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 6 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
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 241 233
Rank change year-on-year -41 -8 +59
Contract jobs citing IBM 393 328 454
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.08% 1.02%
As % of the Vendors category 2.08% 2.30% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 182 281
10th Percentile £313 £321 £400
25th Percentile £393 £401 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £665
90th Percentile £688 £724 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £433 £460 £500
% change year-on-year -5.87% -8.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 21 27
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £59.69 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £62.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -10.71% +34.58%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £62.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +30.40% -10.71% +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 18,881 14,233 19,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.26% 46.69% 43.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,090 8,726 11,976
10th Percentile £306 £284 £255
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £514
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.17% -3.02%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.88% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 449 984
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.71
25th Percentile £18.45 £21.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.22
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +18.98% -27.96%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.03
90th Percentile £74.84 £81.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.35 £24.65
% change year-on-year -17.07% +10.95% -24.15%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -39 346 £475 -3.06% 94
UK excluding London -34 222 £433 -5.87% 74
London -39 126 £500 -2.44% 33
Work from Home -17 120 £488 +1.30% 38
North of England -49 64 £469 +10.35% 13
Midlands -28 50 £400 -14.44% 8
North West -3 47 £469 +23.10% 11
West Midlands -23 47 £400 -13.04% 3
South East -43 42 £513 +36.67% 31
East of England -7 28 £318 -31.14% 6
South West -27 24 £375 -37.50% 11
Scotland +16 17 £450 -12.20% 5
Yorkshire -62 16 £487 +1.46% 2
East Midlands -22 3 £837 +74.27% 5
Wales -1 1 - - 1
North East -21 1 £375 -10.45%

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 (6.11%) WebSphere
2 20 (5.09%) Confluence
3 16 (4.07%) CICS
4 12 (3.05%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.80%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (2.29%) MQSeries
7 8 (2.04%) nginx
8 7 (1.78%) Apache
8 7 (1.78%) SharePoint
8 7 (1.78%) Tomcat
9 5 (1.27%) ArcGIS
9 5 (1.27%) JBoss
9 5 (1.27%) WebSphere Application Server
10 4 (1.02%) Anypoint
10 4 (1.02%) IIS
10 4 (1.02%) iPlanet
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.76%) CMS
12 2 (0.51%) FileNet
Applications
1 10 (2.54%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.51%) PlantUML
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.38%) Maximo
2 9 (2.29%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.78%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.02%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.76%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.76%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP R/3
5 3 (0.76%) 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 (0.25%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.25%) SAP AFS
7 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 96 (24.43%) AWS
2 71 (18.07%) Azure
3 21 (5.34%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.56%) Datadog
5 12 (3.05%) GCP
6 11 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
6 11 (2.80%) IBM Watson
6 11 (2.80%) Serverless
7 10 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
8 9 (2.29%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.29%) SaaS
9 8 (2.04%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.04%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.78%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.78%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.53%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.53%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.33%) VSAN
2 15 (3.82%) SAN
3 14 (3.56%) Firewall
4 11 (2.80%) HTTPS
5 10 (2.54%) HTTP
6 9 (2.29%) VPN
7 8 (2.04%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (1.78%) NAS
8 7 (1.78%) SSH
9 5 (1.27%) iSCSI
9 5 (1.27%) SNA
9 5 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.02%) APPN
10 4 (1.02%) DWDM
10 4 (1.02%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.51%) MPLS
11 2 (0.51%) Network Security
11 2 (0.51%) SNMP
11 2 (0.51%) WAN
11 2 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.12%) DB2
2 24 (6.11%) SQL Server
3 20 (5.09%) Oracle Database
4 19 (4.83%) DataStage
5 13 (3.31%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (3.05%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.54%) GIS
8 8 (2.04%) Big Data
9 7 (1.78%) NoSQL
10 6 (1.53%) IBM InfoSphere
10 6 (1.53%) Power BI
11 5 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (1.27%) DynamoDB
11 5 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (1.02%) Apache Hive
12 4 (1.02%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 41 (10.43%) JIRA
2 37 (9.41%) Rational DOORS
3 20 (5.09%) Git
4 13 (3.31%) Jenkins
5 11 (2.80%) GitLab
6 8 (2.04%) Ant
6 8 (2.04%) PVCS
7 7 (1.78%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.27%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.27%) JUnit
9 4 (1.02%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.02%) CA Release Automation
9 4 (1.02%) ERwin
9 4 (1.02%) PowerDesigner
9 4 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.76%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.51%) Selenium
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.25%) ClearCase
General
1 102 (25.95%) Finance
2 93 (23.66%) Social Skills
3 52 (13.23%) Banking
4 37 (9.41%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (8.65%) Public Sector
6 19 (4.83%) Aerospace
7 16 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.29%) Electronics
9 9 (2.29%) Financial Institution
9 9 (2.29%) Retail
10 8 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (2.04%) Private Banking
11 7 (1.78%) Legal
12 6 (1.53%) Aviation
12 6 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.27%) Law
13 5 (1.27%) Telecoms
14 4 (1.02%) Investment Banking
14 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 67 (17.05%) Analyst
2 53 (13.49%) Developer
3 43 (10.94%) Architect
4 26 (6.62%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 23 (5.85%) Solutions Architect
6 22 (5.60%) Senior
6 22 (5.60%) Storage Analyst
7 16 (4.07%) Data Engineer
7 16 (4.07%) Delivery Manager
7 16 (4.07%) Software Engineer
8 15 (3.82%) Lead
8 15 (3.82%) Product Delivery Manager
8 15 (3.82%) Product Manager
9 13 (3.31%) DevOps Engineer
9 13 (3.31%) Systems Manager
10 12 (3.05%) Consultant
10 12 (3.05%) Systems Delivery Manager
11 11 (2.80%) Administrator
12 9 (2.29%) Azure Engineer
13 8 (2.04%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.91%) XML
2 30 (7.63%) Middleware
3 26 (6.62%) Kafka
4 20 (5.09%) Flash
4 20 (5.09%) SOAP
5 16 (4.07%) JMS
6 15 (3.82%) JSON
7 14 (3.56%) XSLT
8 13 (3.31%) REST
9 10 (2.54%) Web Services
10 9 (2.29%) OAuth
11 8 (2.04%) ARM Templates
11 8 (2.04%) J2EE
11 8 (2.04%) WSDL
11 8 (2.04%) XSD
12 7 (1.78%) OC4J
12 7 (1.78%) scikit-learn
12 7 (1.78%) TIBCO EMS
13 6 (1.53%) IBM Integration Bus
13 6 (1.53%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 54 (13.74%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.92%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (7.38%) Replication
4 25 (6.36%) Data Centre
5 22 (5.60%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (4.58%) Data Structures
7 17 (4.33%) Product Ownership
8 15 (3.82%) VSAM
9 11 (2.80%) AS400
10 10 (2.54%) DataPower
11 9 (2.29%) Algorithms
11 9 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
12 8 (2.04%) BYOD
12 8 (2.04%) Cloud Native
12 8 (2.04%) Management Information System
13 7 (1.78%) Clustering
13 7 (1.78%) Enterprise Storage
13 7 (1.78%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.78%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 87 (22.14%) Linux
2 52 (13.23%) Windows
3 46 (11.70%) Unix
4 36 (9.16%) zOS
5 32 (8.14%) AIX
6 19 (4.83%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.82%) Solaris
8 12 (3.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (3.05%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.78%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.78%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.25%) Android
10 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.25%) MVS
10 1 (0.25%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.25%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (23.92%) Agile
2 57 (14.50%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (13.74%) Migration
4 49 (12.47%) CI/CD
5 48 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 47 (11.96%) DevOps
7 39 (9.92%) Continuous Improvement
8 38 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 37 (9.41%) Roadmaps
10 33 (8.40%) ITIL
11 31 (7.89%) Computer Science
12 30 (7.63%) Asset Management
13 28 (7.12%) ETL
13 28 (7.12%) Performance Tuning
14 27 (6.87%) Analytics
14 27 (6.87%) UML
15 25 (6.36%) Data Modelling
16 24 (6.11%) Change Control
16 24 (6.11%) Test Automation
17 23 (5.85%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 70 (17.81%) SQL
2 49 (12.47%) Python
3 40 (10.18%) Java
4 18 (4.58%) PL/SQL
5 16 (4.07%) JCL
6 15 (3.82%) COBOL
6 15 (3.82%) REXX
7 14 (3.56%) PowerShell
7 14 (3.56%) Shell Script
8 12 (3.05%) C
9 11 (2.80%) Bash
10 9 (2.29%) Bicep
10 9 (2.29%) C++
10 9 (2.29%) CLIST
10 9 (2.29%) Perl
11 8 (2.04%) JavaScript
11 8 (2.04%) RPG
11 8 (2.04%) XPath
12 7 (1.78%) Embedded C
12 7 (1.78%) Korn
Qualifications
1 99 (25.19%) Security Cleared
2 56 (14.25%) SC Cleared
3 40 (10.18%) Degree
4 16 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.82%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.05%) DV Cleared
8 11 (2.80%) CISM
8 11 (2.80%) CISSP
9 8 (2.04%) AWS Certification
9 8 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.78%) IBM Certification
10 7 (1.78%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 7 (1.78%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.27%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.02%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.02%) PMP
13 3 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.83%) QA
2 17 (4.33%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.80%) SLA
4 10 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (2.29%) NIST
6 7 (1.78%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.02%) ISO 20022
7 4 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.02%) SEPA
8 2 (0.51%) Basel III
8 2 (0.51%) GDPR
8 2 (0.51%) GRC
8 2 (0.51%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.51%) NCSC
8 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.25%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 44 (11.20%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.38%) vSphere
3 24 (6.11%) NFS
4 22 (5.60%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (5.34%) GPFS
6 18 (4.58%) Docker
7 16 (4.07%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (2.54%) RACF
9 6 (1.53%) Firmware
9 6 (1.53%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.53%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 6 (1.53%) KVM
10 4 (1.02%) Active Directory
10 4 (1.02%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (1.02%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (1.02%) Tivoli Directory Server
11 3 (0.76%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.51%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.25%) Ceph
13 1 (0.25%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 30 (7.63%) Terraform
2 29 (7.38%) vRealize
3 22 (5.60%) Kubernetes
4 19 (4.83%) Ansible
5 16 (4.07%) VxRail
6 8 (2.04%) Control-M
6 8 (2.04%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.78%) TIBCO Hawk
7 7 (1.78%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.53%) OMEGAMON
8 6 (1.53%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.53%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.27%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.02%) CA Single Sign-On
10 4 (1.02%) CA Wily
10 4 (1.02%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.02%) Progress Chef
10 4 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.76%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.76%) zSecure
Vendors
1 78 (19.85%) Oracle
2 56 (14.25%) VMware
3 45 (11.45%) Cisco
4 39 (9.92%) ServiceNow
5 37 (9.41%) Microsoft
6 23 (5.85%) Dell
6 23 (5.85%) SAP
7 22 (5.60%) HP
8 18 (4.58%) AppDynamics
9 16 (4.07%) Red Hat
9 16 (4.07%) SolarWinds
10 15 (3.82%) Google
11 14 (3.56%) Commvault
12 11 (2.80%) Splunk
13 10 (2.54%) Broadcom
13 10 (2.54%) EMC
14 9 (2.29%) BMC
14 9 (2.29%) Cognos
15 8 (2.04%) Informatica
15 8 (2.04%) NetApp