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 16 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
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 277 224
Rank change year-on-year +6 -53 +75
Contract jobs citing IBM 431 284 463
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 0.97% 1.06%
As % of the Vendors category 2.19% 2.05% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 165 277
10th Percentile £306 £359 £392
25th Percentile £371 £408 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £575 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £715 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £461 £475
% change year-on-year -7.86% -2.89% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 11 32
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.00
25th Percentile £65.00 - £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £24.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +189.50% -65.46% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £26.96 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
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 19,650 13,844 18,675
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.79% 47.26% 42.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,588 8,722 11,646
10th Percentile £313 £295 £261
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -1.05% -1.35%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £630
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 979 530 1,070
10th Percentile £15.17 £15.00 £12.02
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £29.00 £28.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +24.42% -47.06%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.43
90th Percentile £78.75 £77.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.59 £24.66 £21.46
% change year-on-year +3.78% +14.91% -45.74%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +11 381 £455 -8.54% 73
UK excluding London -8 230 £425 -7.86% 65
London -16 153 £488 -11.36% 17
Work from Home -19 122 £491 +2.08% 35
North of England -56 63 £490 +15.29% 11
Midlands -32 49 £394 -15.78% 8
West Midlands -25 46 £382 -16.88% 6
South East -42 43 £500 +187.36% 17
South West +6 37 £345 -42.50% 16
North West -22 35 £480 +25.85% 6
Yorkshire -48 27 £500 -2.44% 4
East of England -18 20 £425 -15.00% 9
Scotland -3 17 £550 +8.64% 4
East Midlands -31 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -14 1 - - 1
North East -22 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 26 (6.03%) WebSphere
2 18 (4.18%) Confluence
3 17 (3.94%) CICS
4 13 (3.02%) WebLogic
5 12 (2.78%) Tomcat
6 11 (2.55%) nginx
6 11 (2.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 7 (1.62%) SharePoint
8 5 (1.16%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.16%) Apache
8 5 (1.16%) JBoss
8 5 (1.16%) WebSphere Application Server
9 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.70%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.70%) CMS
9 3 (0.70%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.46%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.46%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.46%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 9 (2.09%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.46%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (5.80%) Maximo
2 11 (2.55%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.62%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.62%) 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 (0.46%) Cognos Controller
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.23%) SAP AFS
8 1 (0.23%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 97 (22.51%) AWS
2 76 (17.63%) Azure
3 21 (4.87%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.25%) Datadog
4 14 (3.25%) GCP
5 11 (2.55%) IBM Watson
6 10 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.32%) Azure Sentinel
6 10 (2.32%) GitHub
7 8 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
7 8 (1.86%) Azure AKS
7 8 (1.86%) Azure Monitor
7 8 (1.86%) SaaS
7 8 (1.86%) Serverless
8 7 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 7 (1.62%) Amazon S3
8 7 (1.62%) AWS CloudFormation
8 7 (1.62%) Azure API Management
8 7 (1.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 6 (1.39%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.64%) Firewall
2 18 (4.18%) VSAN
3 15 (3.48%) HTTP
3 15 (3.48%) SAN
4 12 (2.78%) SNMP
5 9 (2.09%) HTTPS
5 9 (2.09%) VPN
6 8 (1.86%) Fibre Channel
6 8 (1.86%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.62%) NAS
8 6 (1.39%) APPN
8 6 (1.39%) SNA
9 5 (1.16%) DNS
9 5 (1.16%) iSCSI
10 4 (0.93%) LAN
11 3 (0.70%) MPLS
11 3 (0.70%) Network Security
11 3 (0.70%) WAN
12 2 (0.46%) SSL
12 2 (0.46%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (8.12%) DB2
2 25 (5.80%) DataStage
3 21 (4.87%) SQL Server
4 16 (3.71%) Relational Database
5 15 (3.48%) Oracle Database
6 11 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
6 11 (2.55%) Oracle Reports
7 9 (2.09%) Big Data
7 9 (2.09%) Metadata
7 9 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
8 8 (1.86%) Elasticsearch
8 8 (1.86%) GIS
9 6 (1.39%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.39%) Power BI
10 5 (1.16%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.16%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (0.93%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.70%) IBM InfoSphere
Development Applications
1 40 (9.28%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.19%) JIRA
3 14 (3.25%) Git
4 13 (3.02%) GitLab
5 12 (2.78%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.86%) Ant
6 8 (1.86%) PVCS
7 6 (1.39%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.16%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.93%) JUnit
9 4 (0.93%) Liquibase
9 4 (0.93%) PowerDesigner
10 2 (0.46%) Introscope
10 2 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.46%) Selenium
10 2 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.46%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.23%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.23%) ERwin
General
1 106 (24.59%) Finance
2 98 (22.74%) Social Skills
3 63 (14.62%) Banking
4 37 (8.58%) Public Sector
5 30 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (6.73%) Aerospace
7 13 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (2.32%) Retail
10 9 (2.09%) Legal
11 8 (1.86%) Electronics
11 8 (1.86%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.39%) Aviation
14 5 (1.16%) Front Office
14 5 (1.16%) Law
15 4 (0.93%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
15 4 (0.93%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 53 (12.30%) Analyst
1 53 (12.30%) Developer
2 47 (10.90%) Architect
3 27 (6.26%) Delivery Manager
3 27 (6.26%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 26 (6.03%) Product Delivery Manager
4 26 (6.03%) Product Manager
5 24 (5.57%) Storage Analyst
6 22 (5.10%) Senior
6 22 (5.10%) Software Engineer
6 22 (5.10%) Systems Manager
7 21 (4.87%) Consultant
7 21 (4.87%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 19 (4.41%) Solutions Architect
9 18 (4.18%) Data Engineer
10 16 (3.71%) Lead
11 12 (2.78%) Administrator
12 11 (2.55%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (2.32%) Algorithm Engineer
13 10 (2.32%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (8.82%) Middleware
2 27 (6.26%) XML
3 25 (5.80%) REST
4 24 (5.57%) Kafka
5 21 (4.87%) Flash
6 17 (3.94%) SOAP
7 16 (3.71%) JMS
8 14 (3.25%) JSON
8 14 (3.25%) XSLT
9 10 (2.32%) Web Services
10 9 (2.09%) ARM Templates
11 8 (1.86%) J2EE
11 8 (1.86%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (1.86%) Spring
11 8 (1.86%) Spring Boot
11 8 (1.86%) WSDL
11 8 (1.86%) XSD
12 7 (1.62%) OAuth
12 7 (1.62%) OC4J
12 7 (1.62%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 66 (15.31%) Mainframe
2 40 (9.28%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (6.73%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.73%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.50%) Product Ownership
5 27 (6.26%) Replication
6 21 (4.87%) Legacy Systems
7 17 (3.94%) VSAM
8 14 (3.25%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.78%) Clustering
9 12 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (2.55%) Cloud Native
10 11 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (2.55%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 10 (2.32%) BYOD
11 10 (2.32%) DataPower
11 10 (2.32%) Legacy Applications
12 9 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
13 8 (1.86%) IBM Mainframe
14 7 (1.62%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 100 (23.20%) Linux
2 55 (12.76%) Windows
3 44 (10.21%) zOS
4 43 (9.98%) AIX
5 35 (8.12%) Unix
6 20 (4.64%) Solaris
7 18 (4.18%) Windows Server
8 17 (3.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (2.78%) Windows Server 2016
10 10 (2.32%) Windows Server 2008
11 9 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (1.16%) Windows 10
12 5 (1.16%) Windows 7
12 5 (1.16%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.70%) MVS
14 2 (0.46%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.46%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
15 1 (0.23%) Android
15 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
15 1 (0.23%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (25.75%) Agile
2 62 (14.39%) Migration
3 56 (12.99%) CI/CD
4 54 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
5 48 (11.14%) DevOps
6 46 (10.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 43 (9.98%) Roadmaps
8 42 (9.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 39 (9.05%) Stakeholder Management
10 38 (8.82%) UML
11 35 (8.12%) Computer Science
12 34 (7.89%) ETL
13 31 (7.19%) Analytics
14 30 (6.96%) PRINCE2
14 30 (6.96%) Test Automation
15 29 (6.73%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
15 29 (6.73%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 28 (6.50%) ITIL
16 28 (6.50%) Performance Tuning
16 28 (6.50%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (17.40%) SQL
2 63 (14.62%) Python
3 44 (10.21%) Java
4 28 (6.50%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.41%) JCL
5 19 (4.41%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.18%) COBOL
7 16 (3.71%) C
8 15 (3.48%) Bash
9 13 (3.02%) C++
9 13 (3.02%) Perl
9 13 (3.02%) REXX
10 10 (2.32%) Ada
10 10 (2.32%) MATLAB
10 10 (2.32%) Search Processing Language
10 10 (2.32%) Shell Script
11 9 (2.09%) Bicep
12 8 (1.86%) XPath
13 7 (1.62%) CLIST
13 7 (1.62%) Korn
Qualifications
1 130 (30.16%) Security Cleared
2 78 (18.10%) SC Cleared
3 42 (9.74%) Degree
4 17 (3.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.48%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.25%) DV Cleared
7 12 (2.78%) CISM
7 12 (2.78%) CISSP
8 8 (1.86%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.62%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.62%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 6 (1.39%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.16%) 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 23 (5.34%) Data Quality
2 13 (3.02%) QA
3 11 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.55%) SLA
4 10 (2.32%) NIST
5 7 (1.62%) 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 (0.46%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.46%) NCSC
8 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.23%) Basel III
9 1 (0.23%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.23%) GAAP
9 1 (0.23%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.23%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 50 (11.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (6.96%) vSphere
3 28 (6.50%) NFS
4 25 (5.80%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.10%) Docker
5 22 (5.10%) GPFS
6 18 (4.18%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.86%) RACF
8 7 (1.62%) Firmware
8 7 (1.62%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.39%) KVM
9 6 (1.39%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (1.16%) Time Sharing Option
11 4 (0.93%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 3 (0.70%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.70%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.46%) ACF2
13 2 (0.46%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
14 1 (0.23%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 30 (6.96%) vRealize
2 29 (6.73%) Terraform
3 28 (6.50%) Ansible
4 26 (6.03%) Kubernetes
5 17 (3.94%) VxRail
6 16 (3.71%) Tivoli
7 12 (2.78%) Nagios
7 12 (2.78%) Netcool
7 12 (2.78%) OpenView
7 12 (2.78%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 12 (2.78%) ZABBIX
8 10 (2.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.86%) IBM BigFix
10 7 (1.62%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (1.39%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.39%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.39%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.70%) Control-M
12 3 (0.70%) Grafana
12 3 (0.70%) QRadar
Vendors
1 76 (17.63%) Oracle
2 62 (14.39%) VMware
3 48 (11.14%) Cisco
4 39 (9.05%) ServiceNow
5 35 (8.12%) HP
6 32 (7.42%) Microsoft
7 28 (6.50%) Dell
7 28 (6.50%) SAP
8 26 (6.03%) SolarWinds
9 22 (5.10%) Red Hat
10 19 (4.41%) Splunk
11 18 (4.18%) BMC
12 16 (3.71%) AppDynamics
12 16 (3.71%) Google
13 14 (3.25%) Commvault
14 12 (2.78%) EMC
15 10 (2.32%) Broadcom
15 10 (2.32%) MathWorks
15 10 (2.32%) NetApp
16 9 (2.09%) Brocade