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 6 October 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
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 247 212
Rank change year-on-year -27 -35 +17
Contract jobs citing IBM 528 359 436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.09% 1.16%
As % of the Vendors category 2.32% 2.30% 2.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 239 207
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £425 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +11.58% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £649 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £730
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 27
10th Percentile £28.82 £25.04 £46.18
25th Percentile £57.50 £25.12 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.33 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.29% -38.78% +3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.75 £70.00
90th Percentile - £73.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.75 £63.75 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -5.56% +3.85%

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 22,723 15,631 16,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.58% 47.63% 44.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,722 9,617 9,871
10th Percentile £310 £277 £288
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £619 £613 £625
90th Percentile £710 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,380 806 615
10th Percentile £13.93 £14.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.35 £17.81 £16.00
Median hourly rate £25.04 £25.15 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.45% -20.17% -26.74%
75th Percentile £57.50 £40.19 £64.30
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.19 £21.30 £30.00
% change year-on-year +13.57% -29.00% -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 6 October 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 6 October 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 6 October 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 -34 451 £500 -8.47% 402
UK excluding London -70 247 £500 +5.26% 274
London +1 207 £505 -18.22% 152
Work from Home -62 126 £547 -8.83% 239
North of England -46 99 £514 +13.84% 68
Yorkshire +6 63 £514 +8.77% 29
South East -59 35 £460 -16.36% 47
North West -67 34 £537 +19.33% 31
Scotland -15 30 £575 +33.10% 29
Midlands -53 30 £500 +13.77% 48
West Midlands -45 27 £500 -13.04% 19
South West -26 26 £550 -8.33% 35
East of England -17 25 £625 +13.64% 28
Wales -13 3 £600 -5.14% 12
East Midlands -22 2 - - 29
North East - 1 £475 - 8

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 38 (7.20%) Confluence
2 36 (6.82%) WebSphere
3 24 (4.55%) CICS
4 18 (3.41%) SharePoint
5 15 (2.84%) Tomcat
6 13 (2.46%) nginx
7 10 (1.89%) Camunda
8 9 (1.70%) WebLogic
9 8 (1.52%) Apache
9 8 (1.52%) SAS
10 7 (1.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (1.14%) JBoss
11 6 (1.14%) WebSphere Application Server
12 5 (0.95%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 3 (0.57%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.57%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.57%) IIS
13 3 (0.57%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 3 (0.57%) WebLogic Portal
13 3 (0.57%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 12 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.33%) Windchill
3 2 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 32 (6.06%) Maximo
2 18 (3.41%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.52%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.76%) Cognos Controller
4 4 (0.76%) Temenos T24
5 3 (0.57%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
6 1 (0.19%) Actimize
6 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.19%) HFM
6 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 89 (16.86%) Azure
2 82 (15.53%) AWS
3 40 (7.58%) GCP
4 36 (6.82%) GitHub
5 23 (4.36%) OpenShift
6 13 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (2.46%) GitHub Copilot
7 12 (2.27%) Anthropic Claude
8 11 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.89%) ChatGPT
9 10 (1.89%) IBM Watson
9 10 (1.89%) Power Platform
10 9 (1.70%) Azure Service Bus
10 9 (1.70%) Boomi
10 9 (1.70%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.70%) iPaaS
11 8 (1.52%) Microsoft Copilot
12 7 (1.33%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.33%) IBM Blueworks
13 6 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 24 (4.55%) HTTP
2 21 (3.98%) SSL
3 12 (2.27%) SAN
4 9 (1.70%) Network Security
5 8 (1.52%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.33%) Firewall
7 6 (1.14%) DNS
7 6 (1.14%) Internet
7 6 (1.14%) SSH
7 6 (1.14%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.95%) SNMP
8 5 (0.95%) VSAN
9 4 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (0.76%) NAS
10 3 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.57%) iSCSI
11 2 (0.38%) BGP
11 2 (0.38%) DMZ
11 2 (0.38%) OSPF
11 2 (0.38%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (9.66%) Db2
2 34 (6.44%) Relational Database
3 30 (5.68%) SQL Server
4 29 (5.49%) DataStage
5 20 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (3.60%) Oracle Database
7 16 (3.03%) MongoDB
8 12 (2.27%) Metadata
9 10 (1.89%) Tableau
10 9 (1.70%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
11 8 (1.52%) NoSQL
11 8 (1.52%) Power BI
12 7 (1.33%) GIS
13 5 (0.95%) Big Data
14 4 (0.76%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.76%) IBM InfoSphere
15 3 (0.57%) BigQuery
15 3 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 3 (0.57%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 63 (11.93%) JIRA
2 45 (8.52%) Jenkins
3 34 (6.44%) Git
4 24 (4.55%) GitLab
5 22 (4.17%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.60%) JMeter
7 16 (3.03%) LoadRunner
7 16 (3.03%) SonarQube
8 15 (2.84%) Postman
8 15 (2.84%) SoapUI
9 12 (2.27%) Gradle
10 11 (2.08%) IBM UrbanCode
11 10 (1.89%) eggPlant
11 10 (1.89%) JUnit
11 10 (1.89%) Maven
11 10 (1.89%) REST Assured
11 10 (1.89%) Selenium
11 10 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (1.70%) Mockito
12 9 (1.70%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 201 (38.07%) Finance
2 138 (26.14%) Social Skills
3 137 (25.95%) Banking
4 73 (13.83%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (4.92%) Legal
6 21 (3.98%) Retail
7 19 (3.60%) Public Sector
8 17 (3.22%) Manufacturing
9 11 (2.08%) Military
10 10 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.33%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.33%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.33%) Spanish Language
13 6 (1.14%) Front Office
14 5 (0.95%) Law
15 4 (0.76%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
15 4 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
16 2 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 86 (16.29%) Developer
2 56 (10.61%) Architect
3 50 (9.47%) Analyst
4 43 (8.14%) Senior
5 37 (7.01%) Lead
6 27 (5.11%) Solutions Architect
7 26 (4.92%) Administrator
8 21 (3.98%) Consultant
8 21 (3.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 18 (3.41%) Automation Engineer
10 17 (3.22%) Java Developer
11 16 (3.03%) DataStage Developer
11 16 (3.03%) Middleware Engineer
12 15 (2.84%) Applications Support
12 15 (2.84%) Business Analyst
13 14 (2.65%) CICS Engineer
14 13 (2.46%) Applications Manager
14 13 (2.46%) Applications Support Manager
14 13 (2.46%) Programmer
14 13 (2.46%) Support Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (17.61%) Middleware
2 61 (11.55%) Kafka
3 46 (8.71%) XML
4 45 (8.52%) REST
5 40 (7.58%) JSON
6 30 (5.68%) SOAP
7 29 (5.49%) Spring Boot
8 28 (5.30%) ISPF
9 21 (3.98%) HTML
9 21 (3.98%) Spring
10 17 (3.22%) .NET
11 16 (3.03%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (2.84%) Terraform
13 14 (2.65%) OAuth
14 13 (2.46%) SAML
14 13 (2.46%) Web Services
15 12 (2.27%) GraphQL
15 12 (2.27%) Swagger
16 11 (2.08%) JWT
16 11 (2.08%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 109 (20.64%) Mainframe
2 29 (5.49%) Clustering
3 25 (4.73%) Replication
4 24 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
5 22 (4.17%) Data Centre
6 21 (3.98%) Cloud Native
7 20 (3.79%) AS400
8 19 (3.60%) Hybrid Cloud
9 16 (3.03%) Distributed Systems
10 15 (2.84%) Data Structures
10 15 (2.84%) Onboarding
11 14 (2.65%) iSeries
12 13 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
13 12 (2.27%) Legacy Applications
13 12 (2.27%) Product Ownership
14 11 (2.08%) IBM Mainframe
14 11 (2.08%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 10 (1.89%) Management Information System
16 8 (1.52%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 90 (17.05%) Linux
2 84 (15.91%) zOS
3 56 (10.61%) Unix
4 31 (5.87%) Windows
5 19 (3.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (2.84%) AIX
7 9 (1.70%) SUSE
7 9 (1.70%) Windows Server
8 7 (1.33%) MVS
8 7 (1.33%) Solaris
9 5 (0.95%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (18.75%) CI/CD
2 92 (17.42%) Agile
3 87 (16.48%) Migration
4 86 (16.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 69 (13.07%) DevOps
6 68 (12.88%) Test Automation
7 66 (12.50%) ITIL
8 65 (12.31%) Problem-Solving
9 61 (11.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 52 (9.85%) Validation
11 50 (9.47%) Performance Tuning
12 47 (8.90%) ETL
13 45 (8.52%) Change Management
13 45 (8.52%) Roadmaps
13 45 (8.52%) Root Cause Analysis
14 42 (7.95%) Scrum
14 42 (7.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 41 (7.77%) AI
16 39 (7.39%) Performance Optimisation
17 35 (6.63%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 113 (21.40%) SQL
2 92 (17.42%) Python
3 86 (16.29%) Java
4 46 (8.71%) JavaScript
5 26 (4.92%) JCL
6 21 (3.98%) PL/SQL
7 20 (3.79%) Shell Script
8 19 (3.60%) PowerShell
9 18 (3.41%) Bash
10 17 (3.22%) REXX
11 16 (3.03%) COBOL
12 15 (2.84%) C++
13 14 (2.65%) C#
14 11 (2.08%) C
15 9 (1.70%) Perl
16 8 (1.52%) TypeScript
17 7 (1.33%) Assembly Language
17 7 (1.33%) CLIST
17 7 (1.33%) RPG
18 4 (0.76%) Ada
Qualifications
1 100 (18.94%) Security Cleared
2 80 (15.15%) SC Cleared
3 46 (8.71%) Degree
4 26 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.33%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.33%) CISSP
7 6 (1.14%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.14%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.14%) PMI Certification
7 6 (1.14%) PMP
8 4 (0.76%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.57%) ACCA
9 3 (0.57%) CIMA
9 3 (0.57%) ISEB
9 3 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.38%) IBM Certification
10 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.25%) Data Quality
2 15 (2.84%) QA
3 10 (1.89%) ISO 20022
4 8 (1.52%) ISO 15022
5 7 (1.33%) NIST
6 5 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.95%) GDPR
6 5 (0.95%) SLA
7 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 19770
7 3 (0.57%) PMO
7 3 (0.57%) SEPA
8 2 (0.38%) GAAP
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) IFRS
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 43 (8.14%) Docker
2 30 (5.68%) RACF
3 20 (3.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.84%) NFS
5 14 (2.65%) Time Sharing Option
6 12 (2.27%) GPFS
7 11 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (1.89%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (1.70%) vSphere
10 8 (1.52%) Firmware
11 7 (1.33%) ACF2
12 6 (1.14%) Active Directory
13 4 (0.76%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.76%) PowerHA
14 1 (0.19%) DFS Replication
14 1 (0.19%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
14 1 (0.19%) KVM
14 1 (0.19%) RHEV
14 1 (0.19%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 39 (7.39%) Kubernetes
2 28 (5.30%) Ansible
3 25 (4.73%) OMEGAMON
4 16 (3.03%) Tivoli
5 11 (2.08%) Grafana
5 11 (2.08%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 9 (1.70%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (1.52%) Control-M
8 7 (1.33%) Netcool
9 6 (1.14%) HP Fortify
9 6 (1.14%) vRealize
10 5 (0.95%) Nagios
10 5 (0.95%) QRadar
10 5 (0.95%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.76%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.76%) Tivoli NetView
11 4 (0.76%) VxRail
12 3 (0.57%) HP ALM
12 3 (0.57%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 116 (21.97%) Oracle
2 63 (11.93%) Microsoft
3 40 (7.58%) SAP
4 32 (6.06%) Google
5 29 (5.49%) VMware
6 28 (5.30%) ServiceNow
7 25 (4.73%) Splunk
8 20 (3.79%) Red Hat
9 19 (3.60%) Broadcom
10 18 (3.41%) Cisco
10 18 (3.41%) Dynatrace
11 15 (2.84%) Siemens
12 13 (2.46%) Cognos
12 13 (2.46%) Databricks
13 12 (2.27%) Dell
13 12 (2.27%) EMC
14 11 (2.08%) Informatica
14 11 (2.08%) New Relic
14 11 (2.08%) Sybase
14 11 (2.08%) TIBCO