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 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
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 222 230
Rank change year-on-year -47 +8 +35
Contract jobs citing IBM 479 386 433
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 1.18% 1.04%
As % of the Vendors category 2.20% 2.48% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 276 253 224
10th Percentile £316 £351 £357
25th Percentile £406 £408 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £492
Median % change year-on-year - +1.57% -5.79%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £625
90th Percentile £674 £704 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £475 £474
% change year-on-year +7.89% +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 21,745 15,591 18,093
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.20% 47.53% 43.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,504 9,536 11,354
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £403 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,091 765 1,013
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.75 £12.82
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £34.87 £25.15 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.65% -3.27% -37.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.98 £22.41 £25.00
% change year-on-year +51.65% -10.37% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -55 402 £488 -2.50% 86
UK excluding London -76 252 £513 +7.89% 65
London -40 160 £488 -18.07% 32
Work from Home -65 126 £520 -4.68% 36
North of England -54 93 £514 +14.22% 13
South East -53 54 £425 -20.93% 15
Yorkshire -32 46 £563 +12.50% 4
North West -46 46 £459 +10.60% 6
South West -15 36 £426 -29.00% 15
Midlands -54 27 £413 -6.14% 8
Scotland -24 25 £550 +10.94% 5
West Midlands -60 23 £406 -13.10% 5
East of England -13 13 £575 +4.55% 8
Wales -14 4 £600 -5.14% 3
East Midlands -26 3 - - 3
North East -38 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 (7.72%) WebSphere
2 32 (6.68%) Confluence
3 29 (6.05%) CICS
4 19 (3.97%) Tomcat
5 17 (3.55%) nginx
6 16 (3.34%) SharePoint
7 9 (1.88%) WebLogic
8 8 (1.67%) JBoss
9 7 (1.46%) Apache
10 5 (1.04%) SAS
10 5 (1.04%) WebSphere Application Server
11 4 (0.84%) Apache Spark
11 4 (0.84%) Camunda
11 4 (0.84%) IIS
12 3 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
12 3 (0.63%) CMS
13 2 (0.42%) IBM HTTP Server
13 2 (0.42%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.42%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 5 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.42%) PlantUML
3 2 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 20 (4.18%) Maximo
2 10 (2.09%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 9 (1.88%) Temenos T24
4 6 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.04%) Cognos Controller
6 3 (0.63%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 3 (0.63%) SAP R/3
7 2 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.42%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.21%) HFM
8 1 (0.21%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.21%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.21%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.21%) SAP AFS
8 1 (0.21%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 65 (13.57%) AWS
2 54 (11.27%) Azure
3 26 (5.43%) GitHub
4 15 (3.13%) GitHub Copilot
4 15 (3.13%) OpenShift
5 13 (2.71%) ChatGPT
6 11 (2.30%) Anthropic Claude
6 11 (2.30%) GCP
7 10 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (1.88%) Amazon S3
8 9 (1.88%) IBM Watson
9 7 (1.46%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (1.46%) Vertex AI
10 6 (1.25%) Azure AI
11 5 (1.04%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (1.04%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
12 4 (0.84%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.84%) IBM Blueworks
12 4 (0.84%) MinIO
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.80%) Firewall
2 20 (4.18%) SSL
3 17 (3.55%) HTTP
3 17 (3.55%) SNMP
4 9 (1.88%) SAN
5 8 (1.67%) DNS
6 7 (1.46%) Network Security
6 7 (1.46%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.25%) VSAN
7 6 (1.25%) Wireshark
8 5 (1.04%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.84%) Cisco Nexus
9 4 (0.84%) LAN
9 4 (0.84%) NAS
9 4 (0.84%) WAN
10 3 (0.63%) MPLS
10 3 (0.63%) SSH
11 2 (0.42%) APPN
11 2 (0.42%) Multicast
11 2 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (10.44%) Db2
2 32 (6.68%) DataStage
3 30 (6.26%) Relational Database
4 21 (4.38%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.13%) Metadata
6 14 (2.92%) MongoDB
7 13 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (2.71%) Oracle Database
8 12 (2.51%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
10 9 (1.88%) NoSQL
11 8 (1.67%) Big Data
11 8 (1.67%) GIS
12 5 (1.04%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
13 3 (0.63%) Apache Hive
13 3 (0.63%) BusinessObjects
13 3 (0.63%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 2 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
14 2 (0.42%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 45 (9.39%) JIRA
2 41 (8.56%) Rational DOORS
3 23 (4.80%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.76%) GitLab
5 15 (3.13%) Git
6 8 (1.67%) Rational Rhapsody
7 7 (1.46%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.04%) Ant
8 5 (1.04%) Liquibase
8 5 (1.04%) PowerDesigner
9 4 (0.84%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.84%) Gradle
9 4 (0.84%) JMeter
9 4 (0.84%) JUnit
9 4 (0.84%) Maven
9 4 (0.84%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.84%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.63%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.63%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.42%) Artifactory
General
1 146 (30.48%) Finance
2 112 (23.38%) Social Skills
3 97 (20.25%) Banking
4 52 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (7.52%) Public Sector
6 31 (6.47%) Legal
7 30 (6.26%) Aerospace
8 14 (2.92%) Retail
9 12 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.09%) Military
11 9 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.67%) Front Office
13 7 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.46%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.04%) Law
15 4 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.84%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.42%) Advertising
16 2 (0.42%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 63 (13.15%) Developer
2 59 (12.32%) Architect
3 45 (9.39%) Analyst
4 33 (6.89%) Senior
5 29 (6.05%) Administrator
6 26 (5.43%) Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.43%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.43%) Product Manager
7 22 (4.59%) Consultant
8 21 (4.38%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 21 (4.38%) Systems Manager
9 19 (3.97%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (3.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 17 (3.55%) Lead
12 16 (3.34%) Designer
12 16 (3.34%) Middleware Engineer
13 14 (2.92%) Data Engineer
14 13 (2.71%) Management Consultant
15 12 (2.51%) Software Engineer
15 12 (2.51%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (13.78%) Middleware
2 39 (8.14%) REST
3 24 (5.01%) ISPF
4 23 (4.80%) JSON
5 22 (4.59%) XML
6 18 (3.76%) Kafka
7 17 (3.55%) Spring Boot
8 15 (3.13%) Spring
9 14 (2.92%) Flash
10 13 (2.71%) RabbitMQ
11 11 (2.30%) SOAP
12 10 (2.09%) Jakarta EE
13 9 (1.88%) WebSphere MQ
14 8 (1.67%) EJB
14 8 (1.67%) JDBC
14 8 (1.67%) PyTorch
14 8 (1.67%) Web Services
15 7 (1.46%) JSP
15 7 (1.46%) LangChain
15 7 (1.46%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 104 (21.71%) Mainframe
2 38 (7.93%) Data Centre
3 33 (6.89%) Clustering
4 32 (6.68%) Data Structures
5 30 (6.26%) Product Ownership
6 20 (4.18%) Replication
7 18 (3.76%) Linux Command Line
8 17 (3.55%) Cloud Native
9 16 (3.34%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (3.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 15 (3.13%) VSAM
11 13 (2.71%) IBM Mainframe
11 13 (2.71%) Legacy Applications
12 12 (2.51%) Management Information System
13 11 (2.30%) AS400
14 10 (2.09%) BYOD
14 10 (2.09%) Equity Derivative
14 10 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
15 9 (1.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 107 (22.34%) Linux
2 72 (15.03%) zOS
3 56 (11.69%) Unix
4 54 (11.27%) Windows
5 43 (8.98%) AIX
6 25 (5.22%) Solaris
7 24 (5.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (4.18%) Windows Server
9 13 (2.71%) Windows Server 2008
10 11 (2.30%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (1.67%) SUSE
12 7 (1.46%) MVS
12 7 (1.46%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.21%) Android
14 1 (0.21%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.21%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.21%) VMS
14 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (19.42%) Agile
2 73 (15.24%) CI/CD
3 63 (13.15%) Migration
4 61 (12.73%) DevOps
5 57 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 54 (11.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 50 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
7 50 (10.44%) Roadmaps
8 49 (10.23%) ETL
9 48 (10.02%) ITIL
9 48 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
10 43 (8.98%) Test Automation
11 41 (8.56%) Computer Science
12 37 (7.72%) Systems Engineering
13 36 (7.52%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 35 (7.31%) AI
14 35 (7.31%) Change Management
14 35 (7.31%) Configuration Management
15 33 (6.89%) Scrum
15 33 (6.89%) UML
Programming Languages
1 96 (20.04%) SQL
2 83 (17.33%) Python
3 70 (14.61%) Java
4 39 (8.14%) PowerShell
5 25 (5.22%) Bash
6 21 (4.38%) JCL
6 21 (4.38%) PL/SQL
7 20 (4.18%) COBOL
8 17 (3.55%) REXX
9 14 (2.92%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (2.71%) C++
11 12 (2.51%) Shell Script
12 11 (2.30%) JavaScript
13 10 (2.09%) C
14 8 (1.67%) C#
15 7 (1.46%) Ada
15 7 (1.46%) Assembly Language
15 7 (1.46%) CLIST
15 7 (1.46%) Perl
16 5 (1.04%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 127 (26.51%) Security Cleared
2 83 (17.33%) SC Cleared
3 50 (10.44%) Degree
4 12 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.67%) CISSP
7 7 (1.46%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.25%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.04%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.04%) CISM
9 5 (1.04%) IBM Certification
9 5 (1.04%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 4 (0.84%) CCSP
10 4 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.63%) CEH
11 3 (0.63%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.63%) PMP
12 2 (0.42%) CISMP
12 2 (0.42%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (7.10%) Data Quality
2 14 (2.92%) QA
3 8 (1.67%) GDPR
3 8 (1.67%) SLA
4 6 (1.25%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.04%) NIST
5 5 (1.04%) SEPA
6 4 (0.84%) GRC
6 4 (0.84%) ISO 15022
6 4 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.42%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.42%) GAAP
7 2 (0.42%) IFRS
7 2 (0.42%) NCSC
8 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 1 (0.21%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.21%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.21%) PMO
8 1 (0.21%) TARGET2
8 1 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (7.10%) Docker
2 26 (5.43%) RACF
2 26 (5.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.97%) VMware ESXi
4 18 (3.76%) NFS
5 16 (3.34%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (2.71%) GPFS
7 12 (2.51%) Time Sharing Option
8 10 (2.09%) vSphere
9 9 (1.88%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (1.67%) Firmware
11 7 (1.46%) Hyper-V
12 6 (1.25%) ACF2
12 6 (1.25%) KVM
13 3 (0.63%) Active Directory
13 3 (0.63%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.63%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.42%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 2 (0.42%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 2 (0.42%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 28 (5.85%) Ansible
2 23 (4.80%) OMEGAMON
3 21 (4.38%) Tivoli
4 19 (3.97%) Terraform
5 17 (3.55%) Nagios
5 17 (3.55%) ZABBIX
6 16 (3.34%) Kubernetes
6 16 (3.34%) Netcool
7 14 (2.92%) OpenView
7 14 (2.92%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 11 (2.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 9 (1.88%) vRealize
10 8 (1.67%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.25%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.25%) vCenter Server
11 6 (1.25%) VxRail
12 5 (1.04%) Grafana
12 5 (1.04%) Tivoli NetView
13 4 (0.84%) CA Endevor
14 3 (0.63%) QRadar
Vendors
1 88 (18.37%) Oracle
2 45 (9.39%) VMware
3 36 (7.52%) Microsoft
4 30 (6.26%) Splunk
5 27 (5.64%) SAP
6 26 (5.43%) Red Hat
7 24 (5.01%) Cisco
8 22 (4.59%) HP
8 22 (4.59%) ServiceNow
9 20 (4.18%) BMC
10 16 (3.34%) SolarWinds
11 15 (3.13%) Broadcom
12 14 (2.92%) Dell
13 13 (2.71%) Brocade
13 13 (2.71%) MathWorks
14 12 (2.51%) Google
14 12 (2.51%) Sybase
15 9 (1.88%) Cognos
15 9 (1.88%) Temenos
16 8 (1.67%) Siemens