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 1 April 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
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 260 230
Rank change year-on-year -10 -30 +63
Contract jobs citing IBM 428 289 458
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.00% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.21% 2.11% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 165 271
10th Percentile £305 £322 £400
25th Percentile £363 £405 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £576 £600 £650
90th Percentile £695 £723 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £463 £489
% change year-on-year -8.11% -5.42% +0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 15 34
10th Percentile £25.77 - £59.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £81.50 £24.66 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +230.49% -64.77% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.38 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.66 £70.00
% change year-on-year +256.85% -64.77% +51.06%

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 19,377 13,685 18,908
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.37% 47.12% 42.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,439 8,647 11,818
10th Percentile £313 £293 £255
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.29% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 966 482 1,045
10th Percentile £15.28 £15.46 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.07 £14.48
Median hourly rate £26.50 £28.75 £23.22
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% +23.84% -41.96%
75th Percentile £58.88 £62.50 £56.25
90th Percentile £78.25 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -7.83% +26.16% -38.62%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -18 380 £455 -9.00% 86
UK excluding London -13 230 £425 -8.11% 73
London -32 152 £488 -7.14% 24
Work from Home -28 122 £472 -1.92% 39
North of England -57 61 £487 +14.59% 18
Midlands -37 49 £397 -15.11% 9
South East -39 47 £525 +191.67% 27
West Midlands -26 46 £394 -14.40% 7
North West -27 38 £475 +24.67% 10
South West -4 34 £314 -47.67% 12
East of England -8 24 £212 -68.60% 7
Yorkshire -51 22 £494 +2.55% 7
Scotland +8 18 £525 +2.44% 3
East Midlands -30 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -12 1 - -
North East -17 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 24 (5.61%) WebSphere
2 20 (4.67%) Confluence
3 16 (3.74%) CICS
4 13 (3.04%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 10 (2.34%) nginx
6 10 (2.34%) Tomcat
7 8 (1.87%) SharePoint
8 5 (1.17%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.17%) ArcGIS
9 4 (0.93%) Apache
9 4 (0.93%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.70%) CMS
10 3 (0.70%) JBoss
10 3 (0.70%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.47%) Camunda
11 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 10 (2.34%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.47%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 26 (6.07%) Maximo
2 11 (2.57%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.64%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (1.40%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.93%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.70%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.70%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.70%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.70%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.70%) SAP R/3
6 3 (0.70%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.47%) Cognos Controller
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.47%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.23%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 98 (22.90%) AWS
2 77 (17.99%) Azure
3 18 (4.21%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.27%) Datadog
4 14 (3.27%) GCP
5 11 (2.57%) IBM Watson
6 10 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.34%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (2.10%) Azure API Management
7 9 (2.10%) SaaS
8 8 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
8 8 (1.87%) Azure AKS
8 8 (1.87%) Azure Monitor
8 8 (1.87%) Serverless
9 7 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (1.64%) Amazon S3
9 7 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (1.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (1.64%) GitHub
10 6 (1.40%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.21%) Firewall
2 17 (3.97%) VSAN
3 15 (3.50%) SAN
4 14 (3.27%) HTTP
5 11 (2.57%) HTTPS
6 10 (2.34%) SNMP
7 9 (2.10%) VPN
8 8 (1.87%) Fibre Channel
8 8 (1.87%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.64%) NAS
10 6 (1.40%) APPN
10 6 (1.40%) SNA
11 5 (1.17%) iSCSI
12 4 (0.93%) DNS
12 4 (0.93%) DWDM
12 4 (0.93%) LAN
13 3 (0.70%) MPLS
13 3 (0.70%) SSH
13 3 (0.70%) WAN
14 2 (0.47%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (7.01%) DB2
2 24 (5.61%) SQL Server
3 23 (5.37%) DataStage
4 17 (3.97%) Oracle Database
5 15 (3.50%) Relational Database
6 13 (3.04%) Oracle Reports
7 12 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (2.34%) GIS
9 9 (2.10%) Big Data
10 7 (1.64%) Elasticsearch
10 7 (1.64%) Metadata
11 6 (1.40%) IBM InfoSphere
12 5 (1.17%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.17%) NoSQL
12 5 (1.17%) Power BI
13 4 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.93%) Apache Hive
13 4 (0.93%) MongoDB
13 4 (0.93%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 43 (10.05%) Rational DOORS
2 35 (8.18%) JIRA
3 15 (3.50%) Git
4 13 (3.04%) GitLab
5 11 (2.57%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.10%) Ant
7 8 (1.87%) PVCS
8 7 (1.64%) SoapUI
9 5 (1.17%) IBM UrbanCode
9 5 (1.17%) JUnit
9 5 (1.17%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.93%) ERwin
10 4 (0.93%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.47%) Introscope
11 2 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.47%) Selenium
11 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.23%) ClearCase
12 1 (0.23%) XPEDITER
General
1 101 (23.60%) Finance
1 101 (23.60%) Social Skills
2 56 (13.08%) Banking
3 41 (9.58%) Public Sector
4 31 (7.24%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (6.78%) Aerospace
6 14 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.10%) Retail
9 8 (1.87%) Electronics
9 8 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (1.64%) Legal
11 6 (1.40%) Aviation
11 6 (1.40%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.40%) Investment Banking
11 6 (1.40%) Law
11 6 (1.40%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.70%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 60 (14.02%) Analyst
2 55 (12.85%) Developer
3 52 (12.15%) Architect
4 27 (6.31%) Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.07%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.07%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.07%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.61%) Solutions Architect
7 23 (5.37%) Storage Analyst
8 22 (5.14%) Systems Manager
9 21 (4.91%) Senior
9 21 (4.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 20 (4.67%) Software Engineer
11 19 (4.44%) Consultant
12 17 (3.97%) Data Engineer
13 16 (3.74%) Lead
14 12 (2.80%) Administrator
15 10 (2.34%) DevOps Engineer
16 9 (2.10%) Azure Engineer
17 8 (1.87%) Algorithm Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (7.71%) Middleware
2 29 (6.78%) XML
3 26 (6.07%) Kafka
4 22 (5.14%) REST
5 20 (4.67%) Flash
6 19 (4.44%) SOAP
7 18 (4.21%) JMS
8 14 (3.27%) XSLT
9 13 (3.04%) JSON
10 10 (2.34%) Web Services
11 9 (2.10%) ARM Templates
11 9 (2.10%) RabbitMQ
12 8 (1.87%) J2EE
12 8 (1.87%) Spring
12 8 (1.87%) Spring Boot
12 8 (1.87%) WebSphere MQ
12 8 (1.87%) WSDL
12 8 (1.87%) XSD
13 7 (1.64%) OC4J
13 7 (1.64%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 58 (13.55%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.11%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (6.78%) Data Centre
4 28 (6.54%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.54%) Product Ownership
5 26 (6.07%) Replication
6 23 (5.37%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (3.74%) VSAM
8 12 (2.80%) Algorithms
9 11 (2.57%) Cloud Native
9 11 (2.57%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.57%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.57%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 10 (2.34%) Clustering
10 10 (2.34%) DataPower
11 9 (2.10%) Legacy Applications
12 8 (1.87%) BYOD
12 8 (1.87%) IBM Mainframe
12 8 (1.87%) Management Information System
13 7 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 93 (21.73%) Linux
2 59 (13.79%) Windows
3 41 (9.58%) AIX
4 39 (9.11%) zOS
5 38 (8.88%) Unix
6 17 (3.97%) Solaris
6 17 (3.97%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (3.04%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (2.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (1.64%) Windows 10
11 7 (1.64%) Windows 7
11 7 (1.64%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.47%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.23%) Android
13 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.23%) MVS
13 1 (0.23%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (25.70%) Agile
2 61 (14.25%) Migration
3 55 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
4 53 (12.38%) CI/CD
5 48 (11.21%) DevOps
6 46 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 45 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 43 (10.05%) Roadmaps
8 43 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 38 (8.88%) UML
10 37 (8.64%) Computer Science
11 32 (7.48%) ETL
12 31 (7.24%) Analytics
12 31 (7.24%) ITIL
13 30 (7.01%) PRINCE2
13 30 (7.01%) Test Automation
14 29 (6.78%) Data Modelling
14 29 (6.78%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 29 (6.78%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 28 (6.54%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 76 (17.76%) SQL
2 58 (13.55%) Python
3 41 (9.58%) Java
4 25 (5.84%) PowerShell
5 20 (4.67%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.21%) JCL
7 16 (3.74%) COBOL
8 14 (3.27%) C
8 14 (3.27%) REXX
9 13 (3.04%) Bash
10 12 (2.80%) Perl
11 11 (2.57%) C++
12 9 (2.10%) Bicep
13 8 (1.87%) Ada
13 8 (1.87%) CLIST
13 8 (1.87%) MATLAB
13 8 (1.87%) Search Processing Language
13 8 (1.87%) XPath
14 7 (1.64%) Embedded C
14 7 (1.64%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 131 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 75 (17.52%) SC Cleared
3 45 (10.51%) Degree
4 16 (3.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.50%) Azure Certification
6 13 (3.04%) CISM
6 13 (3.04%) CISSP
6 13 (3.04%) DV Cleared
7 10 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.87%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.64%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.64%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 7 (1.64%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.17%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.93%) CEH
11 4 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.93%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.61%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.27%) QA
3 11 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.57%) SLA
4 10 (2.34%) NIST
5 7 (1.64%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.17%) SEPA
7 4 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.70%) GDPR
8 3 (0.70%) GRC
9 2 (0.47%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.47%) NCSC
9 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.23%) Basel III
10 1 (0.23%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.23%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.23%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.23%) IFRS
10 1 (0.23%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 46 (10.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (6.78%) vSphere
3 26 (6.07%) NFS
4 23 (5.37%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (4.91%) Docker
5 21 (4.91%) GPFS
6 17 (3.97%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.64%) Firmware
7 7 (1.64%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.40%) KVM
8 6 (1.40%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (1.40%) RACF
8 6 (1.40%) Time Sharing Option
9 4 (0.93%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 3 (0.70%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.70%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.47%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
12 1 (0.23%) Ceph
12 1 (0.23%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 29 (6.78%) vRealize
2 28 (6.54%) Terraform
3 26 (6.07%) Kubernetes
4 24 (5.61%) Ansible
5 16 (3.74%) VxRail
6 14 (3.27%) Tivoli
7 10 (2.34%) Nagios
7 10 (2.34%) Netcool
7 10 (2.34%) OpenView
7 10 (2.34%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 10 (2.34%) ZABBIX
8 8 (1.87%) IBM BigFix
8 8 (1.87%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 7 (1.64%) TIBCO Hawk
10 6 (1.40%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
10 6 (1.40%) vCenter Server
11 5 (1.17%) OMEGAMON
12 4 (0.93%) QRadar
13 3 (0.70%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 79 (18.46%) Oracle
2 58 (13.55%) VMware
3 49 (11.45%) Cisco
4 39 (9.11%) ServiceNow
5 33 (7.71%) HP
6 32 (7.48%) Microsoft
7 28 (6.54%) SAP
8 27 (6.31%) Dell
9 24 (5.61%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.44%) Red Hat
11 17 (3.97%) Splunk
12 16 (3.74%) AppDynamics
12 16 (3.74%) Google
13 15 (3.50%) BMC
14 14 (3.27%) Commvault
15 12 (2.80%) EMC
16 10 (2.34%) NetApp
17 9 (2.10%) Informatica
18 8 (1.87%) MathWorks
18 8 (1.87%) TIBCO