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 25 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
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 266 245 223
Rank change year-on-year -21 -22 +12
Contract jobs citing IBM 511 355 428
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.95% 1.08% 1.10%
As % of the Vendors category 2.28% 2.30% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 301 231 204
10th Percentile £326 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £483
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +13.99% -8.10%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £675 £703 £747
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £483 £450
% change year-on-year +3.63% +7.22% -12.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 8 29
10th Percentile £50.70 £25.04 £27.00
25th Percentile £70.00 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £88.00 £41.33 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +112.95% -40.96% +7.69%
75th Percentile - £73.13 -
90th Percentile - £107.61 -
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 22,372 15,460 16,980
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.71% 47.22% 43.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,803 9,448 10,476
10th Percentile £313 £275 £286
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £611 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 806 783
10th Percentile £14.36 £14.67 £13.30
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.73 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.21% -10.18% -36.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £46.30 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.03 £67.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.24 £26.13
% change year-on-year +31.83% -18.70% -34.03%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -22 437 £500 -9.09% 186
UK excluding London -43 260 £500 +3.63% 122
London -12 183 £488 -18.75% 85
Work from Home -63 122 £550 -8.33% 102
North of England -44 89 £514 +12.29% 34
South East -41 54 £460 -18.22% 21
Yorkshire -9 53 £520 +6.83% 15
South West -18 38 £426 -29.00% 26
North West -47 35 £459 +2.00% 14
Midlands -67 33 £450 +2.39% 12
West Midlands -38 29 £450 -21.74% 8
Scotland -14 26 £600 +26.72% 18
East of England -16 17 £625 +13.64% 9
Wales -14 3 £600 -5.14%
East Midlands -31 3 - - 4

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 (6.85%) Confluence
1 35 (6.85%) WebSphere
2 25 (4.89%) CICS
3 23 (4.50%) SharePoint
4 14 (2.74%) Tomcat
5 11 (2.15%) nginx
6 8 (1.57%) JBoss
7 7 (1.37%) Camunda
8 6 (1.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (1.17%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.98%) Apache
9 5 (0.98%) SAS
9 5 (0.98%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (0.78%) IIS
11 2 (0.39%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.39%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.39%) MQSeries
11 2 (0.39%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.39%) WebSphere Portal
12 1 (0.20%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 7 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.20%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (4.31%) Maximo
2 17 (3.33%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.76%) Temenos T24
4 5 (0.98%) 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 (15.07%) Azure
2 75 (14.68%) AWS
3 30 (5.87%) GitHub
4 26 (5.09%) GCP
5 19 (3.72%) OpenShift
6 13 (2.54%) GitHub Copilot
7 12 (2.35%) Anthropic Claude
7 12 (2.35%) ChatGPT
8 10 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.37%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.37%) IBM Blueworks
11 6 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (1.17%) Azure Service Bus
11 6 (1.17%) Boomi
11 6 (1.17%) iPaaS
11 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (0.98%) IBM Watson
12 5 (0.98%) Microsoft 365
12 5 (0.98%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.50%) SSL
2 19 (3.72%) HTTP
3 17 (3.33%) SNMP
4 13 (2.54%) Firewall
5 12 (2.35%) SAN
6 9 (1.76%) Network Security
6 9 (1.76%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.37%) DNS
8 6 (1.17%) VSAN
9 5 (0.98%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (0.98%) Wireshark
10 4 (0.78%) Fibre Channel
10 4 (0.78%) SSH
11 3 (0.59%) APPN
11 3 (0.59%) Internet
11 3 (0.59%) NAS
11 3 (0.59%) SNA
12 2 (0.39%) DMZ
12 2 (0.39%) LAN
12 2 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (8.41%) Db2
2 33 (6.46%) DataStage
3 31 (6.07%) Relational Database
4 20 (3.91%) SQL Server
5 18 (3.52%) Oracle Database
6 16 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (3.13%) Metadata
7 15 (2.94%) MongoDB
8 9 (1.76%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (1.57%) Tableau
10 7 (1.37%) NoSQL
11 6 (1.17%) Big Data
11 6 (1.17%) GIS
11 6 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.98%) Data Lake
12 5 (0.98%) 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 52 (10.18%) JIRA
2 39 (7.63%) Rational DOORS
3 33 (6.46%) Jenkins
4 20 (3.91%) Git
4 20 (3.91%) GitLab
5 15 (2.94%) JMeter
6 11 (2.15%) LoadRunner
6 11 (2.15%) SonarQube
7 10 (1.96%) Rational Rhapsody
8 9 (1.76%) Postman
8 9 (1.76%) SoapUI
9 8 (1.57%) IBM UrbanCode
9 8 (1.57%) Selenium
9 8 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (1.37%) eggPlant
10 7 (1.37%) Gradle
11 6 (1.17%) JUnit
11 6 (1.17%) Maven
11 6 (1.17%) REST Assured
12 5 (0.98%) Mockito
General
1 174 (34.05%) Finance
2 122 (23.87%) Banking
3 120 (23.48%) Social Skills
4 65 (12.72%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.87%) Legal
6 28 (5.48%) Aerospace
7 25 (4.89%) Public Sector
8 14 (2.74%) Retail
9 9 (1.76%) Military
10 8 (1.57%) Front Office
10 8 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.57%) Investment Banking
11 6 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.98%) Law
13 4 (0.78%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.59%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.59%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.59%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 74 (14.48%) Developer
2 63 (12.33%) Architect
3 49 (9.59%) Analyst
4 42 (8.22%) Senior
5 29 (5.68%) Administrator
5 29 (5.68%) Consultant
6 28 (5.48%) Lead
7 26 (5.09%) Delivery Manager
7 26 (5.09%) Product Delivery Manager
7 26 (5.09%) Product Manager
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%) Business Analyst
14 12 (2.35%) Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (13.89%) Middleware
2 47 (9.20%) REST
3 44 (8.61%) Kafka
4 38 (7.44%) XML
5 32 (6.26%) JSON
6 24 (4.70%) ISPF
7 23 (4.50%) Spring Boot
8 21 (4.11%) SOAP
9 15 (2.94%) RabbitMQ
9 15 (2.94%) Spring
9 15 (2.94%) Terraform
10 13 (2.54%) .NET
10 13 (2.54%) Flash
11 12 (2.35%) HTML
11 12 (2.35%) OAuth
11 12 (2.35%) Web Services
12 11 (2.15%) SAML
13 9 (1.76%) Swagger
14 8 (1.57%) JWT
14 8 (1.57%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 98 (19.18%) Mainframe
2 35 (6.85%) Product Ownership
3 34 (6.65%) Clustering
3 34 (6.65%) Data Structures
4 31 (6.07%) Data Centre
5 20 (3.91%) Replication
6 18 (3.52%) Cloud Native
7 17 (3.33%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 15 (2.94%) AS400
9 14 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
10 13 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
11 12 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (2.35%) IBM Mainframe
11 12 (2.35%) Legacy Applications
11 12 (2.35%) Management Information System
12 11 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (2.15%) iSeries
12 11 (2.15%) Linux Command Line
13 10 (1.96%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 96 (18.79%) Linux
2 76 (14.87%) zOS
3 55 (10.76%) Unix
4 39 (7.63%) Windows
5 34 (6.65%) AIX
6 19 (3.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.54%) Solaris
8 8 (1.57%) SUSE
9 7 (1.37%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.37%) Windows Server 2008
10 6 (1.17%) MVS
11 5 (0.98%) 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 77 (15.07%) CI/CD
3 76 (14.87%) Migration
4 66 (12.92%) Continuous Improvement
5 64 (12.52%) DevOps
6 62 (12.13%) Stakeholder Management
7 60 (11.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 58 (11.35%) ITIL
9 54 (10.57%) Test Automation
10 53 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
11 49 (9.59%) Computer Science
11 49 (9.59%) ETL
12 41 (8.02%) Roadmaps
13 40 (7.83%) Systems Engineering
14 39 (7.63%) Configuration Management
15 37 (7.24%) Change Management
16 36 (7.05%) Root Cause Analysis
17 35 (6.85%) Performance Optimisation
17 35 (6.85%) Performance Tuning
17 35 (6.85%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 103 (20.16%) SQL
2 93 (18.20%) Python
3 79 (15.46%) Java
4 31 (6.07%) PowerShell
5 26 (5.09%) JavaScript
6 22 (4.31%) PL/SQL
7 19 (3.72%) JCL
8 17 (3.33%) Bash
8 17 (3.33%) C++
9 15 (2.94%) Shell Script
10 14 (2.74%) COBOL
10 14 (2.74%) REXX
10 14 (2.74%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (2.54%) C
12 11 (2.15%) Perl
13 10 (1.96%) C#
14 7 (1.37%) Ada
15 6 (1.17%) Assembly Language
15 6 (1.17%) CLIST
16 5 (0.98%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 127 (24.85%) Security Cleared
2 84 (16.44%) SC Cleared
3 56 (10.96%) Degree
4 15 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (1.57%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.37%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.37%) CISSP
7 6 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (0.98%) CISM
9 4 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 4 (0.78%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.78%) CCSP
9 4 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.78%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.78%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (0.59%) CIMA
10 3 (0.59%) ISEB
10 3 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.59%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.59%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (6.85%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.33%) QA
3 9 (1.76%) ISO 20022
4 7 (1.37%) GDPR
4 7 (1.37%) 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 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.39%) GAAP
8 2 (0.39%) IFRS
9 1 (0.20%) DO-254
9 1 (0.20%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.20%) PMO
System Software
1 37 (7.24%) Docker
2 26 (5.09%) RACF
3 25 (4.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (3.33%) NFS
5 15 (2.94%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (2.35%) GPFS
6 12 (2.35%) Time Sharing Option
7 11 (2.15%) Firmware
7 11 (2.15%) vSphere
8 10 (1.96%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (1.37%) ACF2
9 7 (1.37%) PowerHA
10 6 (1.17%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.59%) Active Directory
11 3 (0.59%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 1 (0.20%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.20%) oVirt
12 1 (0.20%) RHEV
12 1 (0.20%) SRDF
12 1 (0.20%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 27 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.70%) OMEGAMON
3 22 (4.31%) Ansible
4 20 (3.91%) Tivoli
5 17 (3.33%) Nagios
5 17 (3.33%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.13%) Netcool
7 14 (2.74%) OpenView
7 14 (2.74%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (2.74%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 9 (1.76%) Grafana
8 9 (1.76%) vRealize
9 6 (1.17%) Tivoli NetView
9 6 (1.17%) VxRail
10 5 (0.98%) Control-M
10 5 (0.98%) HP Fortify
10 5 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.78%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.78%) QRadar
12 3 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 111 (21.72%) Oracle
2 47 (9.20%) Microsoft
3 38 (7.44%) VMware
4 35 (6.85%) Splunk
5 33 (6.46%) SAP
6 26 (5.09%) ServiceNow
7 22 (4.31%) Red Hat
8 20 (3.91%) Cisco
8 20 (3.91%) Google
9 18 (3.52%) BMC
9 18 (3.52%) HP
10 16 (3.13%) Cognos
10 16 (3.13%) SolarWinds
11 14 (2.74%) Broadcom
11 14 (2.74%) Dynatrace
12 13 (2.54%) MathWorks
13 12 (2.35%) Brocade
13 12 (2.35%) Sybase
14 11 (2.15%) Databricks
15 9 (1.76%) New Relic