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 30 January 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
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 225 208
Rank change year-on-year -67 -17 +101
Contract jobs citing IBM 341 344 498
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 1.09% 1.12%
As % of the Vendors category 1.93% 2.37% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 168 310
10th Percentile £306 £320 £406
25th Percentile £396 £413 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.80% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £572 £611 £650
90th Percentile £688 £678 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £446 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 21 21
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £51.25 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.75% -34.03% +64.01%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £46.18 £70.00
% change year-on-year +51.58% -34.03% +68.16%

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 17,656 14,524 19,490
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.67% 46.18% 43.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,356 8,591 12,291
10th Percentile £300 £284 £251
25th Percentile £410 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.33%
75th Percentile £612 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 837 426 884
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.75 £30.25
Median % change year-on-year -14.14% -8.26% +5.22%
75th Percentile £51.25 £61.31 £59.95
90th Percentile £73.00 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £25.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -14.16% -16.67% +20.00%

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 30 January 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 30 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IBM in the UK

IBM
Top 15 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 30 January 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 -65 298 £475 -5.00% 82
UK excluding London -40 191 £446 -0.89% 64
London -48 108 £500 -4.99% 30
Work from Home -15 104 £492 -1.60% 42
North of England -63 54 £452 +9.45% 15
Midlands -23 49 £400 -13.04% 4
West Midlands -4 48 £400 -12.09% 4
North West -15 39 £450 +18.11% 12
East of England +2 29 £425 - 10
South East -47 25 £525 +24.26% 20
South West -31 21 £700 +16.67% 13
Scotland +5 16 £440 -2.33% 5
Yorkshire -62 15 £475 -1.04% 3
Wales -2 1 - -
East Midlands -32 1 £837 +74.27%

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 23 (6.74%) WebSphere
2 21 (6.16%) Confluence
3 15 (4.40%) Apache
4 12 (3.52%) JBoss
4 12 (3.52%) WebSphere Application Server
5 11 (3.23%) IIS
6 10 (2.93%) CICS
6 10 (2.93%) iPlanet
6 10 (2.93%) MQSeries
6 10 (2.93%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 8 (2.35%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.35%) WebLogic
8 6 (1.76%) ArcGIS
9 5 (1.47%) nginx
9 5 (1.47%) Tomcat
10 4 (1.17%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.88%) SAS
12 2 (0.59%) FileNet
Applications
1 9 (2.64%) MS Visio
2 7 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 29 (8.50%) Maximo
2 9 (2.64%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (2.05%) BusinessWorks
4 4 (1.17%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.88%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.88%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.88%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.88%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.88%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.59%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.29%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.29%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.29%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 94 (27.57%) AWS
2 60 (17.60%) Azure
3 27 (7.92%) OpenShift
4 14 (4.11%) Datadog
4 14 (4.11%) GCP
5 13 (3.81%) AWS CloudFormation
6 12 (3.52%) AWS Lambda
6 12 (3.52%) Serverless
7 11 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.64%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.64%) SaaS
9 8 (2.35%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 8 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (2.35%) OCI
10 7 (2.05%) IBM Watson
10 7 (2.05%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (1.17%) IBM Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.69%) HTTPS
2 15 (4.40%) VSAN
3 13 (3.81%) VPN
4 12 (3.52%) SAN
5 10 (2.93%) Kerberos
6 8 (2.35%) HTTP
6 8 (2.35%) SSH
7 7 (2.05%) Fibre Channel
8 6 (1.76%) iSCSI
8 6 (1.76%) NAS
8 6 (1.76%) TCP/IP
9 5 (1.47%) LAN
9 5 (1.47%) SNA
9 5 (1.47%) WAN
10 4 (1.17%) APPN
10 4 (1.17%) DWDM
10 4 (1.17%) Network Security
11 3 (0.88%) Firewall
11 3 (0.88%) Multicast
12 2 (0.59%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.33%) DB2
2 24 (7.04%) Oracle Database
2 24 (7.04%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.81%) Oracle Reports
3 13 (3.81%) Relational Database
4 12 (3.52%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (3.23%) DataStage
5 11 (3.23%) NoSQL
6 10 (2.93%) GIS
6 10 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (2.05%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (2.05%) Amazon Redshift
8 6 (1.76%) Couchbase
8 6 (1.76%) Power BI
9 5 (1.47%) Big Data
9 5 (1.47%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.47%) IBM InfoSphere
9 5 (1.47%) Metadata
10 4 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (1.17%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 40 (11.73%) JIRA
2 24 (7.04%) Git
3 19 (5.57%) Jenkins
3 19 (5.57%) Rational DOORS
4 10 (2.93%) Bitbucket Server
4 10 (2.93%) CA Release Automation
4 10 (2.93%) GitLab
5 9 (2.64%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (2.35%) PVCS
7 6 (1.76%) SoapUI
8 4 (1.17%) Ant
8 4 (1.17%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.17%) ERwin
8 4 (1.17%) JUnit
9 3 (0.88%) IBM UrbanCode
10 2 (0.59%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.59%) Selenium
11 1 (0.29%) ClearCase
11 1 (0.29%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.29%) Toad
General
1 91 (26.69%) Finance
2 81 (23.75%) Social Skills
3 52 (15.25%) Banking
4 35 (10.26%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (7.33%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.28%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.93%) Presentation Skills
8 9 (2.64%) Electronics
9 8 (2.35%) Private Banking
10 7 (2.05%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.76%) Aviation
12 5 (1.47%) Law
12 5 (1.47%) Retail
12 5 (1.47%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.17%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.17%) Legal
14 3 (0.88%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.88%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.59%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 62 (18.18%) Analyst
1 62 (18.18%) Developer
2 30 (8.80%) Architect
3 24 (7.04%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 22 (6.45%) Senior
5 19 (5.57%) Data Engineer
5 19 (5.57%) Solutions Architect
5 19 (5.57%) Storage Analyst
6 17 (4.99%) Software Engineer
7 13 (3.81%) DevOps Engineer
7 13 (3.81%) Lead
8 12 (3.52%) Platform Engineer
8 12 (3.52%) webMethods Developer
9 9 (2.64%) Consultant
9 9 (2.64%) Storage Engineer
10 8 (2.35%) Azure Engineer
10 8 (2.35%) C++ Software Engineer
10 8 (2.35%) Programmer
10 8 (2.35%) Systems Programmer
10 8 (2.35%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (11.73%) XML
2 28 (8.21%) Kafka
3 22 (6.45%) SOAP
4 21 (6.16%) JMS
5 20 (5.87%) Flash
6 19 (5.57%) Middleware
7 18 (5.28%) JSON
8 14 (4.11%) OAuth
9 13 (3.81%) XSLT
10 11 (3.23%) LDAP
10 11 (3.23%) OpenID
11 10 (2.93%) SAML
12 9 (2.64%) ARM Templates
12 9 (2.64%) REST
12 9 (2.64%) Web Services
13 8 (2.35%) XSD
14 7 (2.05%) J2EE
14 7 (2.05%) OC4J
14 7 (2.05%) TIBCO EMS
14 7 (2.05%) WSDL
Miscellaneous
1 39 (11.44%) Mainframe
2 35 (10.26%) Linux Command Line
3 34 (9.97%) Replication
4 22 (6.45%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (3.81%) Data Centre
6 11 (3.23%) AS400
7 10 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (2.35%) Algorithms
8 8 (2.35%) DataPower
8 8 (2.35%) Tandem
9 7 (2.05%) Enterprise Storage
9 7 (2.05%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.76%) IBM Mainframe
10 6 (1.76%) iSeries
10 6 (1.76%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.76%) VSAM
11 5 (1.47%) CMDB
11 5 (1.47%) Product Ownership
11 5 (1.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 80 (23.46%) Linux
2 52 (15.25%) Windows
3 37 (10.85%) Unix
4 30 (8.80%) zOS
5 16 (4.69%) Windows Server
6 15 (4.40%) AIX
7 10 (2.93%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (2.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (2.05%) Windows 10
9 7 (2.05%) Windows 7
9 7 (2.05%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (1.47%) Solaris
11 4 (1.17%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.59%) VMS
14 1 (0.29%) MVS
14 1 (0.29%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.29%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (21.99%) Agile
2 58 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (14.08%) DevOps
4 47 (13.78%) CI/CD
4 47 (13.78%) Migration
5 44 (12.90%) Stakeholder Management
6 32 (9.38%) ITIL
7 29 (8.50%) Performance Tuning
8 28 (8.21%) Asset Management
9 27 (7.92%) Analytics
9 27 (7.92%) ETL
10 25 (7.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 22 (6.45%) Data Modelling
11 22 (6.45%) Test Automation
12 21 (6.16%) High Availability
12 21 (6.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 21 (6.16%) Workflow
13 20 (5.87%) Continuous Improvement
14 19 (5.57%) Software Engineering
14 19 (5.57%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 60 (17.60%) SQL
2 43 (12.61%) Python
3 36 (10.56%) Java
4 22 (6.45%) Shell Script
5 16 (4.69%) JCL
6 15 (4.40%) PL/SQL
7 14 (4.11%) REXX
8 13 (3.81%) C
9 11 (3.23%) Groovy
10 10 (2.93%) C++
10 10 (2.93%) JavaScript
11 9 (2.64%) CLIST
11 9 (2.64%) COBOL
12 8 (2.35%) Bicep
12 8 (2.35%) RPG
13 7 (2.05%) Assembly Language
13 7 (2.05%) Embedded C
13 7 (2.05%) Embedded C++
13 7 (2.05%) Korn
13 7 (2.05%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 72 (21.11%) Security Cleared
2 47 (13.78%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.92%) Degree
4 16 (4.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (4.40%) Azure Certification
6 13 (3.81%) AWS Certification
6 13 (3.81%) DV Cleared
7 12 (3.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (3.23%) CISM
8 11 (3.23%) CISSP
9 9 (2.64%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (2.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 7 (2.05%) IBM Certification
11 7 (2.05%) Master's Degree
12 5 (1.47%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 4 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (1.17%) PMI Certification
13 4 (1.17%) PMP
14 3 (0.88%) ISTQB
14 3 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.69%) QA
2 13 (3.81%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (2.64%) NIST
4 9 (2.64%) SLA
5 8 (2.35%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.17%) Basel III
6 4 (1.17%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.17%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.17%) SEPA
7 3 (0.88%) GDPR
8 2 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 1 (0.29%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.29%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.29%) IFRS
9 1 (0.29%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.29%) MISRA
9 1 (0.29%) MISRA C
System Software
1 43 (12.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (9.09%) vSphere
3 25 (7.33%) NFS
4 21 (6.16%) GPFS
4 21 (6.16%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (5.28%) Docker
6 12 (3.52%) Active Directory
6 12 (3.52%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (3.23%) RACF
8 8 (2.35%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 7 (2.05%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 4 (1.17%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.88%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.88%) KVM
11 3 (0.88%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.59%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.29%) Firmware
13 1 (0.29%) SRDF
13 1 (0.29%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.29%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (8.80%) vRealize
2 29 (8.50%) Terraform
3 22 (6.45%) Kubernetes
4 18 (5.28%) Ansible
5 14 (4.11%) VxRail
6 10 (2.93%) CA Single Sign-On
6 10 (2.93%) CA Wily
7 9 (2.64%) Progress Chef
8 8 (2.35%) Control-M
8 8 (2.35%) Tivoli
9 7 (2.05%) TIBCO Hawk
10 6 (1.76%) OMEGAMON
11 5 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (1.47%) Tivoli NetView
11 5 (1.47%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 4 (1.17%) IBM BigFix
12 4 (1.17%) QRadar
13 3 (0.88%) zSecure
14 2 (0.59%) Argo
14 2 (0.59%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 82 (24.05%) Oracle
2 48 (14.08%) Microsoft
2 48 (14.08%) VMware
3 46 (13.49%) Cisco
4 35 (10.26%) ServiceNow
5 24 (7.04%) AppDynamics
6 21 (6.16%) Dell
6 21 (6.16%) SAP
7 18 (5.28%) HP
8 16 (4.69%) Broadcom
9 15 (4.40%) Red Hat
9 15 (4.40%) Splunk
10 14 (4.11%) Commvault
10 14 (4.11%) Google
10 14 (4.11%) SolarWinds
11 13 (3.81%) Software AG
11 13 (3.81%) webMethods
12 11 (3.23%) EMC
13 10 (2.93%) Cognos
14 9 (2.64%) Citrix