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 14 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
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 263 223
Rank change year-on-year -6 -40 +80
Contract jobs citing IBM 425 278 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 0.95% 1.06%
As % of the Vendors category 2.17% 2.01% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 159 277
10th Percentile £306 £356 £392
25th Percentile £364 £406 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £575 £626 £650
90th Percentile £688 £721 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £460 £475
% change year-on-year -7.61% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 12 32
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.00
25th Percentile £65.00 - £65.00
Median hourly rate £75.75 £24.18 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +213.28% -65.46% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £38.44 -
90th Percentile - £68.48 -
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 19,564 13,843 18,542
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.79% 47.28% 42.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,535 8,740 11,568
10th Percentile £313 £294 £262
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.50% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 978 529 1,060
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.00 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.24 £27.99 £22.29
Median % change year-on-year +0.88% +25.59% -47.56%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £78.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £24.66 £21.46
% change year-on-year +2.92% +14.91% -44.97%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -5 375 £455 -9.00% 77
UK excluding London -9 226 £425 -7.61% 64
London -35 151 £488 -11.36% 19
Work from Home -21 123 £488 +1.30% 29
North of England -59 62 £489 +14.94% 13
Midlands -31 49 £394 -15.78% 8
West Midlands -28 46 £382 -16.88% 7
South East -42 41 £525 +201.72% 18
South West +1 36 £345 -42.50% 14
North West -19 36 £469 +23.10% 4
Yorkshire -55 25 £500 -2.44% 8
East of England -12 20 £425 -15.00% 9
Scotland -3 17 £550 +7.32% 3
East Midlands -31 3 £837 +74.27% 1
Wales -14 1 - -
North East -23 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 (5.65%) WebSphere
2 18 (4.24%) CICS
2 18 (4.24%) Confluence
3 13 (3.06%) WebLogic
4 11 (2.59%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 11 (2.59%) Tomcat
5 10 (2.35%) nginx
6 7 (1.65%) SharePoint
7 5 (1.18%) Anypoint
7 5 (1.18%) Apache
8 3 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.71%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.71%) CMS
8 3 (0.71%) JBoss
8 3 (0.71%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.71%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.47%) IIS
9 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 9 (2.12%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.47%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (5.88%) Maximo
2 11 (2.59%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.65%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.65%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.94%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.71%) 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 R/3
6 3 (0.71%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.47%) Cognos Controller
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.47%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.24%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 98 (23.06%) AWS
2 77 (18.12%) Azure
3 19 (4.47%) OpenShift
4 15 (3.53%) GCP
5 14 (3.29%) Datadog
6 11 (2.59%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (2.35%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.12%) GitHub
9 8 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (1.88%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (1.88%) SaaS
9 8 (1.88%) Serverless
10 7 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.65%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.65%) Azure API Management
10 7 (1.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 6 (1.41%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.71%) Firewall
2 18 (4.24%) VSAN
3 15 (3.53%) SAN
4 14 (3.29%) HTTP
5 12 (2.82%) SNMP
6 9 (2.12%) HTTPS
6 9 (2.12%) VPN
7 8 (1.88%) Fibre Channel
7 8 (1.88%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.65%) NAS
9 6 (1.41%) APPN
9 6 (1.41%) SNA
10 5 (1.18%) DNS
10 5 (1.18%) iSCSI
11 4 (0.94%) LAN
12 3 (0.71%) MPLS
12 3 (0.71%) Network Security
12 3 (0.71%) WAN
13 2 (0.47%) DWDM
13 2 (0.47%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (7.76%) DB2
2 25 (5.88%) DataStage
3 21 (4.94%) SQL Server
4 15 (3.53%) Oracle Database
5 14 (3.29%) Relational Database
6 12 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (2.59%) Oracle Reports
8 9 (2.12%) Big Data
8 9 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (1.88%) GIS
9 8 (1.88%) Metadata
10 7 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
11 6 (1.41%) Power BI
12 5 (1.18%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.18%) MongoDB
12 5 (1.18%) NoSQL
13 4 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.94%) Apache Hive
14 3 (0.71%) IBM InfoSphere
14 3 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 40 (9.41%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.29%) JIRA
3 15 (3.53%) Git
4 13 (3.06%) GitLab
5 11 (2.59%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.88%) Ant
6 8 (1.88%) PVCS
7 6 (1.41%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.18%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.94%) JUnit
9 4 (0.94%) Liquibase
9 4 (0.94%) PowerDesigner
10 2 (0.47%) Introscope
10 2 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.47%) Selenium
10 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.24%) git-flow
11 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 104 (24.47%) Finance
2 97 (22.82%) Social Skills
3 59 (13.88%) Banking
4 37 (8.71%) Public Sector
5 29 (6.82%) Aerospace
5 29 (6.82%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.35%) Retail
9 9 (2.12%) Legal
10 8 (1.88%) Electronics
11 7 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.65%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.41%) Aviation
13 5 (1.18%) Law
14 4 (0.94%) Front Office
14 4 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.94%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.71%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 53 (12.47%) Developer
2 52 (12.24%) Analyst
3 46 (10.82%) Architect
4 27 (6.35%) Delivery Manager
4 27 (6.35%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.12%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.12%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.65%) Storage Analyst
7 23 (5.41%) Senior
8 22 (5.18%) Systems Manager
9 21 (4.94%) Consultant
9 21 (4.94%) Software Engineer
9 21 (4.94%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 18 (4.24%) Data Engineer
10 18 (4.24%) Solutions Architect
11 16 (3.76%) Lead
12 12 (2.82%) Administrator
13 10 (2.35%) Infrastructure Designer
13 10 (2.35%) Management Consultant
13 10 (2.35%) z/OS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.47%) Middleware
2 27 (6.35%) XML
3 25 (5.88%) Kafka
3 25 (5.88%) REST
4 21 (4.94%) Flash
5 17 (4.00%) SOAP
6 16 (3.76%) JMS
7 14 (3.29%) XSLT
8 13 (3.06%) JSON
9 10 (2.35%) Web Services
10 9 (2.12%) ARM Templates
10 9 (2.12%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (1.88%) J2EE
11 8 (1.88%) Spring
11 8 (1.88%) Spring Boot
11 8 (1.88%) WSDL
11 8 (1.88%) XSD
12 7 (1.65%) OAuth
12 7 (1.65%) TIBCO EMS
12 7 (1.65%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 66 (15.53%) Mainframe
2 40 (9.41%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (6.82%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.82%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.59%) Product Ownership
5 27 (6.35%) Replication
6 21 (4.94%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (4.24%) VSAM
8 13 (3.06%) Algorithms
9 12 (2.82%) Clustering
9 12 (2.82%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (2.59%) Cloud Native
10 11 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (2.59%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 10 (2.35%) BYOD
11 10 (2.35%) DataPower
12 9 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (2.12%) IBM Mainframe
12 9 (2.12%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.65%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 98 (23.06%) Linux
2 54 (12.71%) Windows
3 43 (10.12%) AIX
3 43 (10.12%) zOS
4 36 (8.47%) Unix
5 19 (4.47%) Solaris
6 17 (4.00%) Windows Server
7 16 (3.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (2.59%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (2.12%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (1.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (1.18%) Windows 10
11 5 (1.18%) Windows 7
11 5 (1.18%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.47%) MVS
12 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.47%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.24%) Android
13 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (25.88%) Agile
2 60 (14.12%) Migration
3 55 (12.94%) CI/CD
4 54 (12.71%) Problem-Solving
5 47 (11.06%) Continuous Improvement
5 47 (11.06%) DevOps
6 43 (10.12%) Roadmaps
7 42 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 39 (9.18%) Stakeholder Management
9 38 (8.94%) UML
10 35 (8.24%) Computer Science
10 35 (8.24%) ETL
11 32 (7.53%) Analytics
12 30 (7.06%) PRINCE2
13 29 (6.82%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
13 29 (6.82%) Scaled Agile Framework
13 29 (6.82%) Test Automation
14 28 (6.59%) ITIL
14 28 (6.59%) Programme Management
15 27 (6.35%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 75 (17.65%) SQL
2 59 (13.88%) Python
3 42 (9.88%) Java
4 28 (6.59%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.47%) JCL
5 19 (4.47%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.24%) COBOL
7 15 (3.53%) C
8 14 (3.29%) REXX
9 13 (3.06%) Bash
10 12 (2.82%) C++
11 11 (2.59%) Perl
12 10 (2.35%) Search Processing Language
13 9 (2.12%) Ada
13 9 (2.12%) Bicep
13 9 (2.12%) MATLAB
14 8 (1.88%) CLIST
14 8 (1.88%) XPath
15 7 (1.65%) Embedded C
15 7 (1.65%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 129 (30.35%) Security Cleared
2 77 (18.12%) SC Cleared
3 42 (9.88%) Degree
4 17 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.53%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.29%) DV Cleared
7 12 (2.82%) CISM
7 12 (2.82%) CISSP
8 8 (1.88%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.88%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.65%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.65%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 6 (1.41%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.18%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.94%) CEH
12 4 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.94%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.94%) PMI Certification
12 4 (0.94%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.18%) Data Quality
2 13 (3.06%) QA
3 11 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.59%) SLA
4 10 (2.35%) NIST
5 7 (1.65%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.94%) GDPR
6 4 (0.94%) ISO 20022
6 4 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.94%) SEPA
7 3 (0.71%) GRC
8 2 (0.47%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.47%) NCSC
8 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.24%) Basel III
9 1 (0.24%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.24%) GAAP
9 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.24%) IFRS
System Software
1 49 (11.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (7.06%) vSphere
3 28 (6.59%) NFS
4 24 (5.65%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.18%) GPFS
6 21 (4.94%) Docker
7 18 (4.24%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.65%) Firmware
8 7 (1.65%) Hyper-V
8 7 (1.65%) RACF
9 6 (1.41%) KVM
9 6 (1.41%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (1.41%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.94%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 3 (0.71%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.71%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.47%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
13 1 (0.24%) ACF2
13 1 (0.24%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 30 (7.06%) vRealize
2 29 (6.82%) Terraform
3 26 (6.12%) Kubernetes
4 25 (5.88%) Ansible
5 17 (4.00%) VxRail
6 16 (3.76%) Tivoli
7 12 (2.82%) Nagios
7 12 (2.82%) Netcool
7 12 (2.82%) OpenView
7 12 (2.82%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 12 (2.82%) ZABBIX
8 10 (2.35%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.88%) IBM BigFix
10 7 (1.65%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (1.41%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.41%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.41%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.94%) OMEGAMON
13 3 (0.71%) CA Endevor
13 3 (0.71%) Grafana
Vendors
1 75 (17.65%) Oracle
2 61 (14.35%) VMware
3 48 (11.29%) Cisco
4 39 (9.18%) ServiceNow
5 35 (8.24%) HP
6 31 (7.29%) Microsoft
7 28 (6.59%) Dell
7 28 (6.59%) SAP
8 26 (6.12%) SolarWinds
9 19 (4.47%) Red Hat
9 19 (4.47%) Splunk
10 17 (4.00%) BMC
11 16 (3.76%) AppDynamics
11 16 (3.76%) Google
12 14 (3.29%) Commvault
13 12 (2.82%) EMC
14 10 (2.35%) NetApp
15 9 (2.12%) Brocade
15 9 (2.12%) Informatica
15 9 (2.12%) MathWorks