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 March 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
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 283 249 236
Rank change year-on-year -34 -13 +60
Contract jobs citing IBM 389 313 460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.05% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.09% 2.24% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 178 276
10th Percentile £312 £320 £400
25th Percentile £376 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £650
90th Percentile £688 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £463 £495
% change year-on-year -8.11% -6.47% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 17 28
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £59.69 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +154.55% -60.71% +20.16%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £27.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +201.82% -60.71% +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 18,594 13,977 19,301
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.03% 46.97% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,922 8,686 12,040
10th Percentile £306 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 936 453 1,031
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.38
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +19.57% -29.23%

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 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -41 342 £473 -5.26% 113
UK excluding London -22 219 £425 -8.11% 93
London -36 126 £500 -2.44% 33
Work from Home -21 119 £472 -4.16% 47
North of England -45 62 £475 +11.76% 18
Midlands -29 49 £397 -16.45% 11
West Midlands -25 46 £394 -15.78% 6
North West -6 45 £469 +23.10% 12
South East -38 43 £500 +107.26% 36
East of England -16 26 £318 -31.14% 9
South West -22 25 £375 -37.50% 13
Scotland +12 17 £488 -4.88% 5
Yorkshire -60 16 £487 +1.46% 5
East Midlands -31 3 £837 +74.27% 5
Wales -7 1 - - 2
North East -18 1 £375 -10.45% 1

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 (5.91%) WebSphere
2 19 (4.88%) Confluence
3 16 (4.11%) CICS
4 12 (3.08%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.83%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 8 (2.06%) nginx
6 8 (2.06%) SharePoint
6 8 (2.06%) Tomcat
7 7 (1.80%) MQSeries
8 6 (1.54%) Apache
9 5 (1.29%) ArcGIS
10 4 (1.03%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.77%) CMS
11 3 (0.77%) IIS
11 3 (0.77%) JBoss
11 3 (0.77%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.51%) iPlanet
12 2 (0.51%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.57%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.51%) PlantUML
5 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.26%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.46%) Maximo
2 9 (2.31%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.80%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.77%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.77%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP R/3
5 3 (0.77%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.26%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.26%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.26%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 95 (24.42%) AWS
2 71 (18.25%) Azure
3 17 (4.37%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.60%) Datadog
5 12 (3.08%) GCP
6 11 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
6 11 (2.83%) IBM Watson
6 11 (2.83%) Serverless
7 10 (2.57%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
8 9 (2.31%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.31%) SaaS
9 8 (2.06%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.80%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.54%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.54%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.37%) VSAN
2 15 (3.86%) SAN
3 14 (3.60%) Firewall
4 11 (2.83%) HTTPS
5 10 (2.57%) HTTP
6 9 (2.31%) VPN
7 8 (2.06%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (1.80%) NAS
8 7 (1.80%) SSH
9 5 (1.29%) iSCSI
9 5 (1.29%) SNA
9 5 (1.29%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.03%) APPN
10 4 (1.03%) DWDM
11 3 (0.77%) SNMP
12 2 (0.51%) DNS
12 2 (0.51%) MPLS
12 2 (0.51%) Multicast
12 2 (0.51%) Network Security
12 2 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.20%) DB2
2 24 (6.17%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.88%) DataStage
4 18 (4.63%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.34%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (3.08%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.57%) GIS
8 8 (2.06%) Big Data
9 7 (1.80%) NoSQL
10 6 (1.54%) IBM InfoSphere
10 6 (1.54%) Power BI
11 5 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (1.29%) DynamoDB
11 5 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (1.03%) Apache Hive
12 4 (1.03%) Metadata
12 4 (1.03%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 40 (10.28%) JIRA
1 40 (10.28%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (4.63%) Git
3 11 (2.83%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.57%) GitLab
5 8 (2.06%) Ant
5 8 (2.06%) PVCS
6 7 (1.80%) SoapUI
7 5 (1.29%) IBM UrbanCode
7 5 (1.29%) JUnit
8 4 (1.03%) ERwin
8 4 (1.03%) PowerDesigner
9 3 (0.77%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.77%) Liquibase
10 2 (0.51%) Bitbucket Server
10 2 (0.51%) CA Release Automation
10 2 (0.51%) Selenium
10 2 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 95 (24.42%) Finance
2 93 (23.91%) Social Skills
3 47 (12.08%) Banking
4 35 (9.00%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.74%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (5.66%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.86%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.31%) Electronics
9 9 (2.31%) Retail
10 8 (2.06%) Financial Institution
10 8 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.54%) Aviation
11 6 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.29%) Law
12 5 (1.29%) Legal
12 5 (1.29%) Private Banking
12 5 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.03%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.03%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 66 (16.97%) Analyst
2 48 (12.34%) Developer
3 43 (11.05%) Architect
4 26 (6.68%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 23 (5.91%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (5.91%) Storage Analyst
6 21 (5.40%) Senior
7 19 (4.88%) Delivery Manager
8 18 (4.63%) Product Delivery Manager
8 18 (4.63%) Product Manager
9 17 (4.37%) Data Engineer
10 16 (4.11%) Software Engineer
10 16 (4.11%) Systems Manager
11 15 (3.86%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 14 (3.60%) Lead
13 12 (3.08%) Consultant
14 11 (2.83%) Administrator
14 11 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
15 9 (2.31%) Azure Engineer
16 8 (2.06%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (8.23%) XML
2 30 (7.71%) Middleware
3 26 (6.68%) Kafka
4 20 (5.14%) Flash
4 20 (5.14%) SOAP
5 16 (4.11%) JMS
5 16 (4.11%) JSON
6 14 (3.60%) REST
6 14 (3.60%) XSLT
7 10 (2.57%) Web Services
8 8 (2.06%) ARM Templates
8 8 (2.06%) J2EE
8 8 (2.06%) OAuth
8 8 (2.06%) WSDL
8 8 (2.06%) XSD
9 7 (1.80%) OC4J
9 7 (1.80%) scikit-learn
9 7 (1.80%) TIBCO EMS
10 6 (1.54%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (1.54%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 55 (14.14%) Mainframe
2 39 (10.03%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (7.46%) Replication
4 26 (6.68%) Data Centre
5 22 (5.66%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (5.40%) Data Structures
7 20 (5.14%) Product Ownership
8 15 (3.86%) VSAM
9 10 (2.57%) DataPower
9 10 (2.57%) Hybrid Cloud
10 9 (2.31%) Algorithms
10 9 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
11 8 (2.06%) AS400
11 8 (2.06%) BYOD
11 8 (2.06%) Cloud Native
11 8 (2.06%) Management Information System
12 7 (1.80%) Clustering
12 7 (1.80%) Enterprise Storage
12 7 (1.80%) Legacy Applications
12 7 (1.80%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 86 (22.11%) Linux
2 51 (13.11%) Windows
3 44 (11.31%) Unix
4 36 (9.25%) zOS
5 33 (8.48%) AIX
6 18 (4.63%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.86%) Solaris
8 12 (3.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (3.08%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.80%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.80%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.26%) Android
10 1 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.26%) MVS
10 1 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (24.42%) Agile
2 56 (14.40%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (13.88%) Migration
4 47 (12.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 46 (11.83%) CI/CD
6 44 (11.31%) DevOps
7 39 (10.03%) Continuous Improvement
7 39 (10.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 37 (9.51%) Roadmaps
9 34 (8.74%) Computer Science
10 32 (8.23%) ITIL
11 30 (7.71%) UML
12 28 (7.20%) Asset Management
12 28 (7.20%) ETL
12 28 (7.20%) Performance Tuning
13 27 (6.94%) Analytics
14 25 (6.43%) Change Control
14 25 (6.43%) Data Modelling
14 25 (6.43%) Requirements Management
15 24 (6.17%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 69 (17.74%) SQL
2 50 (12.85%) Python
3 39 (10.03%) Java
4 18 (4.63%) PL/SQL
5 16 (4.11%) JCL
5 16 (4.11%) PowerShell
6 15 (3.86%) COBOL
6 15 (3.86%) REXX
7 12 (3.08%) C
7 12 (3.08%) Shell Script
8 11 (2.83%) Bash
9 9 (2.31%) Bicep
9 9 (2.31%) C++
9 9 (2.31%) CLIST
9 9 (2.31%) Perl
10 8 (2.06%) XPath
11 7 (1.80%) Assembly Language
11 7 (1.80%) Embedded C
11 7 (1.80%) Embedded C++
11 7 (1.80%) Korn
Qualifications
1 104 (26.74%) Security Cleared
2 58 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.80%) Degree
4 17 (4.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.86%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.08%) DV Cleared
8 11 (2.83%) CISM
8 11 (2.83%) CISSP
9 8 (2.06%) AWS Certification
9 8 (2.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.80%) IBM Certification
10 7 (1.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 7 (1.80%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.29%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.03%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.03%) PMP
13 3 (0.77%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.37%) Data Quality
1 17 (4.37%) QA
2 11 (2.83%) SLA
3 10 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (2.31%) NIST
5 7 (1.80%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.03%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.03%) SEPA
7 2 (0.51%) GDPR
7 2 (0.51%) GRC
7 2 (0.51%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.51%) NCSC
7 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.26%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (11.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.46%) vSphere
3 24 (6.17%) NFS
4 22 (5.66%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (5.40%) GPFS
6 16 (4.11%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (3.86%) Docker
8 10 (2.57%) RACF
9 6 (1.54%) Firmware
9 6 (1.54%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.54%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 6 (1.54%) KVM
10 4 (1.03%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (1.03%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.77%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.51%) Active Directory
12 2 (0.51%) PowerHA
12 2 (0.51%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 1 (0.26%) Lustre
13 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 30 (7.71%) Terraform
2 29 (7.46%) vRealize
3 21 (5.40%) Kubernetes
4 20 (5.14%) Ansible
5 16 (4.11%) VxRail
6 8 (2.06%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.80%) TIBCO Hawk
8 6 (1.54%) Control-M
8 6 (1.54%) OMEGAMON
8 6 (1.54%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.54%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.54%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.29%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.03%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.03%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.77%) Grafana
11 3 (0.77%) Nagios
11 3 (0.77%) Netcool
11 3 (0.77%) QRadar
11 3 (0.77%) zSecure
Vendors
1 74 (19.02%) Oracle
2 56 (14.40%) VMware
3 45 (11.57%) Cisco
4 37 (9.51%) ServiceNow
5 30 (7.71%) Microsoft
6 24 (6.17%) Dell
6 24 (6.17%) HP
7 23 (5.91%) SAP
8 17 (4.37%) SolarWinds
9 16 (4.11%) AppDynamics
10 15 (3.86%) Google
10 15 (3.86%) Red Hat
11 14 (3.60%) Commvault
12 10 (2.57%) BMC
12 10 (2.57%) EMC
12 10 (2.57%) Splunk
13 8 (2.06%) ANSYS
13 8 (2.06%) Broadcom
13 8 (2.06%) Citrix
13 8 (2.06%) Software AG