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 7 February 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
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 235 207
Rank change year-on-year -55 -28 +103
Contract jobs citing IBM 335 333 512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.07% 1.13%
As % of the Vendors category 1.90% 2.31% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 164 319
10th Percentile £313 £322 £403
25th Percentile £400 £413 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.40% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £558 £600 £650
90th Percentile £688 £682 £759
UK excluding London median daily rate £441 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -1.94% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 21 25
10th Percentile £25.71 - £62.50
25th Percentile £44.88 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.75% -34.03% +64.01%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile £70.15 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £46.18 £70.00
% change year-on-year +51.58% -34.03% +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 17,631 14,393 19,748
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.17% 46.29% 43.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,363 8,550 12,462
10th Percentile £300 £275 £255
25th Percentile £412 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.21%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £631
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 847 420 926
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.93
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% +0.87% -2.54%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.69 £58.94
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.50 £26.39
% change year-on-year -16.98% +0.42% -0.34%

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 7 February 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 7 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IBM in the UK

IBM
Top 15 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 7 February 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 -63 296 £471 -5.80% 84
UK excluding London -57 187 £441 -1.94% 63
London -41 109 £500 -4.76% 38
Work from Home -15 104 £463 -6.09% 59
North of England -62 55 £453 +13.25% 14
Midlands -22 47 £400 -13.04% 4
West Midlands -13 46 £400 -13.04% 2
North West -18 42 £452 +18.50% 10
East of England -3 28 £318 -25.06% 3
South East -43 24 £525 +23.53% 18
South West -26 21 £700 +16.67% 14
Scotland +6 15 £440 -2.33% 10
Yorkshire -61 13 £481 +6.30% 3
Wales 0 1 - - 2
East Midlands -30 1 £837 +74.27% 2

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 20 (5.97%) Confluence
1 20 (5.97%) WebSphere
2 13 (3.88%) CICS
3 11 (3.28%) Apache
4 10 (2.99%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 9 (2.69%) JBoss
5 9 (2.69%) MQSeries
6 8 (2.39%) IIS
6 8 (2.39%) SharePoint
6 8 (2.39%) WebLogic
6 8 (2.39%) WebSphere Application Server
7 7 (2.09%) iPlanet
8 5 (1.49%) ArcGIS
9 4 (1.19%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.90%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.90%) nginx
10 3 (0.90%) SAS
10 3 (0.90%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.60%) FileNet
Applications
1 9 (2.69%) MS Visio
2 7 (2.09%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 29 (8.66%) Maximo
2 9 (2.69%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (2.09%) BusinessWorks
4 4 (1.19%) Oracle 11i
4 4 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.90%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.90%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.90%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.90%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.90%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.30%) Cognos Controller
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.30%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.30%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 89 (26.57%) AWS
2 61 (18.21%) Azure
3 24 (7.16%) OpenShift
4 15 (4.48%) GCP
5 14 (4.18%) Datadog
6 13 (3.88%) AWS CloudFormation
6 13 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
6 13 (3.88%) Serverless
7 11 (3.28%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.69%) Azure AKS
8 9 (2.69%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.69%) Azure Monitor
8 9 (2.69%) SaaS
9 8 (2.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 8 (2.39%) OCI
10 7 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (2.09%) IBM Watson
10 7 (2.09%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (1.49%) IBM Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.78%) HTTPS
2 15 (4.48%) VSAN
3 13 (3.88%) VPN
4 11 (3.28%) SAN
5 8 (2.39%) HTTP
5 8 (2.39%) SSH
6 7 (2.09%) Kerberos
7 6 (1.79%) Fibre Channel
7 6 (1.79%) Firewall
7 6 (1.79%) TCP/IP
8 5 (1.49%) iSCSI
8 5 (1.49%) NAS
8 5 (1.49%) SNA
9 4 (1.19%) APPN
9 4 (1.19%) DWDM
9 4 (1.19%) LAN
9 4 (1.19%) Network Security
9 4 (1.19%) WAN
10 2 (0.60%) Multicast
10 2 (0.60%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.46%) DB2
2 23 (6.87%) SQL Server
3 21 (6.27%) Oracle Database
4 14 (4.18%) DataStage
5 13 (3.88%) Oracle Reports
6 11 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
6 11 (3.28%) NoSQL
6 11 (3.28%) Relational Database
7 9 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
8 8 (2.39%) Amazon Redshift
8 8 (2.39%) GIS
9 7 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (1.79%) Couchbase
10 6 (1.79%) Power BI
11 5 (1.49%) Big Data
11 5 (1.49%) DynamoDB
11 5 (1.49%) IBM InfoSphere
12 4 (1.19%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (1.19%) Apache Hive
12 4 (1.19%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 40 (11.94%) JIRA
2 21 (6.27%) Git
3 19 (5.67%) Rational DOORS
4 15 (4.48%) Jenkins
5 10 (2.99%) GitLab
6 8 (2.39%) PVCS
7 7 (2.09%) Bitbucket Server
7 7 (2.09%) CA Release Automation
7 7 (2.09%) SoapUI
8 6 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (1.49%) Ant
9 5 (1.49%) JUnit
10 4 (1.19%) ERwin
10 4 (1.19%) IBM UrbanCode
11 3 (0.90%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.60%) Selenium
13 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
13 1 (0.30%) Maven
13 1 (0.30%) Rational Rhapsody
13 1 (0.30%) XPEDITER
General
1 90 (26.87%) Finance
2 85 (25.37%) Social Skills
3 49 (14.63%) Banking
4 34 (10.15%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (7.46%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.37%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.69%) Electronics
7 9 (2.69%) Financial Institution
7 9 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.39%) Private Banking
9 6 (1.79%) Aviation
9 6 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.49%) Law
10 5 (1.49%) Retail
10 5 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.19%) Investment Banking
11 4 (1.19%) Legal
12 3 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.90%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 63 (18.81%) Analyst
2 58 (17.31%) Developer
3 32 (9.55%) Architect
4 24 (7.16%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 22 (6.57%) Senior
6 20 (5.97%) Storage Analyst
7 19 (5.67%) Data Engineer
7 19 (5.67%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (4.48%) Software Engineer
9 12 (3.58%) webMethods Developer
10 11 (3.28%) DevOps Engineer
10 11 (3.28%) Lead
10 11 (3.28%) Platform Engineer
11 9 (2.69%) Azure Engineer
11 9 (2.69%) Consultant
12 8 (2.39%) Storage Engineer
13 7 (2.09%) C Software Engineer
13 7 (2.09%) Embedded C Engineer
13 7 (2.09%) Embedded C Software Engineer
13 7 (2.09%) Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (11.94%) XML
2 29 (8.66%) Kafka
3 24 (7.16%) SOAP
4 22 (6.57%) Middleware
5 21 (6.27%) JMS
6 20 (5.97%) Flash
7 19 (5.67%) JSON
8 14 (4.18%) XSLT
9 12 (3.58%) OAuth
10 11 (3.28%) REST
10 11 (3.28%) Web Services
11 9 (2.69%) ARM Templates
12 8 (2.39%) J2EE
12 8 (2.39%) OpenID
12 8 (2.39%) WSDL
12 8 (2.39%) XSD
13 7 (2.09%) LDAP
13 7 (2.09%) OC4J
13 7 (2.09%) SAML
13 7 (2.09%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 41 (12.24%) Mainframe
2 36 (10.75%) Linux Command Line
3 31 (9.25%) Replication
4 19 (5.67%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (4.18%) Data Centre
6 11 (3.28%) AS400
6 11 (3.28%) VSAM
7 10 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.99%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (2.69%) Algorithms
8 9 (2.69%) DataPower
9 8 (2.39%) Tandem
10 7 (2.09%) Enterprise Storage
11 6 (1.79%) iSeries
11 6 (1.79%) Management Information System
11 6 (1.79%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.79%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 5 (1.49%) CMDB
12 5 (1.49%) Product Ownership
13 4 (1.19%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 78 (23.28%) Linux
2 47 (14.03%) Windows
3 41 (12.24%) Unix
4 30 (8.96%) zOS
5 19 (5.67%) AIX
6 14 (4.18%) Windows Server
7 10 (2.99%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (2.09%) Solaris
8 7 (2.09%) Windows 10
8 7 (2.09%) Windows 7
8 7 (2.09%) Windows Server 2003
9 6 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.30%) Android
11 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.30%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.30%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (22.09%) Agile
2 57 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
3 47 (14.03%) DevOps
4 45 (13.43%) CI/CD
5 44 (13.13%) Migration
5 44 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
6 32 (9.55%) ITIL
7 29 (8.66%) Analytics
8 28 (8.36%) Asset Management
9 27 (8.06%) Performance Tuning
10 25 (7.46%) ETL
11 23 (6.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 22 (6.57%) Data Modelling
12 22 (6.57%) Workflow
13 21 (6.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 21 (6.27%) Test Automation
14 19 (5.67%) Continuous Improvement
14 19 (5.67%) Roadmaps
14 19 (5.67%) Validation
15 18 (5.37%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 59 (17.61%) SQL
2 44 (13.13%) Python
3 35 (10.45%) Java
4 19 (5.67%) Shell Script
5 15 (4.48%) JCL
6 14 (4.18%) REXX
7 13 (3.88%) PL/SQL
8 12 (3.58%) C
8 12 (3.58%) COBOL
9 9 (2.69%) Bicep
9 9 (2.69%) C++
9 9 (2.69%) CLIST
10 8 (2.39%) Groovy
10 8 (2.39%) JavaScript
10 8 (2.39%) PowerShell
10 8 (2.39%) RPG
10 8 (2.39%) XPath
11 7 (2.09%) Embedded C
11 7 (2.09%) Embedded C++
11 7 (2.09%) Korn
Qualifications
1 73 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 46 (13.73%) SC Cleared
3 27 (8.06%) Degree
4 15 (4.48%) Azure Certification
4 15 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.88%) DV Cleared
6 11 (3.28%) CISM
6 11 (3.28%) CISSP
7 10 (2.99%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.69%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (2.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 7 (2.09%) IBM Certification
10 7 (2.09%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.49%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.19%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.19%) PMP
13 3 (0.90%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.07%) QA
2 14 (4.18%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (2.69%) NIST
4 9 (2.69%) SLA
5 8 (2.39%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.49%) ISO 20022
6 5 (1.49%) SEPA
7 4 (1.19%) GDPR
7 4 (1.19%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.60%) Basel III
8 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 1 (0.30%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.30%) GRC
9 1 (0.30%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.30%) IFRS
9 1 (0.30%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.30%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.30%) ISO 15022
System Software
1 42 (12.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (8.96%) vSphere
3 24 (7.16%) NFS
4 21 (6.27%) GPFS
5 20 (5.97%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (4.18%) Docker
7 13 (3.88%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (2.99%) RACF
9 8 (2.39%) Active Directory
10 6 (1.79%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 6 (1.79%) Tivoli Directory Server
11 3 (0.90%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.90%) KVM
11 3 (0.90%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.90%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.30%) Ceph
13 1 (0.30%) Firmware
13 1 (0.30%) Lustre
13 1 (0.30%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 29 (8.66%) Terraform
1 29 (8.66%) vRealize
2 23 (6.87%) Kubernetes
3 17 (5.07%) Ansible
4 14 (4.18%) VxRail
5 8 (2.39%) Control-M
6 7 (2.09%) CA Single Sign-On
6 7 (2.09%) CA Wily
6 7 (2.09%) Progress Chef
6 7 (2.09%) TIBCO Hawk
6 7 (2.09%) Tivoli
7 6 (1.79%) OMEGAMON
8 5 (1.49%) IBM BigFix
8 5 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.49%) Tivoli NetView
9 4 (1.19%) QRadar
9 4 (1.19%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 3 (0.90%) Grafana
10 3 (0.90%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.90%) zSecure
Vendors
1 75 (22.39%) Oracle
2 49 (14.63%) VMware
3 44 (13.13%) Cisco
4 42 (12.54%) Microsoft
5 36 (10.75%) ServiceNow
6 23 (6.87%) SAP
7 21 (6.27%) AppDynamics
7 21 (6.27%) Dell
8 18 (5.37%) HP
9 14 (4.18%) Commvault
9 14 (4.18%) Google
9 14 (4.18%) SolarWinds
10 13 (3.88%) Broadcom
10 13 (3.88%) Software AG
10 13 (3.88%) webMethods
11 12 (3.58%) Red Hat
11 12 (3.58%) Splunk
12 10 (2.99%) EMC
13 9 (2.69%) Citrix
14 8 (2.39%) Cognos