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 11 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
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 268 227
Rank change year-on-year -6 -41 +66
Contract jobs citing IBM 428 279 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 0.95% 1.06%
As % of the Vendors category 2.18% 2.02% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 160 279
10th Percentile £306 £325 £400
25th Percentile £366 £403 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £576 £625 £650
90th Percentile £691 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £460 £489
% change year-on-year -7.61% -5.93% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 12 33
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.50
25th Percentile £65.00 - £65.00
Median hourly rate £75.75 £24.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +213.28% -65.46% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £38.44 -
90th Percentile - £68.48 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.18 £70.00
% change year-on-year +263.94% -65.46% +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 19,653 13,823 18,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.94% 47.30% 42.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,587 8,734 11,686
10th Percentile £313 £293 £259
25th Percentile £413 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 517 1,057
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.10 £12.08
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.00 £27.99 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.04% +24.40% -47.06%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.49
90th Percentile £78.25 £80.04 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £25.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +1.52% +16.28% -44.16%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +4 378 £455 -8.77% 86
UK excluding London -13 228 £425 -7.61% 73
London -40 151 £488 -11.36% 24
Work from Home -15 125 £491 +3.42% 39
North of England -52 62 £489 +14.94% 18
Midlands -29 49 £394 -15.78% 9
West Midlands -29 46 £382 -16.88% 7
South East -43 43 £613 +252.01% 27
South West +1 36 £345 -42.50% 12
North West -14 36 £469 +23.10% 10
Yorkshire -46 25 £500 -2.44% 7
East of England -13 20 £425 -15.00% 7
Scotland +1 17 £550 +7.32% 3
East Midlands -38 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -10 1 - -
North East -21 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 18 (4.21%) CICS
2 18 (4.21%) Confluence
3 13 (3.04%) WebLogic
4 11 (2.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 11 (2.57%) Tomcat
5 10 (2.34%) nginx
6 7 (1.64%) SharePoint
7 5 (1.17%) Anypoint
7 5 (1.17%) Apache
7 5 (1.17%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.70%) CMS
8 3 (0.70%) JBoss
8 3 (0.70%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.70%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.47%) Camunda
9 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 9 (2.10%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.47%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 27 (6.31%) Maximo
2 11 (2.57%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.87%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.64%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.64%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.93%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.70%) 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 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%) SAP AFS
Cloud Services
1 98 (22.90%) AWS
2 77 (17.99%) Azure
3 19 (4.44%) OpenShift
4 15 (3.50%) GCP
5 14 (3.27%) Datadog
6 11 (2.57%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (2.34%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.10%) GitHub
9 8 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (1.87%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.87%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (1.87%) SaaS
9 8 (1.87%) Serverless
10 7 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.64%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.64%) Azure API Management
10 7 (1.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 6 (1.40%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.67%) Firewall
2 18 (4.21%) VSAN
3 15 (3.50%) SAN
4 14 (3.27%) HTTP
5 12 (2.80%) SNMP
6 10 (2.34%) HTTPS
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%) DNS
11 5 (1.17%) iSCSI
12 4 (0.93%) LAN
13 3 (0.70%) MPLS
13 3 (0.70%) Network Security
13 3 (0.70%) WAN
14 2 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
14 2 (0.47%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (7.71%) DB2
2 25 (5.84%) DataStage
3 21 (4.91%) SQL Server
4 15 (3.50%) Oracle Database
5 14 (3.27%) Relational Database
6 12 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (2.57%) Oracle Reports
8 10 (2.34%) GIS
9 9 (2.10%) Big Data
9 9 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
10 8 (1.87%) Metadata
11 7 (1.64%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (1.40%) Power BI
13 5 (1.17%) DynamoDB
13 5 (1.17%) MongoDB
13 5 (1.17%) NoSQL
14 4 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
14 4 (0.93%) Apache Hive
15 3 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
15 3 (0.70%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 40 (9.35%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.24%) JIRA
3 15 (3.50%) Git
4 13 (3.04%) GitLab
5 11 (2.57%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.87%) Ant
6 8 (1.87%) PVCS
7 6 (1.40%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.17%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.93%) JUnit
9 4 (0.93%) Liquibase
9 4 (0.93%) PowerDesigner
10 2 (0.47%) Introscope
10 2 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.47%) Selenium
10 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.23%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.23%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 104 (24.30%) Finance
2 98 (22.90%) Social Skills
3 59 (13.79%) Banking
4 37 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 29 (6.78%) Aerospace
5 29 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.34%) Retail
9 9 (2.10%) Legal
10 8 (1.87%) Electronics
10 8 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.64%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.40%) Aviation
13 5 (1.17%) Law
14 4 (0.93%) Front Office
14 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.93%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 54 (12.62%) Developer
2 52 (12.15%) Analyst
3 48 (11.21%) Architect
4 27 (6.31%) Delivery Manager
4 27 (6.31%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.07%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.07%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.61%) Storage Analyst
7 23 (5.37%) Senior
8 22 (5.14%) Systems Manager
9 21 (4.91%) Consultant
9 21 (4.91%) Software Engineer
9 21 (4.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 20 (4.67%) Solutions Architect
11 18 (4.21%) Data Engineer
12 16 (3.74%) Lead
13 12 (2.80%) Administrator
14 10 (2.34%) Designer
14 10 (2.34%) Infrastructure Designer
14 10 (2.34%) Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.41%) Middleware
2 28 (6.54%) XML
3 25 (5.84%) Kafka
3 25 (5.84%) REST
4 21 (4.91%) Flash
5 18 (4.21%) SOAP
6 17 (3.97%) JMS
7 14 (3.27%) JSON
7 14 (3.27%) XSLT
8 10 (2.34%) Web Services
9 9 (2.10%) ARM Templates
9 9 (2.10%) RabbitMQ
10 8 (1.87%) J2EE
10 8 (1.87%) Spring
10 8 (1.87%) Spring Boot
10 8 (1.87%) WSDL
10 8 (1.87%) XSD
11 7 (1.64%) OAuth
11 7 (1.64%) OC4J
11 7 (1.64%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 66 (15.42%) Mainframe
2 40 (9.35%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (6.78%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.78%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.54%) Product Ownership
5 27 (6.31%) Replication
6 23 (5.37%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (4.21%) VSAM
8 13 (3.04%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.80%) Clustering
9 12 (2.80%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (2.57%) Cloud Native
10 11 (2.57%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (2.57%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 10 (2.34%) BYOD
11 10 (2.34%) DataPower
12 9 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (2.10%) IBM Mainframe
12 9 (2.10%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.64%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 98 (22.90%) Linux
2 54 (12.62%) Windows
3 43 (10.05%) AIX
3 43 (10.05%) zOS
4 36 (8.41%) Unix
5 19 (4.44%) Solaris
6 17 (3.97%) Windows Server
7 16 (3.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (2.57%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (2.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (1.17%) Windows 10
11 5 (1.17%) Windows 7
11 5 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.47%) MVS
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%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (25.70%) Agile
2 62 (14.49%) Migration
3 55 (12.85%) CI/CD
4 54 (12.62%) Problem-Solving
5 48 (11.21%) DevOps
6 47 (10.98%) Continuous Improvement
7 44 (10.28%) Roadmaps
8 43 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 40 (9.35%) Stakeholder Management
10 38 (8.88%) UML
11 35 (8.18%) Computer Science
11 35 (8.18%) ETL
12 32 (7.48%) Analytics
13 30 (7.01%) PRINCE2
13 30 (7.01%) Test Automation
14 29 (6.78%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 29 (6.78%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 28 (6.54%) ITIL
15 28 (6.54%) Programme Management
16 27 (6.31%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 75 (17.52%) SQL
2 59 (13.79%) Python
3 42 (9.81%) Java
4 28 (6.54%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.44%) JCL
5 19 (4.44%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.21%) COBOL
7 15 (3.50%) C
8 14 (3.27%) REXX
9 13 (3.04%) Bash
10 12 (2.80%) C++
11 11 (2.57%) Perl
12 10 (2.34%) Search Processing Language
13 9 (2.10%) Ada
13 9 (2.10%) Bicep
13 9 (2.10%) MATLAB
14 8 (1.87%) CLIST
14 8 (1.87%) XPath
15 7 (1.64%) Embedded C
15 7 (1.64%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 130 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 77 (17.99%) SC Cleared
3 42 (9.81%) Degree
4 17 (3.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.50%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.27%) DV Cleared
7 12 (2.80%) CISM
7 12 (2.80%) CISSP
8 8 (1.87%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.64%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.64%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 6 (1.40%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.17%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.93%) CEH
12 4 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 4 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.14%) Data Quality
2 13 (3.04%) 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 4 (0.93%) GDPR
6 4 (0.93%) ISO 20022
6 4 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.93%) SEPA
7 3 (0.70%) GRC
8 2 (0.47%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.47%) NCSC
8 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.23%) Basel III
9 1 (0.23%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.23%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.23%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.23%) IFRS
9 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (11.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (7.01%) vSphere
3 28 (6.54%) NFS
4 24 (5.61%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.14%) GPFS
6 21 (4.91%) Docker
7 18 (4.21%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.64%) Firmware
8 7 (1.64%) Hyper-V
8 7 (1.64%) RACF
9 6 (1.40%) KVM
9 6 (1.40%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (1.40%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.93%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 3 (0.70%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.70%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.47%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
13 1 (0.23%) ACF2
13 1 (0.23%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 30 (7.01%) vRealize
2 29 (6.78%) Terraform
3 26 (6.07%) Kubernetes
4 25 (5.84%) Ansible
5 17 (3.97%) VxRail
6 16 (3.74%) Tivoli
7 12 (2.80%) Nagios
7 12 (2.80%) Netcool
7 12 (2.80%) OpenView
7 12 (2.80%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 12 (2.80%) ZABBIX
8 10 (2.34%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.87%) IBM BigFix
10 7 (1.64%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (1.40%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.93%) OMEGAMON
13 3 (0.70%) CA Endevor
13 3 (0.70%) Grafana
Vendors
1 75 (17.52%) Oracle
2 61 (14.25%) VMware
3 48 (11.21%) Cisco
4 39 (9.11%) ServiceNow
5 35 (8.18%) HP
6 31 (7.24%) Microsoft
7 29 (6.78%) SAP
8 28 (6.54%) Dell
9 26 (6.07%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.44%) Red Hat
10 19 (4.44%) Splunk
11 17 (3.97%) BMC
12 16 (3.74%) AppDynamics
12 16 (3.74%) Google
13 14 (3.27%) Commvault
14 12 (2.80%) EMC
15 10 (2.34%) NetApp
16 9 (2.10%) Brocade
16 9 (2.10%) Informatica
16 9 (2.10%) MathWorks