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 17 September 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
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 245 214 229
Rank change year-on-year -31 +15 +36
Contract jobs citing IBM 365 440 545
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.11% 1.15% 1.10%
As % of the Vendors category 2.35% 2.60% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 206 334
10th Percentile £357 £340 £400
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +14.74% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £649 £600 £650
90th Percentile £695 £738 £774
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £525
% change year-on-year +5.56% -14.29% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 32 7
10th Percentile £25.04 £28.92 £59.25
25th Percentile £25.12 £61.25 £63.13
Median hourly rate £41.33 £70.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.96% +7.69% +18.18%
75th Percentile £71.75 - -
90th Percentile £73.25 - £71.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.75 £70.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.93% +7.69% +18.18%

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 15,556 16,900 22,051
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.23% 44.19% 44.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,537 10,137 14,284
10th Percentile £275 £285 £263
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -0.94%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £731 £737
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 796 677 655
10th Percentile £14.72 £14.26 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.45 £15.62 £18.63
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -16.17% -31.56% +83.33%
75th Percentile £43.75 £63.75 £64.45
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £30.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -29.07% -27.71% +107.50%

IBM
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing IBM as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for IBM 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -15 308 £550 +15.79% 279
UK excluding London -19 211 £475 +5.56% 231
Work from Home 0 118 £629 +34.13% 119
London -5 114 £600 +20.00% 86
North of England +7 71 £453 -21.22% 43
North West +14 50 £453 -8.02% 32
Midlands +1 40 £440 +17.51% 44
South East -21 34 £550 +29.41% 67
Scotland +2 28 £452 -1.53% 9
West Midlands -4 24 £575 +53.74% 28
Yorkshire -25 21 £473 -17.81% 9
East of England +3 16 £550 +10.00% 33
East Midlands +1 16 £415 - 14
South West -13 15 £600 +10.60% 31
Northern Ireland - 5 £350 - 2
Wales +7 3 £633 +153.00% 5

IBM
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 41 (11.23%) WebSphere
2 24 (6.58%) Apache
3 22 (6.03%) Confluence
4 21 (5.75%) WebSphere Application Server
5 20 (5.48%) IIS
6 19 (5.21%) JBoss
7 16 (4.38%) CICS
8 10 (2.74%) iPlanet
9 9 (2.47%) SharePoint
10 8 (2.19%) MQSeries
11 7 (1.92%) SAS
11 7 (1.92%) WebLogic
12 6 (1.64%) ArcGIS
13 4 (1.10%) FileNet
13 4 (1.10%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.82%) nginx
14 3 (0.82%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 2 (0.55%) BizTalk Server
16 1 (0.27%) CMS
16 1 (0.27%) HCL Domino
Applications
1 9 (2.47%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.64%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.37%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.82%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 30 (8.22%) Maximo
2 3 (0.82%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 3 (0.82%) Oracle 11i
3 2 (0.55%) Cloudability
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 2 (0.55%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.27%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 85 (23.29%) AWS
2 51 (13.97%) Azure
3 36 (9.86%) GCP
4 24 (6.58%) OpenShift
5 12 (3.29%) Amazon S3
6 11 (3.01%) GitHub
6 11 (3.01%) IBM Cloud
7 10 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
7 10 (2.74%) SaaS
8 9 (2.47%) Amazon ECS
8 9 (2.47%) Serverless
9 8 (2.19%) OCI
9 8 (2.19%) PaaS
10 7 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (1.64%) Azure API Management
11 6 (1.64%) IaaS
12 5 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
12 5 (1.37%) Power Platform
12 5 (1.37%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.82%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.01%) SSL
2 10 (2.74%) Kerberos
3 8 (2.19%) SSH
4 7 (1.92%) HTTPS
4 7 (1.92%) SAN
5 6 (1.64%) Firewall
6 5 (1.37%) HTTP
6 5 (1.37%) LAN
6 5 (1.37%) VPN
7 4 (1.10%) Network Security
7 4 (1.10%) SMS
8 3 (0.82%) WAN
9 2 (0.55%) Calico
9 2 (0.55%) DNS
9 2 (0.55%) Fibre Channel
9 2 (0.55%) Internet
9 2 (0.55%) iSCSI
9 2 (0.55%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.55%) VLAN
10 1 (0.27%) FCoE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (11.51%) DB2
2 29 (7.95%) SQL Server
3 20 (5.48%) Amazon RDS
3 20 (5.48%) Oracle Database
4 19 (5.21%) Relational Database
5 13 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (2.47%) Amazon Athena
8 8 (2.19%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.92%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.64%) IBM InfoSphere
10 6 (1.64%) MongoDB
11 5 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (1.37%) Couchbase
11 5 (1.37%) DataStage
12 4 (1.10%) GIS
12 4 (1.10%) OLAP
13 3 (0.82%) Hadoop
13 3 (0.82%) MySQL
13 3 (0.82%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 35 (9.59%) JIRA
2 26 (7.12%) Jenkins
3 20 (5.48%) Git
4 18 (4.93%) GitLab
5 10 (2.74%) Bitbucket Server
5 10 (2.74%) CA Release Automation
6 9 (2.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (1.37%) Bitbucket
7 5 (1.37%) IBM UrbanCode
7 5 (1.37%) JUnit
7 5 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
8 4 (1.10%) Ant
8 4 (1.10%) Rational Rhapsody
8 4 (1.10%) Toad
8 4 (1.10%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.82%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.82%) Log4j
9 3 (0.82%) Maven
9 3 (0.82%) Selenium
9 3 (0.82%) SoapUI
General
1 100 (27.40%) Social Skills
2 85 (23.29%) Finance
3 58 (15.89%) Banking
4 54 (14.79%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (5.21%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.56%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (3.01%) Aerospace
8 10 (2.74%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.37%) Private Banking
11 4 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.82%) Electronics
12 3 (0.82%) Front Office
12 3 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.82%) International Banking
12 3 (0.82%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.82%) Legal
12 3 (0.82%) Retail
12 3 (0.82%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.55%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 65 (17.81%) Consultant
2 52 (14.25%) Developer
3 44 (12.05%) Architect
4 34 (9.32%) Senior
5 24 (6.58%) Analyst
6 23 (6.30%) Solutions Architect
7 18 (4.93%) Platform Engineer
8 15 (4.11%) Management Consultant
9 14 (3.84%) Administrator
9 14 (3.84%) Senior Consultant
10 13 (3.56%) Infrastructure Architect
10 13 (3.56%) Software Consultant
11 12 (3.29%) Infrastructure Consultant
11 12 (3.29%) Maximo Consultant
11 12 (3.29%) Senior Infrastructure Consultant
12 10 (2.74%) Lead
12 10 (2.74%) Software Engineer
13 9 (2.47%) DevOps Engineer
13 9 (2.47%) Maximo Architect
14 8 (2.19%) Infrastructure Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.59%) OAuth
2 30 (8.22%) Kafka
3 28 (7.67%) EntireX
3 28 (7.67%) LDAP
3 28 (7.67%) XML
4 26 (7.12%) Middleware
4 26 (7.12%) OpenID
4 26 (7.12%) SAML
5 24 (6.58%) Spring
6 19 (5.21%) SOAP
7 15 (4.11%) JSON
8 14 (3.84%) Hibernate
9 13 (3.56%) ISPF
9 13 (3.56%) Web Services
10 10 (2.74%) Spring Boot
11 9 (2.47%) IBM Integration Bus
12 8 (2.19%) HTML
12 8 (2.19%) JMS
13 6 (1.64%) .NET
13 6 (1.64%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 50 (13.70%) Mainframe
2 28 (7.67%) Replication
3 20 (5.48%) Data Centre
3 20 (5.48%) IBM Mainframe
4 16 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (3.56%) Cloud Native
6 12 (3.29%) AS400
6 12 (3.29%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (2.47%) Management Information System
8 9 (2.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 8 (2.19%) Onboarding
10 7 (1.92%) Public Cloud
10 7 (1.92%) Tandem
11 6 (1.64%) PKI
11 6 (1.64%) Product Ownership
11 6 (1.64%) Virtual Team
11 6 (1.64%) VSAM
12 5 (1.37%) iSeries
12 5 (1.37%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 80 (21.92%) Linux
2 70 (19.18%) Windows
3 38 (10.41%) Unix
4 26 (7.12%) zOS
5 23 (6.30%) Windows Server
6 22 (6.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (3.01%) Solaris
8 8 (2.19%) HPUX
9 7 (1.92%) AIX
10 3 (0.82%) MVS
11 2 (0.55%) Android
11 2 (0.55%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.55%) CentOS
11 2 (0.55%) OS/2
11 2 (0.55%) VMS
12 1 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.27%) VME
12 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
2 60 (16.44%) Agile
3 59 (16.16%) Migration
4 58 (15.89%) DevOps
5 57 (15.62%) CI/CD
6 35 (9.59%) Containerisation
7 32 (8.77%) High Availability
7 32 (8.77%) Incident Response
8 28 (7.67%) Service Management
9 27 (7.40%) Computer Science
9 27 (7.40%) Project Delivery
10 25 (6.85%) Continuous Improvement
10 25 (6.85%) Stakeholder Management
11 24 (6.58%) Asset Management
11 24 (6.58%) Identity Access Management
11 24 (6.58%) Performance Tuning
11 24 (6.58%) Roadmaps
12 22 (6.03%) Software Engineering
13 20 (5.48%) Disaster Recovery
13 20 (5.48%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 56 (15.34%) SQL
2 52 (14.25%) Python
3 51 (13.97%) Java
4 22 (6.03%) Shell Script
5 19 (5.21%) JCL
6 18 (4.93%) JavaScript
7 15 (4.11%) REXX
8 12 (3.29%) CLIST
8 12 (3.29%) COBOL
9 11 (3.01%) Bash
9 11 (3.01%) PowerShell
9 11 (3.01%) RPG
10 10 (2.74%) Groovy
10 10 (2.74%) Perl
11 9 (2.47%) PL/SQL
12 8 (2.19%) Assembly Language
12 8 (2.19%) C
13 7 (1.92%) C++
14 6 (1.64%) Korn
15 4 (1.10%) PL/1
Qualifications
1 88 (24.11%) Security Cleared
2 82 (22.47%) SC Cleared
3 33 (9.04%) Degree
4 23 (6.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (5.21%) AWS Certification
6 11 (3.01%) IBM Certification
7 10 (2.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 10 (2.74%) CISSP
8 4 (1.10%) DV Cleared
8 4 (1.10%) GCIH
8 4 (1.10%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.82%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.55%) CBAP
10 2 (0.55%) CompTIA CySA+
10 2 (0.55%) CSPO
10 2 (0.55%) ECSA
10 2 (0.55%) GCFA
10 2 (0.55%) GCIA
10 2 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.38%) QA
2 14 (3.84%) GDPR
3 11 (3.01%) HIPAA
4 9 (2.47%) ISO 20022
5 8 (2.19%) SEPA
6 5 (1.37%) SLA
7 4 (1.10%) GRC
8 3 (0.82%) Basel III
8 3 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.55%) GAAP
9 2 (0.55%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.55%) MISRA
9 2 (0.55%) MISRA C
10 1 (0.27%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.27%) IFRS
10 1 (0.27%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.27%) NIST
10 1 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 31 (8.49%) Docker
2 15 (4.11%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.11%) Time Sharing Option
3 12 (3.29%) RACF
4 8 (2.19%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 7 (1.92%) GPFS
5 7 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (1.64%) NFS
6 6 (1.64%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
6 6 (1.64%) vSphere
7 5 (1.37%) Job Entry Subsystem
8 2 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.27%) KVM
9 1 (0.27%) LXC
9 1 (0.27%) Microcode
9 1 (0.27%) SRDF
9 1 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.27%) Xen
Systems Management
1 33 (9.04%) Kubernetes
2 22 (6.03%) Terraform
3 18 (4.93%) Ansible
4 14 (3.84%) Tivoli
5 13 (3.56%) Tivoli Identity Manager
6 11 (3.01%) OMEGAMON
6 11 (3.01%) Progress Chef
7 10 (2.74%) CA Single Sign-On
7 10 (2.74%) CA Wily
8 9 (2.47%) CA Endevor
8 9 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.64%) Control-M
9 6 (1.64%) QRadar
9 6 (1.64%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.10%) NetBackup
10 4 (1.10%) SCOM
10 4 (1.10%) vRealize
11 3 (0.82%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.82%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 2 (0.55%) Veritas Storage Foundation
Vendors
1 67 (18.36%) Microsoft
2 58 (15.89%) Oracle
3 33 (9.04%) Software AG
4 25 (6.85%) Splunk
5 18 (4.93%) ServiceNow
6 17 (4.66%) webMethods
7 15 (4.11%) HP
7 15 (4.11%) Red Hat
8 13 (3.56%) VMware
9 12 (3.29%) Dynatrace
9 12 (3.29%) Google
9 12 (3.29%) Ping Identity
10 11 (3.01%) AppDynamics
11 10 (2.74%) Broadcom
12 9 (2.47%) Cognos
12 9 (2.47%) SAP
13 8 (2.19%) Informatica
14 7 (1.92%) Cisco
14 7 (1.92%) Citrix
14 7 (1.92%) Dell