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 26 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
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 251 231
Rank change year-on-year -21 -20 +67
Contract jobs citing IBM 420 296 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.02% 1.01%
As % of the Vendors category 2.20% 2.16% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 168 267
10th Percentile £306 £320 £400
25th Percentile £363 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £576 £600 £650
90th Percentile £688 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £469 £489
% change year-on-year -9.33% -4.14% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 15 30
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £64.06 £24.18 £65.53
Median hourly rate £82.25 £24.66 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +233.54% -64.77% +14.75%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.38 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.66 £70.00
% change year-on-year +256.85% -64.77% +64.01%

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 19,134 13,734 18,888
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.51% 47.26% 42.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,240 8,680 11,799
10th Percentile £313 £295 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.75%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £709 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 969 474 1,027
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.44 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.32 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.47 £28.68 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.18% +22.02% -38.96%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £55.68
90th Percentile £77.65 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -12.17% +26.16% -38.57%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -18 376 £457 -8.37% 86
UK excluding London -17 230 £425 -9.33% 73
London -20 147 £488 -4.88% 24
Work from Home -28 122 £472 -1.92% 39
North of England -55 59 £475 +11.76% 18
South East -35 51 £500 +177.78% 27
Midlands -29 50 £397 -13.72% 9
West Midlands -31 47 £394 -14.40% 7
North West -24 39 £472 +23.88% 10
South West -7 33 £315 -47.50% 12
East of England -8 24 £212 -68.60% 7
Yorkshire -53 19 £487 +1.19% 7
Scotland +10 16 £525 +2.44% 3
East Midlands -31 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -13 1 - -
North East -18 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 (5.71%) WebSphere
2 21 (5.00%) Confluence
3 16 (3.81%) CICS
4 12 (2.86%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (2.14%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.90%) nginx
7 8 (1.90%) Tomcat
8 5 (1.19%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.19%) ArcGIS
9 4 (0.95%) Apache
9 4 (0.95%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.71%) CMS
10 3 (0.71%) JBoss
10 3 (0.71%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.48%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.48%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.38%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.48%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 28 (6.67%) Maximo
2 10 (2.38%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.67%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (1.43%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.95%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.71%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.71%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.71%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.71%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.71%) SAP R/3
6 3 (0.71%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.48%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.24%) Algo Collateral
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
8 1 (0.24%) SAP AFS
8 1 (0.24%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 98 (23.33%) AWS
2 75 (17.86%) Azure
3 15 (3.57%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.33%) Datadog
4 14 (3.33%) GCP
5 11 (2.62%) IBM Watson
6 10 (2.38%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (2.14%) AWS Lambda
7 9 (2.14%) Azure API Management
7 9 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (2.14%) SaaS
7 9 (2.14%) Serverless
8 8 (1.90%) Azure AKS
8 8 (1.90%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (1.67%) Amazon S3
9 7 (1.67%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (1.67%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 6 (1.43%) GitHub
10 6 (1.43%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.29%) Firewall
2 17 (4.05%) VSAN
3 15 (3.57%) SAN
4 12 (2.86%) HTTP
5 11 (2.62%) HTTPS
6 9 (2.14%) VPN
7 8 (1.90%) Fibre Channel
7 8 (1.90%) SNMP
7 8 (1.90%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.67%) NAS
9 6 (1.43%) APPN
9 6 (1.43%) SNA
10 5 (1.19%) iSCSI
11 4 (0.95%) DNS
11 4 (0.95%) DWDM
11 4 (0.95%) SSH
12 3 (0.71%) LAN
13 2 (0.48%) Network Security
13 2 (0.48%) SDH
13 2 (0.48%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (6.90%) DB2
2 24 (5.71%) SQL Server
3 21 (5.00%) DataStage
4 17 (4.05%) Oracle Database
5 14 (3.33%) Relational Database
6 13 (3.10%) Oracle Reports
7 12 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
8 11 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
9 10 (2.38%) GIS
10 9 (2.14%) Big Data
11 6 (1.43%) IBM InfoSphere
12 5 (1.19%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (1.19%) Metadata
12 5 (1.19%) NoSQL
12 5 (1.19%) Power BI
13 4 (0.95%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
13 4 (0.95%) Apache Hive
13 4 (0.95%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 47 (11.19%) Rational DOORS
2 40 (9.52%) JIRA
3 16 (3.81%) Git
4 13 (3.10%) GitLab
5 10 (2.38%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.14%) Ant
7 8 (1.90%) PVCS
8 7 (1.67%) SoapUI
9 5 (1.19%) IBM UrbanCode
9 5 (1.19%) JUnit
9 5 (1.19%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.95%) ERwin
10 4 (0.95%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.48%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.48%) Introscope
11 2 (0.48%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.48%) Selenium
11 2 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.24%) XPEDITER
General
1 99 (23.57%) Social Skills
2 97 (23.10%) Finance
3 52 (12.38%) Banking
4 40 (9.52%) Public Sector
5 35 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (6.90%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.14%) Retail
10 8 (1.90%) Electronics
10 8 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.43%) Aviation
11 6 (1.43%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.43%) Law
11 6 (1.43%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.19%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.19%) Legal
13 4 (0.95%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 60 (14.29%) Analyst
2 54 (12.86%) Developer
3 50 (11.90%) Architect
4 27 (6.43%) Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.19%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.19%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.19%) Product Manager
6 23 (5.48%) Solutions Architect
6 23 (5.48%) Storage Analyst
7 22 (5.24%) Systems Manager
8 21 (5.00%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 19 (4.52%) Senior
10 18 (4.29%) Software Engineer
11 17 (4.05%) Data Engineer
12 16 (3.81%) Consultant
13 15 (3.57%) Lead
14 12 (2.86%) Administrator
15 10 (2.38%) DevOps Engineer
16 9 (2.14%) Azure Engineer
17 8 (1.90%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (7.86%) Middleware
2 29 (6.90%) XML
3 27 (6.43%) Kafka
4 21 (5.00%) REST
5 20 (4.76%) Flash
6 19 (4.52%) SOAP
7 18 (4.29%) JMS
8 14 (3.33%) JSON
8 14 (3.33%) XSLT
9 10 (2.38%) Web Services
10 9 (2.14%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (1.90%) ARM Templates
11 8 (1.90%) J2EE
11 8 (1.90%) WebSphere MQ
11 8 (1.90%) WSDL
11 8 (1.90%) XSD
12 7 (1.67%) OC4J
12 7 (1.67%) scikit-learn
12 7 (1.67%) Spring
12 7 (1.67%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 56 (13.33%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.29%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (6.90%) Data Centre
4 28 (6.67%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.67%) Product Ownership
5 27 (6.43%) Replication
6 22 (5.24%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (3.81%) VSAM
8 11 (2.62%) Algorithms
8 11 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (2.62%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 10 (2.38%) Cloud Native
9 10 (2.38%) Clustering
9 10 (2.38%) DataPower
9 10 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (1.90%) BYOD
10 8 (1.90%) Management Information System
11 7 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.67%) IBM Mainframe
11 7 (1.67%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 90 (21.43%) Linux
2 56 (13.33%) Windows
3 40 (9.52%) Unix
4 39 (9.29%) AIX
4 39 (9.29%) zOS
5 16 (3.81%) Windows Server
6 15 (3.57%) Solaris
7 13 (3.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (2.86%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.67%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.67%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.67%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.67%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.67%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.48%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.24%) Android
11 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.24%) MVS
11 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (26.90%) Agile
2 60 (14.29%) Migration
3 58 (13.81%) Problem-Solving
4 49 (11.67%) CI/CD
5 47 (11.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 45 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
7 44 (10.48%) DevOps
8 43 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 40 (9.52%) Roadmaps
10 38 (9.05%) Computer Science
10 38 (9.05%) UML
11 32 (7.62%) ITIL
12 31 (7.38%) Requirements Management
13 30 (7.14%) PRINCE2
14 29 (6.90%) Analytics
14 29 (6.90%) ETL
14 29 (6.90%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 29 (6.90%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 28 (6.67%) Change Control
15 28 (6.67%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 72 (17.14%) SQL
2 56 (13.33%) Python
3 39 (9.29%) Java
4 23 (5.48%) PowerShell
5 18 (4.29%) JCL
5 18 (4.29%) PL/SQL
6 16 (3.81%) COBOL
7 14 (3.33%) REXX
8 13 (3.10%) Bash
8 13 (3.10%) C
9 12 (2.86%) Perl
10 10 (2.38%) C++
11 9 (2.14%) Bicep
12 8 (1.90%) CLIST
12 8 (1.90%) XPath
13 7 (1.67%) Ada
13 7 (1.67%) Embedded C
13 7 (1.67%) MATLAB
13 7 (1.67%) Search Processing Language
13 7 (1.67%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 128 (30.48%) Security Cleared
2 72 (17.14%) SC Cleared
3 46 (10.95%) Degree
4 16 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.57%) Azure Certification
6 13 (3.10%) CISM
6 13 (3.10%) CISSP
6 13 (3.10%) DV Cleared
7 11 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.90%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.67%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.67%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 7 (1.67%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.19%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.95%) CEH
11 4 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.95%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.95%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.00%) Data Quality
2 15 (3.57%) QA
3 11 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.62%) SLA
4 10 (2.38%) NIST
5 7 (1.67%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.19%) SEPA
7 4 (0.95%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.71%) GRC
9 2 (0.48%) GDPR
9 2 (0.48%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.48%) NCSC
9 2 (0.48%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.24%) Basel III
10 1 (0.24%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.24%) IFRS
10 1 (0.24%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 44 (10.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (6.90%) vSphere
3 26 (6.19%) NFS
4 21 (5.00%) GPFS
4 21 (5.00%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (3.81%) Docker
5 16 (3.81%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.67%) Firmware
7 6 (1.43%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.43%) KVM
7 6 (1.43%) RACF
7 6 (1.43%) Time Sharing Option
8 4 (0.95%) Job Entry Subsystem
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.71%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.71%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.48%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 2 (0.48%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
11 1 (0.24%) Ceph
11 1 (0.24%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 29 (6.90%) vRealize
2 28 (6.67%) Terraform
3 24 (5.71%) Ansible
4 23 (5.48%) Kubernetes
5 16 (3.81%) VxRail
6 12 (2.86%) Tivoli
7 8 (1.90%) IBM BigFix
7 8 (1.90%) Nagios
7 8 (1.90%) Netcool
7 8 (1.90%) OpenView
7 8 (1.90%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (1.90%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 8 (1.90%) ZABBIX
8 7 (1.67%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (1.43%) Tivoli NetView
9 6 (1.43%) vCenter Server
10 5 (1.19%) OMEGAMON
11 4 (0.95%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.95%) QRadar
12 3 (0.71%) Grafana
Vendors
1 76 (18.10%) Oracle
2 55 (13.10%) VMware
3 48 (11.43%) Cisco
4 39 (9.29%) ServiceNow
5 31 (7.38%) HP
6 30 (7.14%) Microsoft
7 28 (6.67%) SAP
8 27 (6.43%) Dell
9 22 (5.24%) SolarWinds
10 17 (4.05%) Red Hat
11 16 (3.81%) AppDynamics
11 16 (3.81%) Google
12 14 (3.33%) Commvault
12 14 (3.33%) Splunk
13 13 (3.10%) BMC
14 12 (2.86%) EMC
15 10 (2.38%) NetApp
16 8 (1.90%) Citrix
16 8 (1.90%) Informatica
16 8 (1.90%) TIBCO