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 9 December 2025, 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
9 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 256 220 215
Rank change year-on-year -36 -5 +83
Contract jobs citing IBM 374 410 511
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.15% 1.12%
As % of the Vendors category 2.18% 2.53% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 196 305
10th Percentile £313 £300 £402
25th Percentile £400 £409 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £489 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.81% -11.14% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £650
90th Percentile £720 £680 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £450 £525
% change year-on-year +4.84% -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 25 17
10th Percentile £25.05 - £63.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £62.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -10.71% +37.23%
75th Percentile £71.75 £68.75 -
90th Percentile £74.75 £69.50 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £62.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +12.00% -10.71% +40.00%

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 17,187 16,208 20,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.37% 45.39% 45.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,917 9,626 13,106
10th Percentile £290 £290 £255
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £612 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 864 500 679
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.46 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.09 £18.69 £19.88
Median hourly rate £24.00 £29.39 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.33% -33.97% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.35 £62.51 £64.70
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +97.78%

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 9 December 2025.

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 9 December 2025.

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 9 December 2025. 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 -42 326 £475 -2.81% 276
UK excluding London -30 218 £472 +4.84% 261
Work from Home +1 123 £550 +10.00% 78
London -50 108 £500 - 49
North of England -27 72 £450 -6.25% 45
Midlands -3 54 £415 -5.68% 44
North West +9 53 £450 +20.00% 25
West Midlands +6 47 £429 -0.29% 26
South East -45 35 £550 +23.60% 86
East of England +1 25 £463 +8.82% 47
Yorkshire -53 19 £473 -21.24% 19
Scotland +6 18 £440 -2.28% 16
South West -40 13 £666 +11.04% 36
East Midlands -19 7 £415 -13.54% 16
Northern Ireland - 4 £350 -
Wales 0 1 £633 +201.19% 5

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 30 (8.02%) WebSphere
2 28 (7.49%) Confluence
3 21 (5.61%) Apache
4 19 (5.08%) CICS
5 15 (4.01%) IIS
5 15 (4.01%) JBoss
6 13 (3.48%) SharePoint
6 13 (3.48%) WebSphere Application Server
7 11 (2.94%) ArcGIS
8 10 (2.67%) iPlanet
8 10 (2.67%) MQSeries
9 7 (1.87%) WebLogic
10 6 (1.60%) SAS
11 5 (1.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (1.07%) FileNet
13 3 (0.80%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.53%) nginx
15 1 (0.27%) IBM Transformation Extender
Applications
1 12 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.41%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 43 (11.50%) Maximo
2 5 (1.34%) BusinessWorks
2 5 (1.34%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 4 (1.07%) Oracle 11i
4 3 (0.80%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.80%) SAP PM
4 3 (0.80%) SAP PP
4 3 (0.80%) SAP QM
4 3 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.80%) SAP WM
5 2 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.27%) Algo Collateral
6 1 (0.27%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.27%) Cognos Controller
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.27%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.27%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.27%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
6 1 (0.27%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 93 (24.87%) AWS
2 57 (15.24%) Azure
3 23 (6.15%) OpenShift
4 21 (5.61%) GCP
5 14 (3.74%) Datadog
6 12 (3.21%) AWS CloudFormation
6 12 (3.21%) AWS Lambda
6 12 (3.21%) Serverless
7 9 (2.41%) Azure API Management
8 8 (2.14%) OCI
8 8 (2.14%) Power Platform
9 7 (1.87%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 6 (1.60%) PaaS
10 6 (1.60%) SaaS
11 5 (1.34%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (1.34%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.34%) GitHub
11 5 (1.34%) IBM Cloud
12 4 (1.07%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.74%) VSAN
2 13 (3.48%) SSH
3 12 (3.21%) HTTPS
3 12 (3.21%) SAN
4 10 (2.67%) Kerberos
5 7 (1.87%) Firewall
5 7 (1.87%) VPN
6 5 (1.34%) Fibre Channel
6 5 (1.34%) HTTP
6 5 (1.34%) iSCSI
6 5 (1.34%) NAS
6 5 (1.34%) SSL
7 4 (1.07%) Network Security
7 4 (1.07%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.80%) LAN
8 3 (0.80%) SNA
8 3 (0.80%) WAN
9 2 (0.53%) DNS
9 2 (0.53%) DWDM
9 2 (0.53%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (8.82%) DB2
2 23 (6.15%) Oracle Database
3 22 (5.88%) SQL Server
4 16 (4.28%) Relational Database
5 15 (4.01%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
7 11 (2.94%) DataStage
8 9 (2.41%) GIS
9 8 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
9 8 (2.14%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.87%) Amazon Redshift
11 6 (1.60%) Couchbase
11 6 (1.60%) IBM InfoSphere
11 6 (1.60%) Metadata
11 6 (1.60%) Oracle Reports
12 5 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
12 5 (1.34%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.34%) Power BI
13 4 (1.07%) Oracle Database 10g
14 3 (0.80%) Cognos Report Studio
Development Applications
1 42 (11.23%) JIRA
2 24 (6.42%) Git
3 20 (5.35%) Jenkins
4 17 (4.55%) Rational DOORS
5 15 (4.01%) GitLab
6 10 (2.67%) Bitbucket Server
6 10 (2.67%) CA Release Automation
7 9 (2.41%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (1.60%) SoapUI
9 5 (1.34%) Bitbucket
9 5 (1.34%) ERwin
10 4 (1.07%) Ant
10 4 (1.07%) JUnit
10 4 (1.07%) PVCS
10 4 (1.07%) Rational Rhapsody
10 4 (1.07%) Selenium
11 3 (0.80%) IBM UrbanCode
12 2 (0.53%) GCC
12 2 (0.53%) PowerDesigner
12 2 (0.53%) Toad
General
1 102 (27.27%) Social Skills
2 86 (22.99%) Finance
3 57 (15.24%) Banking
4 33 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (6.15%) Public Sector
6 17 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (4.01%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.14%) Aerospace
8 8 (2.14%) Financial Institution
8 8 (2.14%) Private Banking
9 6 (1.60%) Electronics
10 4 (1.07%) International Banking
10 4 (1.07%) Law
11 3 (0.80%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.80%) Legal
11 3 (0.80%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.80%) Police
11 3 (0.80%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 67 (17.91%) Developer
2 63 (16.84%) Analyst
3 43 (11.50%) Architect
4 30 (8.02%) Consultant
5 28 (7.49%) Solutions Architect
6 21 (5.61%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 21 (5.61%) Senior
7 15 (4.01%) Management Consultant
7 15 (4.01%) Platform Engineer
8 13 (3.48%) Data Engineer
9 12 (3.21%) Lead
9 12 (3.21%) Storage Analyst
9 12 (3.21%) webMethods Developer
10 11 (2.94%) Programmer
10 11 (2.94%) Software Engineer
11 9 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
11 9 (2.41%) Maximo Architect
11 9 (2.41%) Maximo Consultant
12 8 (2.14%) Administrator
13 7 (1.87%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.70%) XML
2 29 (7.75%) Kafka
3 26 (6.95%) SOAP
4 22 (5.88%) OAuth
5 20 (5.35%) JSON
6 19 (5.08%) Middleware
7 17 (4.55%) JMS
7 17 (4.55%) OpenID
8 16 (4.28%) LDAP
9 15 (4.01%) SAML
10 14 (3.74%) Web Services
11 13 (3.48%) ISPF
12 12 (3.21%) Flash
12 12 (3.21%) XSLT
13 11 (2.94%) Spring
14 9 (2.41%) REST
15 8 (2.14%) EDI
16 6 (1.60%) Hibernate
16 6 (1.60%) WSDL
16 6 (1.60%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 53 (14.17%) Mainframe
2 32 (8.56%) Replication
3 26 (6.95%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (6.95%) Linux Command Line
4 16 (4.28%) Data Centre
4 16 (4.28%) IBM Mainframe
5 15 (4.01%) AS400
6 13 (3.48%) Tandem
7 11 (2.94%) VSAM
8 9 (2.41%) Cloud Native
8 9 (2.41%) DataPower
9 7 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.87%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.60%) CMDB
10 6 (1.60%) Enterprise Storage
10 6 (1.60%) iSeries
10 6 (1.60%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.60%) PKI
10 6 (1.60%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 74 (19.79%) Linux
2 66 (17.65%) Windows
3 42 (11.23%) Unix
4 34 (9.09%) zOS
5 17 (4.55%) Windows Server
6 12 (3.21%) AIX
7 6 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (1.60%) Windows 10
7 6 (1.60%) Windows 7
7 6 (1.60%) Windows Server 2003
7 6 (1.60%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.80%) MVS
9 2 (0.53%) OS/2
9 2 (0.53%) Solaris
9 2 (0.53%) VMS
10 1 (0.27%) CentOS
10 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.27%) VME
10 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (19.25%) Agile
2 63 (16.84%) Problem-Solving
3 61 (16.31%) Migration
4 54 (14.44%) DevOps
5 49 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 46 (12.30%) CI/CD
7 36 (9.63%) Asset Management
8 35 (9.36%) Incident Response
9 30 (8.02%) Performance Tuning
10 29 (7.75%) High Availability
10 29 (7.75%) ITIL
11 28 (7.49%) Computer Science
12 27 (7.22%) Data Protection
13 26 (6.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 25 (6.68%) Containerisation
15 23 (6.15%) Roadmaps
16 21 (5.61%) Change Management
16 21 (5.61%) Project Delivery
17 20 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
17 20 (5.35%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 55 (14.71%) SQL
2 47 (12.57%) Python
3 39 (10.43%) Java
4 24 (6.42%) JCL
5 23 (6.15%) Shell Script
6 22 (5.88%) REXX
7 17 (4.55%) CLIST
8 16 (4.28%) JavaScript
9 12 (3.21%) COBOL
10 11 (2.94%) Groovy
11 9 (2.41%) Assembly Language
11 9 (2.41%) Perl
11 9 (2.41%) PL/SQL
11 9 (2.41%) PowerShell
11 9 (2.41%) RPG
12 8 (2.14%) C++
12 8 (2.14%) Korn
13 6 (1.60%) Bash
13 6 (1.60%) C
13 6 (1.60%) XPath
Qualifications
1 78 (20.86%) Security Cleared
2 57 (15.24%) SC Cleared
3 36 (9.63%) Degree
4 26 (6.95%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (3.74%) AWS Certification
6 11 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.14%) CISSP
7 8 (2.14%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.60%) Azure Certification
8 6 (1.60%) CISM
9 5 (1.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 5 (1.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.80%) GCIH
11 3 (0.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 3 (0.80%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.80%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.80%) PMP
11 3 (0.80%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.55%) QA
2 9 (2.41%) GDPR
3 7 (1.87%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.60%) HIPAA
5 5 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.34%) SLA
6 4 (1.07%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.07%) NIST
6 4 (1.07%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.07%) SEPA
7 3 (0.80%) Basel III
7 3 (0.80%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.53%) MISRA
8 2 (0.53%) MISRA C
9 1 (0.27%) GRC
9 1 (0.27%) IFRS
9 1 (0.27%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.27%) MiFID
System Software
1 32 (8.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 26 (6.95%) vSphere
3 18 (4.81%) Docker
4 17 (4.55%) NFS
5 15 (4.01%) Active Directory
6 14 (3.74%) GPFS
7 13 (3.48%) Time Sharing Option
7 13 (3.48%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (2.94%) RACF
9 8 (2.14%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 6 (1.60%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 6 (1.60%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.27%) KVM
11 1 (0.27%) SRDF
11 1 (0.27%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 1 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.27%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.27%) Xen
Systems Management
1 26 (6.95%) Kubernetes
2 25 (6.68%) vRealize
3 24 (6.42%) Terraform
4 15 (4.01%) OMEGAMON
5 14 (3.74%) Ansible
6 13 (3.48%) VxRail
7 11 (2.94%) Progress Chef
8 10 (2.67%) CA Single Sign-On
8 10 (2.67%) CA Wily
9 9 (2.41%) CA Endevor
9 9 (2.41%) Tivoli
10 8 (2.14%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.60%) Control-M
11 6 (1.60%) QRadar
11 6 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.60%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 5 (1.34%) TIBCO Hawk
12 5 (1.34%) Tivoli Identity Manager
13 3 (0.80%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.80%) zSecure
Vendors
1 69 (18.45%) Oracle
2 58 (15.51%) Microsoft
3 38 (10.16%) VMware
4 34 (9.09%) Cisco
5 27 (7.22%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.42%) AppDynamics
7 22 (5.88%) HP
8 19 (5.08%) Dell
9 18 (4.81%) SAP
10 14 (3.74%) Commvault
10 14 (3.74%) SolarWinds
10 14 (3.74%) Splunk
11 13 (3.48%) Broadcom
12 12 (3.21%) Citrix
12 12 (3.21%) Software AG
12 12 (3.21%) webMethods
13 11 (2.94%) Google
14 10 (2.67%) Cognos
15 9 (2.41%) Red Hat
16 7 (1.87%) ESRI