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 6 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
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 270 225
Rank change year-on-year 0 -45 +76
Contract jobs citing IBM 431 284 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.95% 0.97% 1.07%
As % of the Vendors category 2.21% 2.06% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 161 280
10th Percentile £306 £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 £577 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £726 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £475 £489
% change year-on-year -10.53% -2.86% +2.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 14 32
10th Percentile £25.77 - £58.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £81.50 £24.42 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +233.74% -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 19,528 13,798 18,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.18% 47.19% 42.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,546 8,717 11,698
10th Percentile £313 £293 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 974 501 1,050
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.02
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.00 £14.37
Median hourly rate £27.36 £28.60 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +27.11% -46.40%
75th Percentile £59.73 £61.50 £56.43
90th Percentile £78.60 £80.59 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £26.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year -5.66% +23.26% -42.67%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -16 381 £455 -9.00% 86
UK excluding London -16 231 £425 -10.53% 73
London -18 153 £488 -7.14% 24
Work from Home -14 125 £472 -1.92% 39
North of England -61 61 £489 +14.94% 18
Midlands -34 49 £397 -15.11% 9
West Midlands -24 46 £394 -14.40% 7
South East -43 45 £525 +201.72% 27
South West +1 36 £345 -42.50% 12
North West -27 36 £469 +23.10% 10
Yorkshire -48 24 £500 +3.90% 7
East of England -11 23 £212 -68.60% 7
Scotland +5 18 £525 +2.44% 3
East Midlands -31 3 £837 +74.27% 2
Wales -14 1 - -
North East -19 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 23 (5.34%) WebSphere
2 18 (4.18%) CICS
3 17 (3.94%) Confluence
4 13 (3.02%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 10 (2.32%) nginx
6 10 (2.32%) Tomcat
7 5 (1.16%) Anypoint
7 5 (1.16%) ArcGIS
7 5 (1.16%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.93%) Apache
9 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.70%) CMS
9 3 (0.70%) JBoss
9 3 (0.70%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.70%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.46%) Camunda
10 2 (0.46%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.46%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.32%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.39%) 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 (6.26%) Maximo
2 11 (2.55%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 8 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.62%) BusinessWorks
5 6 (1.39%) Temenos T24
6 4 (0.93%) Oracle 11i
6 4 (0.93%) SAP QM
7 3 (0.70%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.70%) SAP PM
7 3 (0.70%) SAP PP
7 3 (0.70%) SAP R/3
7 3 (0.70%) SAP WM
8 2 (0.46%) Cognos Controller
8 2 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 2 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 2 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
9 1 (0.23%) SAP AFS
Cloud Services
1 99 (22.97%) AWS
2 78 (18.10%) Azure
3 19 (4.41%) OpenShift
4 15 (3.48%) GCP
5 14 (3.25%) Datadog
6 11 (2.55%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (2.32%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.09%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.09%) SaaS
9 8 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (1.86%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.86%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (1.86%) Serverless
10 7 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.62%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.62%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.62%) GitHub
11 5 (1.16%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.64%) Firewall
2 17 (3.94%) VSAN
3 15 (3.48%) SAN
4 14 (3.25%) HTTP
5 12 (2.78%) SNMP
6 10 (2.32%) HTTPS
7 9 (2.09%) VPN
8 8 (1.86%) Fibre Channel
8 8 (1.86%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.62%) NAS
10 6 (1.39%) APPN
10 6 (1.39%) SNA
11 5 (1.16%) iSCSI
12 4 (0.93%) DNS
12 4 (0.93%) LAN
13 3 (0.70%) DWDM
13 3 (0.70%) MPLS
13 3 (0.70%) Network Security
13 3 (0.70%) WAN
14 2 (0.46%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (7.19%) DB2
2 25 (5.80%) DataStage
3 24 (5.57%) SQL Server
4 18 (4.18%) Oracle Database
5 15 (3.48%) Relational Database
6 13 (3.02%) Oracle Reports
7 12 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
8 10 (2.32%) GIS
9 9 (2.09%) Big Data
10 8 (1.86%) Metadata
11 7 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (1.62%) IBM InfoSphere
12 5 (1.16%) DynamoDB
12 5 (1.16%) NoSQL
12 5 (1.16%) Power BI
13 4 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.93%) Apache Hive
13 4 (0.93%) MongoDB
13 4 (0.93%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 41 (9.51%) Rational DOORS
2 31 (7.19%) JIRA
3 15 (3.48%) Git
4 13 (3.02%) GitLab
5 11 (2.55%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.09%) Ant
7 8 (1.86%) PVCS
8 7 (1.62%) SoapUI
9 5 (1.16%) ERwin
9 5 (1.16%) IBM UrbanCode
9 5 (1.16%) JUnit
9 5 (1.16%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.93%) Liquibase
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
1 103 (23.90%) Finance
2 101 (23.43%) Social Skills
3 55 (12.76%) Banking
4 40 (9.28%) Public Sector
5 30 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (6.73%) Aerospace
7 13 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.09%) Retail
10 8 (1.86%) Electronics
10 8 (1.86%) Legal
10 8 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.39%) Aviation
12 6 (1.39%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.39%) Law
13 5 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 5 (1.16%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.70%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 55 (12.76%) Analyst
2 53 (12.30%) Developer
3 51 (11.83%) Architect
4 27 (6.26%) Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.03%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.03%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.03%) Product Manager
6 23 (5.34%) Solutions Architect
6 23 (5.34%) Storage Analyst
7 22 (5.10%) Systems Manager
8 21 (4.87%) Consultant
8 21 (4.87%) Senior
8 21 (4.87%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 20 (4.64%) Software Engineer
10 18 (4.18%) Data Engineer
11 17 (3.94%) Lead
12 12 (2.78%) Administrator
13 10 (2.32%) Designer
13 10 (2.32%) Infrastructure Designer
13 10 (2.32%) Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.35%) Middleware
2 28 (6.50%) XML
3 26 (6.03%) Kafka
4 25 (5.80%) REST
5 20 (4.64%) Flash
6 19 (4.41%) SOAP
7 17 (3.94%) JMS
8 14 (3.25%) XSLT
9 13 (3.02%) JSON
10 10 (2.32%) Web Services
11 9 (2.09%) ARM Templates
11 9 (2.09%) RabbitMQ
12 8 (1.86%) J2EE
12 8 (1.86%) Spring
12 8 (1.86%) Spring Boot
12 8 (1.86%) WSDL
12 8 (1.86%) XSD
13 7 (1.62%) OC4J
13 7 (1.62%) TIBCO EMS
13 7 (1.62%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 63 (14.62%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.05%) Linux Command Line
3 30 (6.96%) Data Centre
3 30 (6.96%) Data Structures
4 28 (6.50%) Product Ownership
5 26 (6.03%) Replication
6 23 (5.34%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (4.18%) VSAM
8 12 (2.78%) Algorithms
9 11 (2.55%) Cloud Native
9 11 (2.55%) Clustering
9 11 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.55%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 10 (2.32%) BYOD
10 10 (2.32%) DataPower
11 9 (2.09%) Legacy Applications
12 8 (1.86%) IBM Mainframe
13 7 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (1.62%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 97 (22.51%) Linux
2 57 (13.23%) Windows
3 45 (10.44%) AIX
4 40 (9.28%) zOS
5 36 (8.35%) Unix
6 19 (4.41%) Solaris
7 17 (3.94%) Windows Server
8 16 (3.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (3.02%) Windows Server 2016
10 9 (2.09%) Windows Server 2008
11 8 (1.86%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (1.62%) Windows 10
12 7 (1.62%) Windows 7
12 7 (1.62%) 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
1 109 (25.29%) Agile
2 62 (14.39%) Migration
3 54 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
4 53 (12.30%) CI/CD
5 47 (10.90%) DevOps
6 46 (10.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 44 (10.21%) Roadmaps
8 43 (9.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 41 (9.51%) Stakeholder Management
10 39 (9.05%) UML
11 34 (7.89%) Computer Science
11 34 (7.89%) ETL
12 32 (7.42%) Analytics
13 30 (6.96%) Data Modelling
13 30 (6.96%) PRINCE2
14 29 (6.73%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 29 (6.73%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 29 (6.73%) Test Automation
15 28 (6.50%) ITIL
15 28 (6.50%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (18.10%) SQL
2 57 (13.23%) Python
3 41 (9.51%) Java
4 27 (6.26%) PowerShell
5 20 (4.64%) PL/SQL
6 18 (4.18%) COBOL
6 18 (4.18%) JCL
7 14 (3.25%) C
7 14 (3.25%) REXX
8 13 (3.02%) Bash
9 12 (2.78%) Perl
10 11 (2.55%) C++
11 10 (2.32%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (2.09%) Bicep
13 8 (1.86%) Ada
13 8 (1.86%) CLIST
13 8 (1.86%) MATLAB
13 8 (1.86%) XPath
14 7 (1.62%) Embedded C
14 7 (1.62%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 131 (30.39%) Security Cleared
2 77 (17.87%) SC Cleared
3 41 (9.51%) Degree
4 17 (3.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.48%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.25%) DV Cleared
7 12 (2.78%) CISM
7 12 (2.78%) CISSP
8 8 (1.86%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.62%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.62%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 6 (1.39%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.16%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.93%) CEH
12 4 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 4 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.57%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.25%) QA
3 11 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.55%) SLA
4 10 (2.32%) NIST
5 7 (1.62%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.16%) SEPA
7 4 (0.93%) GDPR
7 4 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.70%) 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 48 (11.14%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (6.73%) vSphere
3 26 (6.03%) NFS
4 23 (5.34%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (4.87%) Docker
5 21 (4.87%) GPFS
6 18 (4.18%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.62%) Firmware
7 7 (1.62%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.39%) KVM
8 6 (1.39%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (1.39%) RACF
8 6 (1.39%) Time Sharing Option
9 4 (0.93%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 3 (0.70%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.70%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.46%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
12 1 (0.23%) Ceph
12 1 (0.23%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 29 (6.73%) vRealize
2 28 (6.50%) Terraform
3 26 (6.03%) Kubernetes
4 24 (5.57%) Ansible
5 16 (3.71%) Tivoli
5 16 (3.71%) VxRail
6 12 (2.78%) Nagios
6 12 (2.78%) Netcool
6 12 (2.78%) OpenView
6 12 (2.78%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 12 (2.78%) ZABBIX
7 8 (1.86%) IBM BigFix
7 8 (1.86%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 7 (1.62%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (1.39%) Oracle RMAN
9 6 (1.39%) Tivoli NetView
9 6 (1.39%) vCenter Server
10 5 (1.16%) OMEGAMON
11 4 (0.93%) QRadar
12 3 (0.70%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 81 (18.79%) Oracle
2 60 (13.92%) VMware
3 48 (11.14%) Cisco
4 39 (9.05%) ServiceNow
5 35 (8.12%) HP
6 32 (7.42%) Microsoft
7 28 (6.50%) SAP
8 27 (6.26%) Dell
9 26 (6.03%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.41%) Red Hat
10 19 (4.41%) Splunk
11 17 (3.94%) BMC
12 16 (3.71%) AppDynamics
12 16 (3.71%) Google
13 14 (3.25%) Commvault
14 12 (2.78%) EMC
15 10 (2.32%) NetApp
16 9 (2.09%) Informatica
17 8 (1.86%) Citrix
17 8 (1.86%) MathWorks