.87%) CI/CD
2 76 (14.87%) Migration
3 67 (13.11%) Continuous Improvement
4 63 (12.33%) DevOps
5 62 (12.13%) Stakeholder Management
6 60 (11.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 57 (11.15%) ITIL
8 55 (10.76%) Test Automation
9 53 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
10 49 (9.59%) Roadmaps
11 46 (9.00%) Computer Science
11 46 (9.00%) ETL
12 39 (7.63%) Configuration Management
13 38 (7.44%) Systems Engineering
14 37 (7.24%) AI
15 36 (7.05%) Change Management
15 36 (7.05%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
16 35 (6.85%) Performance Tuning
16 35 (6.85%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 97 (18.98%) SQL
2 95 (18.59%) Python
3 73 (14.29%) Java
4 35 (6.85%) PowerShell
5 23 (4.50%) JavaScript
6 21 (4.11%) Bash
7 19 (3.72%) JCL
7 19 (3.72%) PL/SQL
8 15 (2.94%) REXX
9 14 (2.74%) C++
9 14 (2.74%) COBOL
9 14 (2.74%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (2.54%) Shell Script
11 11 (2.15%) Perl
12 10 (1.96%) C
12 10 (1.96%) C#
13 7 (1.37%) Ada
14 6 (1.17%) Assembly Language
14 6 (1.17%) CLIST
15 5 (0.98%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 129 (25.24%) Security Cleared
2 87 (17.03%) SC Cleared
3 53 (10.37%) Degree
4 12 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.57%) AWS Certification
5 8 (1.57%) CISSP
5 8 (1.57%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (0.98%) Azure Certification
7 5 (0.98%) CISM
7 5 (0.98%) ISTQB
8 4 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (0.78%) CCSP
8 4 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (0.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.59%) CEH
9 3 (0.59%) ISEB
9 3 (0.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.59%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.59%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.46%) Data Quality
2 15 (2.94%) QA
3 7 (1.37%) GDPR
3 7 (1.37%) ISO 20022
4 6 (1.17%) ISO 15022
5 5 (0.98%) NIST
6 4 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.78%) GRC
6 4 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.78%) SEPA
6 4 (0.78%) SLA
7 2 (0.39%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.39%) GAAP
7 2 (0.39%) IFRS
7 2 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 2 (0.39%) NCSC
8 1 (0.20%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.20%) PMO
System Software
1 36 (7.05%) Docker
2 25 (4.89%) RACF
2 25 (4.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (3.33%) NFS
4 15 (2.94%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (2.35%) Firmware
6 12 (2.35%) GPFS
6 12 (2.35%) Time Sharing Option
7 11 (2.15%) vSphere
8 7 (1.37%) PowerHA
9 6 (1.17%) ACF2
9 6 (1.17%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.78%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.59%) Active Directory
11 3 (0.59%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.59%) KVM
12 1 (0.20%) oVirt
12 1 (0.20%) RHEV
12 1 (0.20%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 25 (4.89%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.70%) OMEGAMON
3 23 (4.50%) Ansible
4 20 (3.91%) Tivoli
5 17 (3.33%) Nagios
5 17 (3.33%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.13%) Netcool
7 15 (2.94%) Terraform
7 15 (2.94%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 14 (2.74%) OpenView
8 14 (2.74%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 9 (1.76%) Grafana
9 9 (1.76%) vRealize
10 6 (1.17%) Tivoli NetView
10 6 (1.17%) VxRail
11 5 (0.98%) Control-M
11 5 (0.98%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
12 4 (0.78%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.78%) QRadar
Vendors
1 104 (20.35%) Oracle
2 45 (8.81%) Microsoft
3 38 (7.44%) VMware
4 35 (6.85%) Splunk
5 34 (6.65%) SAP
6 25 (4.89%) ServiceNow
7 23 (4.50%) Red Hat
8 22 (4.31%) Google
9 21 (4.11%) Cisco
10 19 (3.72%) HP
11 18 (3.52%) BMC
12 16 (3.13%) SolarWinds
13 14 (2.74%) Broadcom
13 14 (2.74%) Cognos
14 13 (2.54%) Brocade
14 13 (2.54%) Dynatrace
14 13 (2.54%) MathWorks
15 12 (2.35%) Sybase
16 11 (2.15%) Databricks
17 10 (1.96%) Dell