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 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
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 291 241 239
Rank change year-on-year -50 -2 +56
Contract jobs citing IBM 395 325 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.06% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.09% 2.27% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 183 285
10th Percentile £313 £321 £400
25th Percentile £380 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £572 £600 £650
90th Percentile £688 £724 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £460 £495
% change year-on-year -6.52% -6.98% +4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 20 27
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £56.56 £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 - £68.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £82.25 £62.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +31.60% -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 18,869 14,335 19,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.18% 46.77% 43.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,083 8,807 12,126
10th Percentile £306 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -3.12%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 939 454 1,014
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.47 £21.24 £14.71
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £54.39
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £24.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +14.58% -26.15%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -50 347 £475 -4.76% 100
UK excluding London -21 224 £430 -6.52% 79
London -45 127 £500 -4.76% 34
Work from Home -22 121 £481 -1.28% 41
North of England -51 63 £472 +11.06% 18
Midlands -33 51 £400 -14.44% 10
West Midlands -25 48 £397 -13.72% 5
North West -14 46 £469 +23.10% 15
South East -29 43 £513 +70.83% 31
East of England -5 27 £318 -31.14% 4
South West -25 25 £375 -37.50% 10
Scotland +18 18 £450 -12.20% 6
Yorkshire -62 16 £487 +1.46% 3
East Midlands -28 3 £837 +74.27% 5
Wales -2 1 - - 1
North East -18 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 (6.08%) WebSphere
2 19 (4.81%) Confluence
3 16 (4.05%) CICS
4 12 (3.04%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (2.28%) MQSeries
7 8 (2.03%) nginx
7 8 (2.03%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.03%) Tomcat
8 7 (1.77%) Apache
9 5 (1.27%) ArcGIS
10 4 (1.01%) Anypoint
10 4 (1.01%) IIS
10 4 (1.01%) JBoss
10 4 (1.01%) WebSphere Application Server
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.76%) CMS
11 3 (0.76%) iPlanet
12 2 (0.51%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.53%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.51%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.34%) Maximo
2 9 (2.28%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.77%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.01%) 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 (24.30%) AWS
2 71 (17.97%) Azure
3 19 (4.81%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.54%) Datadog
5 12 (3.04%) GCP
6 11 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
6 11 (2.78%) IBM Watson
6 11 (2.78%) Serverless
7 10 (2.53%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.28%) AWS CloudFormation
8 9 (2.28%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.28%) SaaS
9 8 (2.03%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.77%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.52%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.52%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.30%) VSAN
2 15 (3.80%) SAN
3 14 (3.54%) Firewall
4 11 (2.78%) HTTPS
5 10 (2.53%) HTTP
6 9 (2.28%) VPN
7 8 (2.03%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (1.77%) NAS
8 7 (1.77%) SSH
9 5 (1.27%) iSCSI
9 5 (1.27%) SNA
9 5 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.01%) APPN
10 4 (1.01%) DWDM
11 3 (0.76%) Kerberos
11 3 (0.76%) SNMP
12 2 (0.51%) DNS
12 2 (0.51%) MPLS
12 2 (0.51%) WAN
12 2 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.09%) DB2
2 24 (6.08%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.81%) DataStage
3 19 (4.81%) Oracle Database
4 13 (3.29%) Oracle Reports
5 12 (3.04%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (3.04%) Relational Database
6 10 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (2.53%) GIS
7 8 (2.03%) Big Data
8 7 (1.77%) NoSQL
9 6 (1.52%) IBM InfoSphere
9 6 (1.52%) Power BI
10 5 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
10 5 (1.27%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (1.01%) Apache Hive
11 4 (1.01%) Metadata
11 4 (1.01%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 40 (10.13%) JIRA
2 38 (9.62%) Rational DOORS
3 19 (4.81%) Git
4 12 (3.04%) Jenkins
5 11 (2.78%) GitLab
6 8 (2.03%) Ant
6 8 (2.03%) PVCS
7 7 (1.77%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.27%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.27%) JUnit
9 4 (1.01%) ERwin
9 4 (1.01%) PowerDesigner
10 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket Server
10 3 (0.76%) CA Release Automation
10 3 (0.76%) Liquibase
10 3 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.51%) Selenium
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.25%) XPEDITER
General
1 101 (25.57%) Finance
2 94 (23.80%) Social Skills
3 51 (12.91%) Banking
4 36 (9.11%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (8.61%) Public Sector
6 20 (5.06%) Aerospace
7 16 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.28%) Electronics
9 9 (2.28%) Financial Institution
9 9 (2.28%) Retail
10 8 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (2.03%) Private Banking
11 6 (1.52%) Aviation
11 6 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.52%) Legal
12 5 (1.27%) Law
12 5 (1.27%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.01%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.01%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 68 (17.22%) Analyst
2 52 (13.16%) Developer
3 42 (10.63%) Architect
4 26 (6.58%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 23 (5.82%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (5.82%) Storage Analyst
6 22 (5.57%) Senior
7 17 (4.30%) Delivery Manager
8 16 (4.05%) Data Engineer
8 16 (4.05%) Product Delivery Manager
8 16 (4.05%) Product Manager
8 16 (4.05%) Software Engineer
9 15 (3.80%) Lead
10 14 (3.54%) Systems Manager
11 13 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
11 13 (3.29%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 12 (3.04%) Consultant
13 11 (2.78%) Administrator
14 9 (2.28%) Azure Engineer
15 8 (2.03%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.86%) XML
2 30 (7.59%) Middleware
3 26 (6.58%) Kafka
4 21 (5.32%) Flash
5 20 (5.06%) SOAP
6 16 (4.05%) JMS
6 16 (4.05%) JSON
7 14 (3.54%) REST
7 14 (3.54%) XSLT
8 10 (2.53%) Web Services
9 9 (2.28%) OAuth
10 8 (2.03%) ARM Templates
10 8 (2.03%) J2EE
10 8 (2.03%) WSDL
10 8 (2.03%) XSD
11 7 (1.77%) OC4J
11 7 (1.77%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.77%) TIBCO EMS
12 6 (1.52%) IBM Integration Bus
12 6 (1.52%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 54 (13.67%) Mainframe
2 40 (10.13%) Linux Command Line
3 30 (7.59%) Replication
4 26 (6.58%) Data Centre
5 22 (5.57%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (4.81%) Data Structures
7 18 (4.56%) Product Ownership
8 15 (3.80%) VSAM
9 11 (2.78%) AS400
10 10 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
11 9 (2.28%) Algorithms
11 9 (2.28%) DataPower
11 9 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (2.03%) BYOD
12 8 (2.03%) Cloud Native
12 8 (2.03%) Management Information System
13 7 (1.77%) Clustering
13 7 (1.77%) Enterprise Storage
13 7 (1.77%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.77%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 88 (22.28%) Linux
2 52 (13.16%) Windows
3 45 (11.39%) Unix
4 36 (9.11%) zOS
5 33 (8.35%) AIX
6 19 (4.81%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.80%) Solaris
8 12 (3.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (3.04%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.77%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.77%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.77%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.77%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.77%) 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 95 (24.05%) Agile
2 57 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (13.67%) Migration
4 48 (12.15%) CI/CD
4 48 (12.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 46 (11.65%) DevOps
6 40 (10.13%) Continuous Improvement
7 39 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 37 (9.37%) Roadmaps
9 33 (8.35%) ITIL
10 32 (8.10%) Computer Science
11 30 (7.59%) Asset Management
12 28 (7.09%) ETL
12 28 (7.09%) Performance Tuning
12 28 (7.09%) UML
13 27 (6.84%) Analytics
14 25 (6.33%) Change Control
14 25 (6.33%) Data Modelling
15 24 (6.08%) Test Automation
16 23 (5.82%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 71 (17.97%) SQL
2 50 (12.66%) Python
3 41 (10.38%) Java
4 18 (4.56%) PL/SQL
5 16 (4.05%) JCL
5 16 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 15 (3.80%) COBOL
6 15 (3.80%) REXX
7 13 (3.29%) Shell Script
8 12 (3.04%) C
9 11 (2.78%) Bash
10 9 (2.28%) Bicep
10 9 (2.28%) C++
10 9 (2.28%) CLIST
10 9 (2.28%) Perl
11 8 (2.03%) RPG
11 8 (2.03%) XPath
12 7 (1.77%) Assembly Language
12 7 (1.77%) Embedded C
12 7 (1.77%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 101 (25.57%) Security Cleared
2 57 (14.43%) SC Cleared
3 40 (10.13%) Degree
4 17 (4.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.80%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.04%) DV Cleared
8 11 (2.78%) CISM
8 11 (2.78%) CISSP
9 8 (2.03%) AWS Certification
9 8 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.77%) IBM Certification
10 7 (1.77%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 7 (1.77%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.27%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.01%) PMP
13 3 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.81%) QA
2 17 (4.30%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.78%) SLA
4 10 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (2.28%) NIST
6 7 (1.77%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.01%) ISO 20022
7 4 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.01%) 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 45 (11.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (7.59%) vSphere
3 25 (6.33%) NFS
4 23 (5.82%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.57%) GPFS
6 17 (4.30%) Docker
7 16 (4.05%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (2.53%) RACF
9 6 (1.52%) Firmware
9 6 (1.52%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.52%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 6 (1.52%) KVM
10 4 (1.01%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (1.01%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.76%) Active Directory
11 3 (0.76%) 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 31 (7.85%) Terraform
2 30 (7.59%) vRealize
3 22 (5.57%) Kubernetes
4 20 (5.06%) Ansible
5 16 (4.05%) VxRail
6 8 (2.03%) Control-M
6 8 (2.03%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.77%) TIBCO Hawk
7 7 (1.77%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.52%) OMEGAMON
8 6 (1.52%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.52%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.27%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.01%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.01%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.76%) CA Wily
11 3 (0.76%) Grafana
11 3 (0.76%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.76%) zSecure
Vendors
1 78 (19.75%) Oracle
2 57 (14.43%) VMware
3 46 (11.65%) Cisco
4 40 (10.13%) ServiceNow
5 34 (8.61%) Microsoft
6 24 (6.08%) Dell
6 24 (6.08%) HP
7 23 (5.82%) SAP
8 17 (4.30%) AppDynamics
8 17 (4.30%) SolarWinds
9 16 (4.05%) Red Hat
10 15 (3.80%) Google
11 14 (3.54%) Commvault
12 11 (2.78%) Splunk
13 10 (2.53%) BMC
13 10 (2.53%) EMC
14 9 (2.28%) Broadcom
15 8 (2.03%) ANSYS
15 8 (2.03%) Citrix
15 8 (2.03%) Software AG