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 8 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
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 266 266 219
Rank change year-on-year 0 -47 +72
Contract jobs citing IBM 436 285 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.95% 0.98% 1.07%
As % of the Vendors category 2.21% 2.07% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 161 280
10th Percentile £305 £325 £400
25th Percentile £363 £404 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £576 £625 £650
90th Percentile £699 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £475 £489
% change year-on-year -10.53% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 14 32
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £75.75 £24.42 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +210.20% -65.11% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £66.00 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.42 £70.00
% change year-on-year +260.36% -65.11% +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 19,716 13,778 18,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.10% 47.15% 42.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,642 8,710 11,700
10th Percentile £313 £290 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -0.03% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.57% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 506 1,054
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.35 £12.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.19 £14.40
Median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +27.78% -46.63%
75th Percentile £60.00 £61.13 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.40 £80.34 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -7.08% +26.16% -44.16%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -9 384 £455 -9.00% 86
UK excluding London -17 235 £425 -10.53% 73
London -32 153 £488 -8.02% 24
Work from Home -11 128 £475 -1.30% 39
North of England -49 62 £489 +14.94% 18
Midlands -27 50 £394 -15.78% 9
West Midlands -31 47 £382 -16.88% 7
South East -32 45 £525 +201.72% 27
South West -6 37 £345 -42.50% 12
North West -18 36 £469 +23.10% 10
Yorkshire -47 25 £500 -2.44% 7
East of England -11 23 £212 -57.61% 7
Scotland +4 19 £525 +2.44% 3
East Midlands -28 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -12 1 - -
North East -22 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 (5.50%) WebSphere
2 18 (4.13%) CICS
2 18 (4.13%) Confluence
3 13 (2.98%) WebLogic
4 11 (2.52%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 11 (2.52%) Tomcat
5 10 (2.29%) nginx
6 7 (1.61%) SharePoint
7 5 (1.15%) Anypoint
7 5 (1.15%) Apache
7 5 (1.15%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.69%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.69%) CMS
8 3 (0.69%) JBoss
8 3 (0.69%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.69%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.46%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.46%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.46%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.29%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.46%) PlantUML
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 27 (6.19%) Maximo
2 11 (2.52%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.83%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.61%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.61%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.92%) Oracle 11i
5 4 (0.92%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.69%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.69%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.69%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.69%) SAP R/3
6 3 (0.69%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.46%) Cognos Controller
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.23%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 100 (22.94%) AWS
2 78 (17.89%) Azure
3 19 (4.36%) OpenShift
4 15 (3.44%) GCP
5 14 (3.21%) Datadog
6 11 (2.52%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (2.29%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.06%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.06%) SaaS
9 8 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (1.83%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.83%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (1.83%) Serverless
10 7 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.61%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.61%) GitHub
11 5 (1.15%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.59%) Firewall
2 18 (4.13%) VSAN
3 15 (3.44%) SAN
4 14 (3.21%) HTTP
5 12 (2.75%) SNMP
6 10 (2.29%) HTTPS
7 9 (2.06%) VPN
8 8 (1.83%) Fibre Channel
8 8 (1.83%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.61%) NAS
10 6 (1.38%) APPN
10 6 (1.38%) SNA
11 5 (1.15%) DNS
11 5 (1.15%) iSCSI
12 4 (0.92%) LAN
13 3 (0.69%) DWDM
13 3 (0.69%) MPLS
13 3 (0.69%) Network Security
13 3 (0.69%) WAN
14 2 (0.46%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (7.11%) DB2
2 25 (5.73%) DataStage
3 24 (5.50%) SQL Server
4 18 (4.13%) Oracle Database
5 15 (3.44%) Relational Database
6 13 (2.98%) Oracle Reports
7 12 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (2.29%) GIS
9 9 (2.06%) Big Data
10 7 (1.61%) Elasticsearch
10 7 (1.61%) Metadata
11 6 (1.38%) IBM InfoSphere
12 5 (1.15%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.15%) NoSQL
12 5 (1.15%) Power BI
13 4 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.92%) Apache Hive
13 4 (0.92%) MongoDB
13 4 (0.92%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 41 (9.40%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.11%) JIRA
3 15 (3.44%) Git
4 13 (2.98%) GitLab
5 11 (2.52%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.06%) Ant
7 8 (1.83%) PVCS
8 7 (1.61%) SoapUI
9 5 (1.15%) IBM UrbanCode
9 5 (1.15%) JUnit
10 4 (0.92%) ERwin
10 4 (0.92%) Liquibase
10 4 (0.92%) PowerDesigner
11 2 (0.46%) Introscope
11 2 (0.46%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.46%) Selenium
11 2 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.46%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.23%) ChangeMan
12 1 (0.23%) JMeter
General
1 105 (24.08%) Finance
2 102 (23.39%) Social Skills
3 56 (12.84%) Banking
4 40 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 30 (6.88%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (6.65%) Aerospace
7 13 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.06%) Retail
10 8 (1.83%) Electronics
10 8 (1.83%) Legal
10 8 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.38%) Aviation
12 6 (1.38%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.38%) Law
13 5 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 5 (1.15%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.69%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (12.84%) Analyst
2 54 (12.39%) Developer
3 51 (11.70%) Architect
4 27 (6.19%) Delivery Manager
4 27 (6.19%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (5.96%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (5.96%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.50%) Storage Analyst
7 23 (5.28%) Solutions Architect
8 22 (5.05%) Senior
8 22 (5.05%) Systems Manager
9 21 (4.82%) Consultant
9 21 (4.82%) Software Engineer
9 21 (4.82%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 18 (4.13%) Data Engineer
11 17 (3.90%) Lead
12 12 (2.75%) Administrator
13 10 (2.29%) Designer
13 10 (2.29%) Infrastructure Designer
13 10 (2.29%) Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.26%) Middleware
2 28 (6.42%) XML
3 26 (5.96%) Kafka
4 25 (5.73%) REST
5 21 (4.82%) Flash
6 19 (4.36%) SOAP
7 17 (3.90%) JMS
8 14 (3.21%) JSON
8 14 (3.21%) XSLT
9 10 (2.29%) Web Services
10 9 (2.06%) ARM Templates
10 9 (2.06%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (1.83%) J2EE
11 8 (1.83%) Spring
11 8 (1.83%) Spring Boot
11 8 (1.83%) WSDL
11 8 (1.83%) XSD
12 7 (1.61%) OAuth
12 7 (1.61%) TIBCO EMS
12 7 (1.61%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 65 (14.91%) Mainframe
2 40 (9.17%) Linux Command Line
3 30 (6.88%) Data Centre
4 29 (6.65%) Data Structures
5 28 (6.42%) Product Ownership
6 27 (6.19%) Replication
7 23 (5.28%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (4.13%) VSAM
9 13 (2.98%) Algorithms
10 12 (2.75%) Hybrid Cloud
10 12 (2.75%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 11 (2.52%) Cloud Native
11 11 (2.52%) Clustering
11 11 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (2.29%) BYOD
12 10 (2.29%) DataPower
13 9 (2.06%) Legacy Applications
14 8 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
14 8 (1.83%) IBM Mainframe
15 7 (1.61%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 99 (22.71%) Linux
2 57 (13.07%) Windows
3 45 (10.32%) AIX
4 42 (9.63%) zOS
5 37 (8.49%) Unix
6 19 (4.36%) Solaris
7 17 (3.90%) Windows Server
8 16 (3.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (2.98%) Windows Server 2016
10 9 (2.06%) Windows Server 2008
11 8 (1.83%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (1.61%) Windows 10
12 7 (1.61%) Windows 7
12 7 (1.61%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.46%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.46%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.23%) Android
14 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.23%) MVS
14 1 (0.23%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (25.69%) Agile
2 62 (14.22%) Migration
3 54 (12.39%) Problem-Solving
4 53 (12.16%) CI/CD
5 47 (10.78%) DevOps
6 46 (10.55%) Continuous Improvement
7 44 (10.09%) Roadmaps
8 43 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 41 (9.40%) Stakeholder Management
10 38 (8.72%) UML
11 34 (7.80%) Computer Science
11 34 (7.80%) ETL
12 32 (7.34%) Analytics
13 30 (6.88%) PRINCE2
14 29 (6.65%) Data Modelling
14 29 (6.65%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 29 (6.65%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 29 (6.65%) Test Automation
15 28 (6.42%) ITIL
15 28 (6.42%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 77 (17.66%) SQL
2 57 (13.07%) Python
3 42 (9.63%) Java
4 28 (6.42%) PowerShell
5 20 (4.59%) PL/SQL
6 19 (4.36%) JCL
7 18 (4.13%) COBOL
8 15 (3.44%) C
9 14 (3.21%) REXX
10 13 (2.98%) Bash
11 12 (2.75%) Perl
12 11 (2.52%) C++
13 10 (2.29%) Search Processing Language
14 9 (2.06%) Ada
14 9 (2.06%) Bicep
14 9 (2.06%) MATLAB
15 8 (1.83%) CLIST
15 8 (1.83%) XPath
16 7 (1.61%) Korn
16 7 (1.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 132 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 78 (17.89%) SC Cleared
3 41 (9.40%) Degree
4 17 (3.90%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.44%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.21%) DV Cleared
7 12 (2.75%) CISM
7 12 (2.75%) CISSP
8 8 (1.83%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.61%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.61%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 6 (1.38%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.15%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.92%) CEH
12 4 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.92%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.92%) PMI Certification
12 4 (0.92%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.50%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.21%) QA
3 11 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.52%) SLA
4 10 (2.29%) NIST
5 7 (1.61%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.15%) SEPA
7 4 (0.92%) GDPR
7 4 (0.92%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.69%) GRC
9 2 (0.46%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.46%) NCSC
9 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.23%) Basel III
10 1 (0.23%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.23%) GAAP
10 1 (0.23%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.23%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (11.24%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (6.88%) vSphere
3 28 (6.42%) NFS
4 24 (5.50%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (5.05%) GPFS
6 21 (4.82%) Docker
7 18 (4.13%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.61%) Firmware
8 7 (1.61%) Hyper-V
8 7 (1.61%) Time Sharing Option
9 6 (1.38%) KVM
9 6 (1.38%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (1.38%) RACF
10 4 (0.92%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 3 (0.69%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.69%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.46%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
13 1 (0.23%) Ceph
13 1 (0.23%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 30 (6.88%) vRealize
2 29 (6.65%) Terraform
3 26 (5.96%) Kubernetes
4 25 (5.73%) Ansible
5 17 (3.90%) VxRail
6 16 (3.67%) Tivoli
7 12 (2.75%) Nagios
7 12 (2.75%) Netcool
7 12 (2.75%) OpenView
7 12 (2.75%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 12 (2.75%) ZABBIX
8 9 (2.06%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 8 (1.83%) IBM BigFix
10 7 (1.61%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (1.38%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (1.38%) Tivoli NetView
11 6 (1.38%) vCenter Server
12 5 (1.15%) OMEGAMON
13 4 (0.92%) QRadar
14 3 (0.69%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 81 (18.58%) Oracle
2 61 (13.99%) VMware
3 49 (11.24%) Cisco
4 40 (9.17%) ServiceNow
5 35 (8.03%) HP
6 32 (7.34%) Microsoft
7 29 (6.65%) SAP
8 28 (6.42%) Dell
9 26 (5.96%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.36%) Red Hat
10 19 (4.36%) Splunk
11 17 (3.90%) BMC
12 16 (3.67%) AppDynamics
12 16 (3.67%) Google
13 14 (3.21%) Commvault
14 12 (2.75%) EMC
15 10 (2.29%) NetApp
16 9 (2.06%) Brocade
16 9 (2.06%) Informatica
16 9 (2.06%) MathWorks