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 21 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
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 226 228
Rank change year-on-year -41 +2 +29
Contract jobs citing IBM 490 384 433
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.18% 1.05%
As % of the Vendors category 2.25% 2.48% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 253 224
10th Percentile £317 £351 £357
25th Percentile £408 £408 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £492
Median % change year-on-year - +1.57% -6.24%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £625
90th Percentile £675 £704 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £475 £474
% change year-on-year +6.58% +0.32% -5.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 5 37
10th Percentile £25.77 £24.81 £45.30
25th Percentile £61.25 £25.04 £65.00
Median hourly rate £88.00 £25.08 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +250.95% -64.18% +3.70%
75th Percentile - £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% +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 21,737 15,481 17,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.23% 47.51% 43.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,491 9,458 11,258
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.71% -4.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,083 765 984
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.75 £12.90
25th Percentile £19.29 £17.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £34.94 £25.15 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.93% -3.27% -36.65%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +51.07% -10.00% -22.24%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -37 411 £490 -2.00% 103
UK excluding London -60 257 £506 +6.58% 65
London -34 164 £488 -18.07% 46
Work from Home -81 125 £525 -3.67% 40
North of England -49 94 £514 +14.22% 13
South East -52 55 £425 -20.93% 15
North West -43 47 £459 +10.60% 6
Yorkshire -31 46 £563 +12.50% 4
South West -16 36 £426 -29.00% 15
Midlands -56 29 £413 -6.14% 9
Scotland -23 26 £550 +10.94% 4
West Midlands -50 25 £413 -11.76% 6
East of England -20 13 £575 +4.55% 8
Wales -14 4 £600 -5.14% 3
East Midlands -25 3 - - 3
North East -44 1 £375 -10.45% 3

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 (7.55%) WebSphere
2 34 (6.94%) Confluence
3 29 (5.92%) CICS
4 19 (3.88%) Tomcat
5 18 (3.67%) SharePoint
6 17 (3.47%) nginx
7 9 (1.84%) WebLogic
8 8 (1.63%) JBoss
9 7 (1.43%) Apache
10 5 (1.02%) SAS
10 5 (1.02%) WebSphere Application Server
11 4 (0.82%) Apache Spark
11 4 (0.82%) Camunda
11 4 (0.82%) IIS
12 3 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
12 3 (0.61%) CMS
13 2 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
13 2 (0.41%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 5 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.41%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.20%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 20 (4.08%) Maximo
2 10 (2.04%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.84%) Temenos T24
4 6 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.02%) Cognos Controller
6 3 (0.61%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 3 (0.61%) SAP R/3
7 2 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.41%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.20%) HFM
8 1 (0.20%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.20%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.20%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.20%) SAP AFS
8 1 (0.20%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 66 (13.47%) AWS
2 55 (11.22%) Azure
3 26 (5.31%) GitHub
4 15 (3.06%) GitHub Copilot
4 15 (3.06%) OpenShift
5 13 (2.65%) ChatGPT
6 12 (2.45%) GCP
7 11 (2.24%) Anthropic Claude
8 10 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (2.04%) IBM Watson
9 9 (1.84%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.43%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (1.43%) Vertex AI
11 6 (1.22%) Azure AI
11 6 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (1.02%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (1.02%) IBM Blueworks
12 5 (1.02%) IBM Cloud
12 5 (1.02%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.82%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.69%) Firewall
2 21 (4.29%) SSL
3 18 (3.67%) HTTP
4 17 (3.47%) SNMP
5 12 (2.45%) SAN
6 8 (1.63%) DNS
7 7 (1.43%) Network Security
7 7 (1.43%) TCP/IP
8 6 (1.22%) VSAN
8 6 (1.22%) Wireshark
9 5 (1.02%) Fibre Channel
10 4 (0.82%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (0.82%) LAN
10 4 (0.82%) NAS
10 4 (0.82%) WAN
11 3 (0.61%) MPLS
11 3 (0.61%) SSH
12 2 (0.41%) APPN
12 2 (0.41%) DWDM
12 2 (0.41%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (10.20%) Db2
2 32 (6.53%) DataStage
3 30 (6.12%) Relational Database
4 21 (4.29%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.06%) Metadata
6 14 (2.86%) MongoDB
7 13 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (2.65%) Oracle Database
8 12 (2.45%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
10 9 (1.84%) NoSQL
11 8 (1.63%) Big Data
11 8 (1.63%) GIS
12 5 (1.02%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 3 (0.61%) Apache Hive
13 3 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
13 3 (0.61%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 2 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
14 2 (0.41%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 48 (9.80%) JIRA
2 41 (8.37%) Rational DOORS
3 23 (4.69%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.67%) GitLab
5 15 (3.06%) Git
6 8 (1.63%) Rational Rhapsody
7 7 (1.43%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.02%) Ant
8 5 (1.02%) Liquibase
8 5 (1.02%) PowerDesigner
9 4 (0.82%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.82%) Gradle
9 4 (0.82%) JMeter
9 4 (0.82%) JUnit
9 4 (0.82%) Maven
9 4 (0.82%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.82%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.61%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.61%) Visual Studio
General
1 153 (31.22%) Finance
2 117 (23.88%) Social Skills
3 100 (20.41%) Banking
4 53 (10.82%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (7.35%) Public Sector
6 31 (6.33%) Legal
7 30 (6.12%) Aerospace
8 14 (2.86%) Retail
9 12 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.04%) Military
11 9 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.63%) Front Office
13 7 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.43%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.02%) Law
14 5 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.82%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.82%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.41%) Advertising
16 2 (0.41%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 63 (12.86%) Developer
2 60 (12.24%) Architect
3 48 (9.80%) Analyst
4 35 (7.14%) Senior
5 31 (6.33%) Administrator
6 26 (5.31%) Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.31%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.31%) Product Manager
7 23 (4.69%) Consultant
8 21 (4.29%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 21 (4.29%) Systems Manager
9 20 (4.08%) Lead
9 20 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (3.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 17 (3.47%) Designer
12 16 (3.27%) Middleware Engineer
13 14 (2.86%) Data Engineer
14 13 (2.65%) Management Consultant
15 12 (2.45%) Software Engineer
15 12 (2.45%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (13.67%) Middleware
2 40 (8.16%) REST
3 25 (5.10%) JSON
4 24 (4.90%) ISPF
5 23 (4.69%) XML
6 20 (4.08%) Kafka
7 18 (3.67%) Spring Boot
8 15 (3.06%) Spring
9 14 (2.86%) Flash
9 14 (2.86%) RabbitMQ
10 12 (2.45%) SOAP
11 10 (2.04%) Jakarta EE
12 9 (1.84%) WebSphere MQ
13 8 (1.63%) EJB
13 8 (1.63%) JDBC
13 8 (1.63%) PyTorch
13 8 (1.63%) Web Services
14 7 (1.43%) JSP
14 7 (1.43%) LangChain
14 7 (1.43%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 104 (21.22%) Mainframe
2 41 (8.37%) Data Centre
3 36 (7.35%) Clustering
4 32 (6.53%) Data Structures
5 30 (6.12%) Product Ownership
6 20 (4.08%) Replication
7 18 (3.67%) Cloud Native
7 18 (3.67%) Linux Command Line
8 16 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (3.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 15 (3.06%) VSAM
10 13 (2.65%) AS400
10 13 (2.65%) IBM Mainframe
10 13 (2.65%) Legacy Applications
11 12 (2.45%) Management Information System
12 10 (2.04%) BYOD
12 10 (2.04%) Equity Derivative
12 10 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
13 9 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 108 (22.04%) Linux
2 72 (14.69%) zOS
3 60 (12.24%) Unix
4 54 (11.02%) Windows
5 46 (9.39%) AIX
6 25 (5.10%) Solaris
7 24 (4.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.08%) Windows Server
9 13 (2.65%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.63%) SUSE
12 7 (1.43%) MVS
12 7 (1.43%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.41%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.41%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.20%) Android
14 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.20%) VMS
14 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (19.80%) Agile
2 73 (14.90%) CI/CD
3 68 (13.88%) Migration
4 62 (12.65%) DevOps
5 60 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
6 55 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 52 (10.61%) ITIL
7 52 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
8 51 (10.41%) ETL
8 51 (10.41%) Problem-Solving
9 50 (10.20%) Roadmaps
10 45 (9.18%) Test Automation
11 41 (8.37%) Computer Science
12 37 (7.55%) Change Management
12 37 (7.55%) Systems Engineering
13 36 (7.35%) AI
13 36 (7.35%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 35 (7.14%) Configuration Management
14 35 (7.14%) Scrum
15 34 (6.94%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 96 (19.59%) SQL
2 86 (17.55%) Python
3 71 (14.49%) Java
4 39 (7.96%) PowerShell
5 25 (5.10%) Bash
6 21 (4.29%) PL/SQL
7 20 (4.08%) COBOL
7 20 (4.08%) JCL
8 16 (3.27%) REXX
9 14 (2.86%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (2.65%) C++
11 12 (2.45%) Shell Script
12 11 (2.24%) JavaScript
13 10 (2.04%) C
13 10 (2.04%) Perl
14 8 (1.63%) C#
15 7 (1.43%) Ada
15 7 (1.43%) CLIST
16 6 (1.22%) Assembly Language
17 5 (1.02%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 127 (25.92%) Security Cleared
2 83 (16.94%) SC Cleared
3 51 (10.41%) Degree
4 12 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.63%) CISSP
7 7 (1.43%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.22%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.02%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.02%) CISM
9 5 (1.02%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.02%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 4 (0.82%) CCSP
10 4 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.61%) CEH
11 3 (0.61%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.61%) PMP
12 2 (0.41%) CISA
12 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.94%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.47%) QA
3 8 (1.63%) GDPR
3 8 (1.63%) SLA
4 7 (1.43%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.02%) ISO 15022
5 5 (1.02%) NIST
5 5 (1.02%) SEPA
6 4 (0.82%) GRC
6 4 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.41%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.41%) GAAP
7 2 (0.41%) IFRS
7 2 (0.41%) NCSC
8 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.20%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.20%) PMO
8 1 (0.20%) TARGET2
8 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (7.14%) Docker
2 26 (5.31%) RACF
2 26 (5.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.88%) VMware ESXi
4 18 (3.67%) NFS
5 16 (3.27%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (2.65%) GPFS
7 12 (2.45%) Time Sharing Option
8 11 (2.24%) Firmware
9 10 (2.04%) vSphere
10 9 (1.84%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (1.43%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.22%) ACF2
12 6 (1.22%) KVM
12 6 (1.22%) PowerHA
13 3 (0.61%) Active Directory
13 3 (0.61%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 2 (0.41%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.41%) VMware NSX
15 1 (0.20%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 28 (5.71%) Ansible
2 23 (4.69%) OMEGAMON
3 21 (4.29%) Tivoli
4 19 (3.88%) Terraform
5 17 (3.47%) Kubernetes
5 17 (3.47%) Nagios
5 17 (3.47%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.27%) Netcool
7 14 (2.86%) OpenView
7 14 (2.86%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (2.86%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 9 (1.84%) vRealize
9 8 (1.63%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (1.22%) IBM BigFix
10 6 (1.22%) vCenter Server
10 6 (1.22%) VxRail
11 5 (1.02%) Grafana
11 5 (1.02%) Tivoli NetView
12 4 (0.82%) CA Endevor
13 3 (0.61%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 90 (18.37%) Oracle
2 45 (9.18%) VMware
3 36 (7.35%) Microsoft
4 31 (6.33%) Splunk
5 28 (5.71%) SAP
6 26 (5.31%) Red Hat
7 24 (4.90%) Cisco
8 23 (4.69%) ServiceNow
9 22 (4.49%) HP
10 19 (3.88%) BMC
11 16 (3.27%) SolarWinds
12 14 (2.86%) Broadcom
12 14 (2.86%) Dell
12 14 (2.86%) Google
13 13 (2.65%) Brocade
13 13 (2.65%) MathWorks
14 12 (2.45%) Sybase
15 9 (1.84%) Cognos
15 9 (1.84%) Temenos
16 8 (1.63%) Informatica