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 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
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 254 235
Rank change year-on-year -35 -19 +50
Contract jobs citing IBM 392 306 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.04% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.09% 2.21% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 176 276
10th Percentile £311 £320 £400
25th Percentile £371 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £576 £611 £650
90th Percentile £688 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £475 £495
% change year-on-year -10.53% -3.94% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 17 29
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £64.06 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £76.25 £27.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +177.27% -60.71% +20.16%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £27.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +220.00% -60.71% +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 18,722 13,856 19,311
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.99% 47.01% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,984 8,610 12,045
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 445 1,032
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.63%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.56
90th Percentile £75.20 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +19.57% -30.30%

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 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 11 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 11 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 -34 347 £469 -6.20% 90
UK excluding London -21 221 £425 -10.53% 55
London -36 129 £498 -2.93% 28
Work from Home -19 118 £481 -3.27% 46
North of England -54 61 £472 +11.06% 13
Midlands -36 49 £397 -16.45% 7
West Midlands -29 46 £394 -15.78% 4
South East -34 46 £500 +107.26% 20
North West -15 44 £469 +23.10% 9
South West -10 26 £375 -37.50% 10
East of England -7 25 £212 -57.61% 4
Scotland +20 17 £488 -4.88% 2
Yorkshire -70 16 £487 +1.46% 4
East Midlands -32 3 £837 +74.27% 3
Wales -6 1 - -
North East -19 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 23 (5.87%) WebSphere
2 21 (5.36%) Confluence
3 15 (3.83%) CICS
4 12 (3.06%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.81%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (2.30%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.04%) nginx
7 8 (2.04%) Tomcat
8 6 (1.53%) MQSeries
9 5 (1.28%) Apache
9 5 (1.28%) ArcGIS
10 4 (1.02%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.77%) CMS
11 3 (0.77%) JBoss
11 3 (0.77%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.51%) IIS
12 2 (0.51%) SAS
13 1 (0.26%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 10 (2.55%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.51%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.26%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.40%) Maximo
2 9 (2.30%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.79%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.02%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.77%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.77%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP R/3
5 3 (0.77%) SAP WM
5 3 (0.77%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.26%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 92 (23.47%) AWS
2 72 (18.37%) Azure
3 16 (4.08%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.57%) Datadog
5 12 (3.06%) GCP
6 11 (2.81%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.55%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.30%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.30%) SaaS
8 9 (2.30%) Serverless
9 8 (2.04%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.04%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.79%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.79%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.53%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.28%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.34%) VSAN
2 15 (3.83%) Firewall
2 15 (3.83%) SAN
3 11 (2.81%) HTTP
3 11 (2.81%) HTTPS
4 9 (2.30%) VPN
5 8 (2.04%) Fibre Channel
6 7 (1.79%) NAS
6 7 (1.79%) SSH
7 6 (1.53%) TCP/IP
8 5 (1.28%) APPN
8 5 (1.28%) iSCSI
8 5 (1.28%) SNA
9 4 (1.02%) DWDM
9 4 (1.02%) SNMP
10 3 (0.77%) DNS
11 2 (0.51%) MPLS
11 2 (0.51%) Multicast
11 2 (0.51%) WAN
11 2 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.89%) DB2
2 24 (6.12%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.85%) DataStage
4 17 (4.34%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.32%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (3.06%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.55%) GIS
8 8 (2.04%) Big Data
9 6 (1.53%) IBM InfoSphere
9 6 (1.53%) Power BI
10 5 (1.28%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.28%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (1.28%) NoSQL
11 4 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (1.02%) Apache Hive
11 4 (1.02%) Metadata
11 4 (1.02%) Oracle Database 10g
12 3 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 44 (11.22%) Rational DOORS
2 42 (10.71%) JIRA
3 17 (4.34%) Git
4 11 (2.81%) GitLab
5 9 (2.30%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.04%) Ant
6 8 (2.04%) PVCS
7 7 (1.79%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.28%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.28%) JUnit
9 4 (1.02%) ERwin
9 4 (1.02%) PowerDesigner
10 3 (0.77%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.77%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.51%) Selenium
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.26%) ClearCase
12 1 (0.26%) TestDirector
12 1 (0.26%) Toad
12 1 (0.26%) XPEDITER
General
1 95 (24.23%) Finance
2 94 (23.98%) Social Skills
3 49 (12.50%) Banking
4 35 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (8.93%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.63%) Aerospace
6 15 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.30%) Electronics
8 9 (2.30%) Retail
9 8 (2.04%) Financial Institution
9 8 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.53%) Aviation
10 6 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.28%) Law
11 5 (1.28%) Legal
11 5 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.02%) Investment Banking
12 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.02%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 65 (16.58%) Analyst
2 49 (12.50%) Developer
3 43 (10.97%) Architect
4 26 (6.63%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 23 (5.87%) Delivery Manager
5 23 (5.87%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (5.87%) Storage Analyst
6 22 (5.61%) Product Delivery Manager
6 22 (5.61%) Product Manager
7 21 (5.36%) Senior
8 20 (5.10%) Systems Manager
9 19 (4.85%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 16 (4.08%) Software Engineer
11 15 (3.83%) Data Engineer
12 14 (3.57%) Lead
13 13 (3.32%) Consultant
14 10 (2.55%) Administrator
14 10 (2.55%) DevOps Engineer
15 9 (2.30%) Azure Engineer
16 8 (2.04%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.91%) XML
2 30 (7.65%) Middleware
3 25 (6.38%) Kafka
4 20 (5.10%) Flash
4 20 (5.10%) SOAP
5 17 (4.34%) JMS
6 16 (4.08%) JSON
7 15 (3.83%) REST
8 14 (3.57%) XSLT
9 10 (2.55%) Web Services
10 8 (2.04%) ARM Templates
10 8 (2.04%) J2EE
10 8 (2.04%) WSDL
10 8 (2.04%) XSD
11 7 (1.79%) OAuth
11 7 (1.79%) OC4J
11 7 (1.79%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (1.79%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.79%) TIBCO EMS
12 6 (1.53%) IBM Integration Bus
Miscellaneous
1 55 (14.03%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.95%) Linux Command Line
3 27 (6.89%) Replication
4 26 (6.63%) Data Centre
5 25 (6.38%) Data Structures
6 24 (6.12%) Product Ownership
7 22 (5.61%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (3.83%) VSAM
9 10 (2.55%) DataPower
9 10 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
10 9 (2.30%) Algorithms
11 8 (2.04%) BYOD
11 8 (2.04%) Cloud Native
11 8 (2.04%) Clustering
11 8 (2.04%) Management Information System
12 7 (1.79%) AS400
12 7 (1.79%) Enterprise Storage
12 7 (1.79%) Legacy Applications
12 7 (1.79%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 84 (21.43%) Linux
2 53 (13.52%) Windows
3 42 (10.71%) Unix
4 36 (9.18%) zOS
5 34 (8.67%) AIX
6 17 (4.34%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.83%) Solaris
8 12 (3.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (3.06%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.79%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.79%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.79%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.79%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.26%) Android
10 1 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.26%) MVS
10 1 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (26.02%) Agile
2 57 (14.54%) Problem-Solving
3 55 (14.03%) Migration
4 47 (11.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 44 (11.22%) CI/CD
5 44 (11.22%) DevOps
6 43 (10.97%) Continuous Improvement
6 43 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 38 (9.69%) Computer Science
8 37 (9.44%) Roadmaps
9 34 (8.67%) UML
10 33 (8.42%) ITIL
11 29 (7.40%) Requirements Management
12 28 (7.14%) Asset Management
12 28 (7.14%) ETL
13 27 (6.89%) Analytics
13 27 (6.89%) Change Control
14 26 (6.63%) Data Modelling
14 26 (6.63%) Performance Tuning
14 26 (6.63%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 69 (17.60%) SQL
2 50 (12.76%) Python
3 38 (9.69%) Java
4 18 (4.59%) PL/SQL
4 18 (4.59%) PowerShell
5 16 (4.08%) JCL
6 15 (3.83%) COBOL
6 15 (3.83%) REXX
7 12 (3.06%) C
8 11 (2.81%) Bash
9 10 (2.55%) Perl
10 9 (2.30%) Bicep
10 9 (2.30%) C++
10 9 (2.30%) CLIST
11 8 (2.04%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.04%) XPath
12 7 (1.79%) Assembly Language
12 7 (1.79%) Embedded C
12 7 (1.79%) Embedded C++
13 6 (1.53%) Korn
Qualifications
1 110 (28.06%) Security Cleared
2 60 (15.31%) SC Cleared
3 46 (11.73%) Degree
4 17 (4.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.83%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.06%) CISM
7 12 (3.06%) CISSP
7 12 (3.06%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.79%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.79%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 7 (1.79%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.28%) ISTQB
10 5 (1.28%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.02%) PMI Certification
11 4 (1.02%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.34%) Data Quality
1 17 (4.34%) QA
2 11 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (2.81%) SLA
3 10 (2.55%) NIST
4 7 (1.79%) NIST 800
5 4 (1.02%) ISO 20022
5 4 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 4 (1.02%) SEPA
6 3 (0.77%) GRC
7 2 (0.51%) GDPR
7 2 (0.51%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.51%) NCSC
7 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.26%) Basel III
8 1 (0.26%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.26%) GAAP
8 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.26%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS
System Software
1 44 (11.22%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.40%) vSphere
3 24 (6.12%) NFS
4 21 (5.36%) GPFS
4 21 (5.36%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.83%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (3.57%) Docker
7 8 (2.04%) RACF
8 6 (1.53%) Firmware
8 6 (1.53%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.53%) Job Entry Subsystem
8 6 (1.53%) KVM
9 4 (1.02%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (1.02%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.77%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.51%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.26%) Ceph
12 1 (0.26%) Lustre
12 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Directory Server
12 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 29 (7.40%) vRealize
2 27 (6.89%) Terraform
3 21 (5.36%) Kubernetes
4 20 (5.10%) Ansible
5 16 (4.08%) VxRail
6 8 (2.04%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.79%) TIBCO Hawk
7 7 (1.79%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.53%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.53%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.28%) Control-M
9 5 (1.28%) OMEGAMON
9 5 (1.28%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.02%) Nagios
10 4 (1.02%) Netcool
10 4 (1.02%) OpenView
10 4 (1.02%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.02%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 4 (1.02%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.77%) zSecure
Vendors
1 74 (18.88%) Oracle
2 55 (14.03%) VMware
3 45 (11.48%) Cisco
4 38 (9.69%) ServiceNow
5 30 (7.65%) Microsoft
6 25 (6.38%) HP
6 25 (6.38%) SAP
7 24 (6.12%) Dell
8 18 (4.59%) SolarWinds
9 16 (4.08%) AppDynamics
9 16 (4.08%) Red Hat
10 15 (3.83%) Google
11 14 (3.57%) Commvault
12 11 (2.81%) BMC
13 10 (2.55%) EMC
13 10 (2.55%) Splunk
14 8 (2.04%) ANSYS
14 8 (2.04%) Citrix
14 8 (2.04%) Software AG
14 8 (2.04%) TIBCO