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 24 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
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 253 213
Rank change year-on-year -8 -40 +24
Contract jobs citing IBM 532 355 440
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.08% 1.15%
As % of the Vendors category 2.32% 2.27% 2.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 337 234 211
10th Percentile £350 £352 £340
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £545 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% +14.74% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £611
90th Percentile £690 £688 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 8 31
10th Percentile £34.87 £25.04 £27.00
25th Percentile £60.81 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.33 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.29% -40.96% +7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.75 -
90th Percentile - £73.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year +1.96% -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 22,905 15,664 16,910
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.72% 47.52% 44.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,978 9,611 10,062
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £615 £613 £625
90th Percentile £704 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,303 808 647
10th Percentile £13.97 £14.75 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.50 £17.69 £15.62
Median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -20.16% -28.18%
75th Percentile £60.00 £43.20 £64.25
90th Percentile £78.71 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.25 £30.00
% change year-on-year +21.18% -29.17% -29.41%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -18 455 £500 -9.09% 341
UK excluding London -59 246 £500 +5.26% 217
London +2 212 £515 -14.17% 135
Work from Home -55 128 £549 -10.37% 178
North of England -40 95 £513 +13.19% 50
Yorkshire +7 63 £514 +8.77% 20
South East -59 36 £460 -17.30% 39
Scotland -18 31 £600 +38.89% 23
North West -68 31 £455 +0.66% 23
South West -24 29 £550 -8.33% 32
Midlands -59 28 £500 +13.77% 33
West Midlands -43 26 £500 -13.04% 12
East of England -21 25 £625 +13.64% 24
Wales -10 3 £600 -5.14% 6
East Midlands -33 1 - - 21

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 37 (6.95%) Confluence
2 36 (6.77%) WebSphere
3 26 (4.89%) CICS
4 19 (3.57%) SharePoint
5 17 (3.20%) Tomcat
6 15 (2.82%) nginx
7 11 (2.07%) Camunda
8 10 (1.88%) WebLogic
9 8 (1.50%) Apache
9 8 (1.50%) SAS
10 7 (1.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (1.32%) WebSphere Application Server
11 6 (1.13%) JBoss
12 5 (0.94%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 4 (0.75%) IBM HTTP Server
13 4 (0.75%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 4 (0.75%) WebSphere Portal
14 3 (0.56%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.56%) IIS
14 3 (0.56%) WebLogic Portal
Applications
1 10 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.32%) Windchill
3 6 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 27 (5.08%) Maximo
2 18 (3.38%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.32%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.94%) Cognos Controller
4 5 (0.94%) Temenos T24
5 3 (0.56%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 2 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.19%) Actimize
7 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.19%) HFM
7 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.19%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 90 (16.92%) Azure
2 83 (15.60%) AWS
3 38 (7.14%) GCP
4 36 (6.77%) GitHub
5 25 (4.70%) OpenShift
6 14 (2.63%) GitHub Copilot
7 13 (2.44%) Anthropic Claude
8 12 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (2.07%) ChatGPT
10 10 (1.88%) IBM Watson
10 10 (1.88%) Power Platform
11 9 (1.69%) Azure Service Bus
11 9 (1.69%) Boomi
11 9 (1.69%) Entra ID
11 9 (1.69%) iPaaS
12 8 (1.50%) IBM Blueworks
12 8 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
13 7 (1.32%) Amazon S3
14 6 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.08%) HTTP
2 22 (4.14%) SSL
3 11 (2.07%) Firewall
4 10 (1.88%) SAN
5 9 (1.69%) Network Security
5 9 (1.69%) SNMP
5 9 (1.69%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.13%) DNS
6 6 (1.13%) Internet
6 6 (1.13%) SSH
6 6 (1.13%) Wireshark
7 5 (0.94%) Cisco Nexus
8 4 (0.75%) Fibre Channel
8 4 (0.75%) VSAN
9 3 (0.56%) NAS
9 3 (0.56%) WAN
10 2 (0.38%) DMZ
10 2 (0.38%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.38%) IPv4
10 2 (0.38%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (8.83%) Db2
2 34 (6.39%) Relational Database
3 32 (6.02%) DataStage
4 25 (4.70%) SQL Server
5 20 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (3.20%) Oracle Database
7 15 (2.82%) Metadata
7 15 (2.82%) MongoDB
8 10 (1.88%) Tableau
9 9 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (1.50%) Power BI
11 7 (1.32%) GIS
11 7 (1.32%) NoSQL
11 7 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
12 5 (0.94%) Big Data
12 5 (0.94%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.75%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.75%) IBM InfoSphere
14 2 (0.38%) Redis
14 2 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 62 (11.65%) JIRA
2 44 (8.27%) Jenkins
3 32 (6.02%) Git
4 24 (4.51%) GitLab
5 21 (3.95%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.57%) JMeter
7 16 (3.01%) LoadRunner
8 15 (2.82%) SonarQube
9 14 (2.63%) Postman
9 14 (2.63%) SoapUI
10 11 (2.07%) Gradle
10 11 (2.07%) IBM UrbanCode
10 11 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (1.88%) eggPlant
11 10 (1.88%) Rational Rhapsody
12 9 (1.69%) JUnit
12 9 (1.69%) Maven
12 9 (1.69%) REST Assured
12 9 (1.69%) Selenium
13 8 (1.50%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 200 (37.59%) Finance
2 141 (26.50%) Social Skills
3 139 (26.13%) Banking
4 71 (13.35%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (5.26%) Legal
6 21 (3.95%) Public Sector
7 18 (3.38%) Retail
8 15 (2.82%) Manufacturing
9 11 (2.07%) Military
10 10 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.32%) Front Office
12 7 (1.32%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.32%) Spanish Language
13 6 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.94%) Aerospace
14 5 (0.94%) Law
15 4 (0.75%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 83 (15.60%) Developer
2 59 (11.09%) Architect
3 49 (9.21%) Analyst
4 45 (8.46%) Senior
5 37 (6.95%) Lead
6 27 (5.08%) Administrator
6 27 (5.08%) Solutions Architect
7 25 (4.70%) Consultant
8 20 (3.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 17 (3.20%) Automation Engineer
9 17 (3.20%) Middleware Engineer
10 16 (3.01%) Java Developer
11 15 (2.82%) Business Analyst
11 15 (2.82%) DataStage Developer
12 14 (2.63%) Applications Support
12 14 (2.63%) CICS Engineer
13 12 (2.26%) Applications Manager
13 12 (2.26%) Oracle Developer
13 12 (2.26%) Programmer
13 12 (2.26%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (18.05%) Middleware
2 61 (11.47%) Kafka
3 50 (9.40%) REST
4 46 (8.65%) XML
5 39 (7.33%) JSON
6 31 (5.83%) SOAP
7 30 (5.64%) Spring Boot
8 28 (5.26%) ISPF
9 23 (4.32%) Spring
10 19 (3.57%) HTML
11 18 (3.38%) RabbitMQ
12 17 (3.20%) .NET
13 14 (2.63%) OAuth
13 14 (2.63%) Terraform
14 13 (2.44%) SAML
14 13 (2.44%) Web Services
15 12 (2.26%) GraphQL
15 12 (2.26%) Swagger
16 11 (2.07%) ActiveMQ
16 11 (2.07%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 111 (20.86%) Mainframe
2 29 (5.45%) Clustering
3 23 (4.32%) Cloud Native
3 23 (4.32%) Data Centre
4 22 (4.14%) Replication
5 21 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (3.57%) Hybrid Cloud
7 17 (3.20%) AS400
7 17 (3.20%) Distributed Systems
8 15 (2.82%) Data Structures
8 15 (2.82%) Onboarding
9 14 (2.63%) Legacy Applications
9 14 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
10 12 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (2.26%) iSeries
10 12 (2.26%) Product Ownership
10 12 (2.26%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 11 (2.07%) IBM Mainframe
12 10 (1.88%) Management Information System
13 9 (1.69%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 96 (18.05%) Linux
2 83 (15.60%) zOS
3 57 (10.71%) Unix
4 38 (7.14%) Windows
5 21 (3.95%) AIX
6 20 (3.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.07%) Solaris
8 8 (1.50%) SUSE
8 8 (1.50%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.32%) MVS
9 7 (1.32%) Windows Server 2008
10 5 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.19%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.19%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (18.42%) CI/CD
2 93 (17.48%) Agile
3 86 (16.17%) Stakeholder Management
4 83 (15.60%) Migration
5 73 (13.72%) DevOps
6 69 (12.97%) Test Automation
7 65 (12.22%) ITIL
7 65 (12.22%) Problem-Solving
8 57 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
9 50 (9.40%) ETL
10 49 (9.21%) Performance Tuning
10 49 (9.21%) Roadmaps
11 47 (8.83%) Validation
12 45 (8.46%) Change Management
13 44 (8.27%) Root Cause Analysis
14 42 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 41 (7.71%) Scrum
16 40 (7.52%) AI
17 37 (6.95%) Performance Optimisation
18 34 (6.39%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 111 (20.86%) SQL
2 96 (18.05%) Python
3 88 (16.54%) Java
4 43 (8.08%) JavaScript
5 25 (4.70%) JCL
6 22 (4.14%) PL/SQL
6 22 (4.14%) PowerShell
7 20 (3.76%) Shell Script
8 17 (3.20%) Bash
8 17 (3.20%) COBOL
8 17 (3.20%) REXX
9 16 (3.01%) C++
10 14 (2.63%) C#
11 12 (2.26%) C
12 10 (1.88%) Perl
13 7 (1.32%) Assembly Language
13 7 (1.32%) CLIST
13 7 (1.32%) Search Processing Language
13 7 (1.32%) TypeScript
14 6 (1.13%) RPG
Qualifications
1 107 (20.11%) Security Cleared
2 87 (16.35%) SC Cleared
3 45 (8.46%) Degree
4 25 (4.70%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.32%) CISSP
6 7 (1.32%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.13%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.94%) PMI Certification
8 5 (0.94%) PMP
9 4 (0.75%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (0.56%) ACCA
10 3 (0.56%) CIMA
10 3 (0.56%) ISEB
10 3 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.38%) CCSP
11 2 (0.38%) CISA
11 2 (0.38%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.39%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.01%) QA
3 10 (1.88%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.50%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.32%) GDPR
5 7 (1.32%) NIST
6 5 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.94%) SLA
7 3 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 3 (0.56%) SEPA
8 2 (0.38%) GAAP
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) IFRS
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.38%) PMO
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 1 (0.19%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 46 (8.65%) Docker
2 30 (5.64%) RACF
3 23 (4.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (2.63%) NFS
4 14 (2.63%) Time Sharing Option
5 12 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.07%) GPFS
7 8 (1.50%) vSphere
8 7 (1.32%) ACF2
8 7 (1.32%) Firmware
9 6 (1.13%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.94%) Active Directory
11 4 (0.75%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.56%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.38%) Hyper-V
14 1 (0.19%) oVirt
14 1 (0.19%) RHEV
14 1 (0.19%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 40 (7.52%) Kubernetes
2 29 (5.45%) Ansible
3 25 (4.70%) OMEGAMON
4 20 (3.76%) Tivoli
5 12 (2.26%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 11 (2.07%) Grafana
6 11 (2.07%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 10 (1.88%) Netcool
8 9 (1.69%) Nagios
8 9 (1.69%) ZABBIX
9 8 (1.50%) Control-M
10 6 (1.13%) HP Fortify
10 6 (1.13%) OpenView
10 6 (1.13%) vRealize
11 5 (0.94%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (0.94%) QRadar
12 4 (0.75%) Tivoli NetView
12 4 (0.75%) VxRail
13 3 (0.56%) CA Endevor
13 3 (0.56%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 118 (22.18%) Oracle
2 60 (11.28%) Microsoft
3 37 (6.95%) SAP
4 33 (6.20%) VMware
5 30 (5.64%) Splunk
6 29 (5.45%) Google
7 25 (4.70%) ServiceNow
8 22 (4.14%) Red Hat
9 21 (3.95%) Cisco
10 19 (3.57%) Broadcom
11 17 (3.20%) Dynatrace
12 15 (2.82%) Siemens
13 14 (2.63%) Cognos
14 13 (2.44%) Databricks
14 13 (2.44%) EMC
15 12 (2.26%) Dell
15 12 (2.26%) HP
15 12 (2.26%) Informatica
15 12 (2.26%) Sybase
16 11 (2.07%) NetApp