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 20 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
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 279 238 235
Rank change year-on-year -41 -3 +46
Contract jobs citing IBM 428 329 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 1.10% 0.99%
As % of the Vendors category 2.08% 2.32% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 213 230
10th Percentile £313 £358 £360
25th Percentile £400 £408 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £675 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £460 £489
% change year-on-year +7.61% -5.93% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 5 39
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.81 £51.40
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.04 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.08 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +179.16% -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 20,609 14,207 18,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.69% 47.58% 42.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,933 8,743 11,537
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £517
Median % change year-on-year - -3.29% -1.52%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,054 652 1,163
10th Percentile £15.52 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.50
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.23 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +34.75% +5.99% -44.65%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.95 £58.70
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.23 £23.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +40.11% +2.22% -43.15%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -40 370 £475 -5.00% 81
UK excluding London -41 248 £495 +7.61% 62
London -61 135 £488 -18.75% 28
Work from Home -53 117 £509 +1.85% 36
North of England -43 89 £514 +20.94% 16
North West -27 48 £464 +16.00% 10
South West +4 44 £426 -28.10% 11
South East -48 42 £400 -20.00% 13
Yorkshire -42 40 £533 +12.11% 4
Midlands -58 30 £402 -8.53% 11
West Midlands -52 25 £402 -12.61% 5
Scotland -17 22 £550 +14.82% 4
East of England -23 18 £425 -19.05% 6
East Midlands -25 4 £837 +101.57% 6
Wales -12 3 £635 -
North East -37 1 £375 -10.45% 2

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 28 (6.54%) WebSphere
2 24 (5.61%) Confluence
3 18 (4.21%) CICS
3 18 (4.21%) Tomcat
4 16 (3.74%) nginx
5 11 (2.57%) SharePoint
6 10 (2.34%) WebLogic
7 6 (1.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (1.17%) Apache
8 5 (1.17%) SAS
8 5 (1.17%) WebSphere Application Server
9 4 (0.93%) IIS
9 4 (0.93%) JBoss
10 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.70%) Camunda
10 3 (0.70%) CMS
11 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.47%) PlantUML
3 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (4.91%) Maximo
2 10 (2.34%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 6 (1.40%) Temenos T24
4 5 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.70%) Cognos Controller
5 3 (0.70%) SAP R/3
6 2 (0.47%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.47%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.23%) HFM
7 1 (0.23%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
7 1 (0.23%) MetaTrader
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.23%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.23%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 67 (15.65%) AWS
2 51 (11.92%) Azure
3 23 (5.37%) GitHub
4 18 (4.21%) OpenShift
5 12 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
5 12 (2.80%) GitHub Copilot
6 10 (2.34%) ChatGPT
6 10 (2.34%) GCP
7 9 (2.10%) IBM Watson
8 8 (1.87%) Amazon S3
8 8 (1.87%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (1.64%) SaaS
9 7 (1.64%) Vertex AI
10 6 (1.40%) Azure AI
10 6 (1.40%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (1.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 21 (4.91%) Firewall
2 16 (3.74%) SNMP
3 15 (3.50%) HTTP
3 15 (3.50%) SSL
4 10 (2.34%) SAN
5 9 (2.10%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.64%) DNS
6 7 (1.64%) VPN
6 7 (1.64%) VSAN
7 6 (1.40%) Fibre Channel
7 6 (1.40%) Network Security
8 4 (0.93%) APPN
8 4 (0.93%) LAN
8 4 (0.93%) NAS
8 4 (0.93%) SNA
9 3 (0.70%) MPLS
9 3 (0.70%) SSH
9 3 (0.70%) WAN
10 2 (0.47%) DWDM
10 2 (0.47%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (9.81%) Db2
2 26 (6.07%) DataStage
3 25 (5.84%) Relational Database
4 22 (5.14%) SQL Server
5 14 (3.27%) Metadata
6 13 (3.04%) MongoDB
7 12 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (2.57%) Elasticsearch
9 9 (2.10%) Oracle Database
9 9 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
10 8 (1.87%) Big Data
10 8 (1.87%) NoSQL
11 7 (1.64%) GIS
11 7 (1.64%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.70%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.70%) Power BI
13 2 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
13 2 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.47%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 39 (9.11%) Rational DOORS
2 37 (8.64%) JIRA
3 19 (4.44%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.27%) Git
5 12 (2.80%) GitLab
6 8 (1.87%) Rational Rhapsody
7 5 (1.17%) Ant
7 5 (1.17%) Liquibase
7 5 (1.17%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (0.93%) JMeter
9 3 (0.70%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.70%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.70%) Gradle
9 3 (0.70%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.70%) JUnit
9 3 (0.70%) Maven
9 3 (0.70%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.70%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.47%) Artifactory
General
1 119 (27.80%) Finance
2 98 (22.90%) Social Skills
3 82 (19.16%) Banking
4 37 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (8.41%) Public Sector
6 29 (6.78%) Aerospace
7 26 (6.07%) Legal
8 13 (3.04%) Retail
9 12 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.87%) Front Office
10 8 (1.87%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.64%) Law
11 7 (1.64%) Military
12 6 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.17%) Aviation
14 4 (0.93%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.70%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.47%) Advertising
16 2 (0.47%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 46 (10.75%) Architect
2 42 (9.81%) Developer
3 39 (9.11%) Analyst
4 27 (6.31%) Senior
5 26 (6.07%) Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.07%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.07%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.61%) Administrator
6 24 (5.61%) Consultant
7 21 (4.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
7 21 (4.91%) Systems Manager
8 18 (4.21%) Software Engineer
9 17 (3.97%) Lead
10 16 (3.74%) Data Engineer
10 16 (3.74%) Storage Analyst
11 14 (3.27%) Solutions Architect
12 13 (3.04%) Management Consultant
13 12 (2.80%) Designer
13 12 (2.80%) DevOps Engineer
13 12 (2.80%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (12.15%) Middleware
2 35 (8.18%) REST
3 20 (4.67%) Flash
4 19 (4.44%) ISPF
5 18 (4.21%) JSON
5 18 (4.21%) Kafka
5 18 (4.21%) XML
6 16 (3.74%) Spring Boot
7 15 (3.50%) Spring
8 12 (2.80%) RabbitMQ
9 9 (2.10%) SOAP
10 8 (1.87%) JMS
10 8 (1.87%) PyTorch
10 8 (1.87%) WebSphere MQ
11 7 (1.64%) EJB
11 7 (1.64%) LangChain
11 7 (1.64%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.64%) Web Services
11 7 (1.64%) ZeroMQ
12 6 (1.40%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 81 (18.93%) Mainframe
2 36 (8.41%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.78%) Clustering
3 29 (6.78%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.54%) Product Ownership
5 25 (5.84%) Linux Command Line
5 25 (5.84%) Replication
6 16 (3.74%) Legacy Systems
7 14 (3.27%) Cloud Native
7 14 (3.27%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (3.04%) VSAM
9 12 (2.80%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.80%) Legacy Applications
9 12 (2.80%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 10 (2.34%) BYOD
10 10 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (2.34%) IBM Mainframe
11 9 (2.10%) Management Information System
11 9 (2.10%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.87%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 108 (25.23%) Linux
2 53 (12.38%) zOS
3 52 (12.15%) Windows
4 46 (10.75%) Unix
5 41 (9.58%) AIX
6 24 (5.61%) Solaris
7 23 (5.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.67%) Windows Server
9 13 (3.04%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.87%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (1.17%) MVS
12 5 (1.17%) SUSE
13 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.47%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.23%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (21.50%) Agile
2 62 (14.49%) CI/CD
3 55 (12.85%) DevOps
4 51 (11.92%) Continuous Improvement
4 51 (11.92%) Migration
5 50 (11.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 44 (10.28%) Roadmaps
7 43 (10.05%) ITIL
7 43 (10.05%) Problem-Solving
8 41 (9.58%) ETL
9 36 (8.41%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 36 (8.41%) Test Automation
10 35 (8.18%) Configuration Management
10 35 (8.18%) Stakeholder Management
10 35 (8.18%) UML
11 34 (7.94%) AI
11 34 (7.94%) Computer Science
11 34 (7.94%) Systems Engineering
12 33 (7.71%) Workflow
13 29 (6.78%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (19.86%) SQL
2 77 (17.99%) Python
3 58 (13.55%) Java
4 36 (8.41%) PowerShell
5 24 (5.61%) Bash
6 21 (4.91%) PL/SQL
7 17 (3.97%) JCL
8 16 (3.74%) COBOL
9 15 (3.50%) REXX
10 14 (3.27%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (2.80%) C++
12 11 (2.57%) Ada
13 10 (2.34%) C
13 10 (2.34%) MATLAB
14 9 (2.10%) Shell Script
15 8 (1.87%) Bicep
16 7 (1.64%) Assembly Language
16 7 (1.64%) JavaScript
16 7 (1.64%) Perl
17 6 (1.40%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 127 (29.67%) Security Cleared
2 82 (19.16%) SC Cleared
3 41 (9.58%) Degree
4 13 (3.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.57%) CISSP
5 11 (2.57%) DV Cleared
6 10 (2.34%) Azure Certification
7 8 (1.87%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.87%) CISM
7 8 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.64%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.17%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (1.17%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.70%) CEH
11 2 (0.47%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 2 (0.47%) CISMP
11 2 (0.47%) GCIH
11 2 (0.47%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (7.24%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.34%) QA
3 8 (1.87%) SLA
4 7 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.64%) NIST
5 5 (1.17%) GDPR
5 5 (1.17%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.17%) NIST 800
5 5 (1.17%) SEPA
6 3 (0.70%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.47%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.47%) GAAP
7 2 (0.47%) GRC
7 2 (0.47%) IFRS
7 2 (0.47%) NCSC
8 1 (0.23%) Basel III
8 1 (0.23%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (6.78%) Docker
2 28 (6.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (5.84%) NFS
4 24 (5.61%) VMware ESXi
5 20 (4.67%) GPFS
6 19 (4.44%) RACF
7 16 (3.74%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (3.27%) vSphere
9 11 (2.57%) Time Sharing Option
10 9 (2.10%) Firmware
10 9 (2.10%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (1.64%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.40%) KVM
13 3 (0.70%) ACF2
13 3 (0.70%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.47%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.47%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.47%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.23%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 32 (7.48%) Ansible
2 25 (5.84%) Terraform
3 21 (4.91%) Kubernetes
3 21 (4.91%) Tivoli
4 19 (4.44%) OMEGAMON
5 17 (3.97%) Nagios
5 17 (3.97%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.74%) Netcool
7 14 (3.27%) OpenView
7 14 (3.27%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (3.27%) vRealize
8 11 (2.57%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.87%) IBM BigFix
9 8 (1.87%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (1.64%) VxRail
11 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.93%) Grafana
13 3 (0.70%) Control-M
14 2 (0.47%) QRadar
Vendors
1 87 (20.33%) Oracle
2 45 (10.51%) VMware
3 31 (7.24%) Microsoft
4 29 (6.78%) Cisco
5 28 (6.54%) ServiceNow
6 27 (6.31%) Red Hat
6 27 (6.31%) Splunk
7 25 (5.84%) HP
8 24 (5.61%) SAP
9 20 (4.67%) BMC
10 19 (4.44%) Dell
11 16 (3.74%) SolarWinds
12 15 (3.50%) MathWorks
13 14 (3.27%) Google
14 13 (3.04%) Broadcom
14 13 (3.04%) Brocade
15 10 (2.34%) Sybase
16 7 (1.64%) Cognos
16 7 (1.64%) Informatica
17 6 (1.40%) NetApp