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 23 November 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
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 267 204 228
Rank change year-on-year -63 +24 +57
Contract jobs citing IBM 366 417 514
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.02% 1.13% 1.11%
As % of the Vendors category 2.15% 2.51% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 194 306
10th Percentile £316 £277 £400
25th Percentile £402 £400 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.04% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £626 £600 £650
90th Percentile £720 £675 £773
UK excluding London median daily rate £471 £450 £525
% change year-on-year +4.67% -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 26 16
10th Percentile £25.04 £24.18 -
25th Percentile £25.15 £46.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.67% -9.64% +30.82%
75th Percentile £72.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £63.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year +10.67% -9.64% +34.58%

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 17,000 16,606 21,092
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.58% 44.95% 45.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,713 9,773 13,503
10th Percentile £286 £300 £258
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.45%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £717 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 879 533 682
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.49 £14.66
25th Percentile £18.36 £19.59 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.41 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.31% -31.66% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.63 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -38.20% +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 23 November 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 23 November 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 23 November 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 -43 320 £485 +1.04% 131
UK excluding London -30 217 £471 +4.67% 109
Work from Home +13 119 £550 +10.55% 61
London -30 104 £525 +5.00% 35
North of England -20 69 £450 -6.25% 15
North West +9 54 £450 +25.00% 12
Midlands -2 52 £420 -4.55% 14
West Midlands +8 42 £445 +3.49% 9
South East -31 38 £556 +24.30% 44
East of England -5 23 £450 +5.88% 23
Scotland -4 18 £450 - 3
South West -33 16 £633 +5.42% 23
Yorkshire -48 15 £473 -21.24% 3
East Midlands -9 10 £415 -13.54% 5
Northern Ireland - 4 £350 - 1
Wales -3 1 £633 +201.19%

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 36 (9.84%) WebSphere
2 26 (7.10%) Confluence
3 21 (5.74%) Apache
4 17 (4.64%) WebSphere Application Server
5 16 (4.37%) CICS
6 15 (4.10%) IIS
6 15 (4.10%) JBoss
7 13 (3.55%) SharePoint
8 11 (3.01%) ArcGIS
8 11 (3.01%) MQSeries
9 10 (2.73%) iPlanet
10 7 (1.91%) WebLogic
11 6 (1.64%) SAS
12 5 (1.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (1.09%) FileNet
14 3 (0.82%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.55%) nginx
16 1 (0.27%) Anypoint
16 1 (0.27%) IBM Transformation Extender
Applications
1 12 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.91%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 44 (12.02%) Maximo
2 5 (1.37%) BusinessWorks
3 4 (1.09%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 3 (0.82%) Oracle 11i
4 3 (0.82%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.82%) SAP PM
4 3 (0.82%) SAP PP
4 3 (0.82%) SAP QM
4 3 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.82%) SAP WM
5 2 (0.55%) 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%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
6 1 (0.27%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 94 (25.68%) AWS
2 57 (15.57%) Azure
3 28 (7.65%) GCP
4 22 (6.01%) OpenShift
5 13 (3.55%) Serverless
6 12 (3.28%) AWS CloudFormation
6 12 (3.28%) AWS Lambda
7 11 (3.01%) IBM Cloud
8 10 (2.73%) Datadog
9 9 (2.46%) Amazon ECS
9 9 (2.46%) Amazon S3
9 9 (2.46%) GitHub
10 8 (2.19%) OCI
11 7 (1.91%) Azure API Management
11 7 (1.91%) Power Platform
11 7 (1.91%) SaaS
12 6 (1.64%) PaaS
13 5 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
14 4 (1.09%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.55%) SSH
2 12 (3.28%) HTTPS
3 11 (3.01%) VSAN
4 10 (2.73%) Kerberos
5 8 (2.19%) SAN
5 8 (2.19%) SSL
6 7 (1.91%) Firewall
6 7 (1.91%) VPN
7 4 (1.09%) HTTP
7 4 (1.09%) LAN
7 4 (1.09%) Network Security
7 4 (1.09%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.82%) SNA
8 3 (0.82%) WAN
9 2 (0.55%) APPN
9 2 (0.55%) Calico
9 2 (0.55%) DNS
9 2 (0.55%) DWDM
9 2 (0.55%) SDH
10 1 (0.27%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.74%) DB2
2 25 (6.83%) SQL Server
3 23 (6.28%) Oracle Database
4 20 (5.46%) Relational Database
5 18 (4.92%) Amazon RDS
6 15 (4.10%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (2.46%) DataStage
8 9 (2.46%) GIS
9 8 (2.19%) Amazon Athena
9 8 (2.19%) NoSQL
10 6 (1.64%) Amazon Redshift
10 6 (1.64%) Couchbase
10 6 (1.64%) Metadata
10 6 (1.64%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (1.37%) DynamoDB
11 5 (1.37%) IBM InfoSphere
12 4 (1.09%) Power BI
13 3 (0.82%) Cognos Framework Manager
13 3 (0.82%) Cognos Report Studio
Development Applications
1 40 (10.93%) JIRA
2 26 (7.10%) Git
3 25 (6.83%) Jenkins
4 20 (5.46%) GitLab
5 16 (4.37%) Rational DOORS
6 10 (2.73%) Bitbucket Server
6 10 (2.73%) CA Release Automation
7 9 (2.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (1.37%) Bitbucket
8 5 (1.37%) ERwin
8 5 (1.37%) SoapUI
9 4 (1.09%) JUnit
9 4 (1.09%) Rational Rhapsody
9 4 (1.09%) Selenium
10 3 (0.82%) Ant
10 3 (0.82%) IBM UrbanCode
10 3 (0.82%) Log4j
10 3 (0.82%) Maven
10 3 (0.82%) PVCS
10 3 (0.82%) Visual Studio
General
1 104 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 81 (22.13%) Finance
3 54 (14.75%) Banking
4 39 (10.66%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (6.28%) Public Sector
6 16 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (3.83%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (3.01%) Aerospace
9 8 (2.19%) Financial Institution
9 8 (2.19%) Private Banking
10 5 (1.37%) Electronics
10 5 (1.37%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.09%) International Banking
11 4 (1.09%) Law
12 3 (0.82%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.82%) Legal
12 3 (0.82%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.82%) Police
13 2 (0.55%) German Language
Job Titles
1 67 (18.31%) Developer
2 56 (15.30%) Analyst
3 43 (11.75%) Architect
4 31 (8.47%) Consultant
5 29 (7.92%) Solutions Architect
6 21 (5.74%) Senior
7 19 (5.19%) Platform Engineer
8 16 (4.37%) Lead
9 15 (4.10%) Infrastructure Analyst
9 15 (4.10%) Management Consultant
10 13 (3.55%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.28%) webMethods Developer
12 11 (3.01%) Programmer
13 10 (2.73%) Software Engineer
14 9 (2.46%) DevOps Engineer
14 9 (2.46%) Maximo Architect
14 9 (2.46%) Maximo Consultant
14 9 (2.46%) Storage Analyst
15 8 (2.19%) Administrator
15 8 (2.19%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (10.38%) XML
2 29 (7.92%) Kafka
3 27 (7.38%) OAuth
4 24 (6.56%) SOAP
5 22 (6.01%) JSON
5 22 (6.01%) LDAP
6 21 (5.74%) SAML
7 20 (5.46%) JMS
7 20 (5.46%) OpenID
8 17 (4.64%) Middleware
9 15 (4.10%) Spring
10 13 (3.55%) Web Services
11 12 (3.28%) ISPF
12 10 (2.73%) Flash
12 10 (2.73%) REST
13 9 (2.46%) Hibernate
13 9 (2.46%) XSLT
14 7 (1.91%) EDI
15 6 (1.64%) WSDL
15 6 (1.64%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 44 (12.02%) Mainframe
2 26 (7.10%) Replication
3 25 (6.83%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (5.46%) Linux Command Line
5 16 (4.37%) IBM Mainframe
6 14 (3.83%) Data Centre
7 13 (3.55%) AS400
7 13 (3.55%) Cloud Native
7 13 (3.55%) Tandem
8 10 (2.73%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (2.19%) DataPower
9 8 (2.19%) VSAM
10 6 (1.64%) CMDB
10 6 (1.64%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.64%) PKI
10 6 (1.64%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 5 (1.37%) Clustering
11 5 (1.37%) Legacy Applications
12 4 (1.09%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 74 (20.22%) Linux
2 64 (17.49%) Windows
3 41 (11.20%) Unix
4 25 (6.83%) zOS
5 16 (4.37%) Windows Server
6 10 (2.73%) AIX
7 7 (1.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (1.64%) Windows 10
8 6 (1.64%) Windows 7
8 6 (1.64%) Windows Server 2003
8 6 (1.64%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.82%) MVS
10 2 (0.55%) Android
10 2 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.55%) CentOS
10 2 (0.55%) OS/2
10 2 (0.55%) Solaris
10 2 (0.55%) VMS
11 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (18.85%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (18.03%) Agile
3 59 (16.12%) Migration
4 57 (15.57%) DevOps
5 54 (14.75%) CI/CD
6 46 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
7 35 (9.56%) Asset Management
8 34 (9.29%) Incident Response
9 30 (8.20%) Computer Science
9 30 (8.20%) Containerisation
10 29 (7.92%) ITIL
11 26 (7.10%) Data Protection
11 26 (7.10%) High Availability
11 26 (7.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 25 (6.83%) Performance Tuning
13 24 (6.56%) Continuous Improvement
14 22 (6.01%) Roadmaps
15 21 (5.74%) Platform Engineering
15 21 (5.74%) Test Automation
16 20 (5.46%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 53 (14.48%) SQL
2 47 (12.84%) Python
3 41 (11.20%) Java
4 25 (6.83%) Shell Script
5 19 (5.19%) JCL
6 17 (4.64%) JavaScript
6 17 (4.64%) REXX
7 15 (4.10%) CLIST
8 10 (2.73%) Groovy
8 10 (2.73%) RPG
9 9 (2.46%) COBOL
10 8 (2.19%) C++
10 8 (2.19%) PowerShell
11 7 (1.91%) Perl
11 7 (1.91%) PL/SQL
12 6 (1.64%) Assembly Language
12 6 (1.64%) Bash
12 6 (1.64%) C
12 6 (1.64%) Korn
12 6 (1.64%) XPath
Qualifications
1 79 (21.58%) Security Cleared
2 59 (16.12%) SC Cleared
3 36 (9.84%) Degree
4 28 (7.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (4.92%) AWS Certification
6 9 (2.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 9 (2.46%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.19%) CISSP
8 7 (1.91%) Azure Certification
8 7 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (1.64%) CISM
9 6 (1.64%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (0.82%) GCIH
12 3 (0.82%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.82%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.82%) PMP
12 3 (0.82%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.64%) QA
2 12 (3.28%) GDPR
3 9 (2.46%) HIPAA
4 7 (1.91%) Data Quality
5 5 (1.37%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.37%) SEPA
6 4 (1.09%) NIST
6 4 (1.09%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.09%) SLA
7 3 (0.82%) Basel III
7 3 (0.82%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.55%) MISRA
8 2 (0.55%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.27%) GRC
9 1 (0.27%) IFRS
9 1 (0.27%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.27%) MiFID
System Software
1 26 (7.10%) Docker
1 26 (7.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (5.74%) vSphere
3 15 (4.10%) Active Directory
4 13 (3.55%) Time Sharing Option
5 12 (3.28%) GPFS
5 12 (3.28%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (3.01%) NFS
7 9 (2.46%) RACF
8 8 (2.19%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 6 (1.64%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 6 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.82%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.27%) KVM
11 1 (0.27%) SRDF
11 1 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.27%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.27%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (8.20%) Kubernetes
2 24 (6.56%) Terraform
3 19 (5.19%) vRealize
4 13 (3.55%) OMEGAMON
5 11 (3.01%) Ansible
5 11 (3.01%) Progress Chef
5 11 (3.01%) Tivoli
6 10 (2.73%) CA Single Sign-On
6 10 (2.73%) CA Wily
7 9 (2.46%) CA Endevor
7 9 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (2.46%) VxRail
8 8 (2.19%) Tivoli Identity Manager
8 8 (2.19%) Tivoli NetView
9 6 (1.64%) Control-M
9 6 (1.64%) QRadar
10 5 (1.37%) TIBCO Hawk
10 5 (1.37%) Tivoli Storage Manager
11 3 (0.82%) NetBackup
11 3 (0.82%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 70 (19.13%) Oracle
2 61 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 32 (8.74%) VMware
4 28 (7.65%) Cisco
5 23 (6.28%) ServiceNow
6 20 (5.46%) AppDynamics
6 20 (5.46%) Splunk
7 18 (4.92%) HP
7 18 (4.92%) SAP
8 16 (4.37%) Dell
9 13 (3.55%) Broadcom
10 12 (3.28%) Citrix
10 12 (3.28%) Red Hat
10 12 (3.28%) Software AG
10 12 (3.28%) webMethods
11 11 (3.01%) Cognos
11 11 (3.01%) Google
12 10 (2.73%) Commvault
12 10 (2.73%) SolarWinds
13 8 (2.19%) TIBCO