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 16 November 2025, 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
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 261 219 221
Rank change year-on-year -42 +2 +68
Contract jobs citing IBM 372 417 525
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.05% 1.14% 1.11%
As % of the Vendors category 2.22% 2.54% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 197 313
10th Percentile £316 £287 £400
25th Percentile £406 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £538
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -10.70% -2.27%
75th Percentile £640 £600 £650
90th Percentile £720 £686 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £450 £525
% change year-on-year +5.29% -14.29% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 27 16
10th Percentile £25.04 £24.18 -
25th Percentile £25.15 £46.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £63.75 £64.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.39% -8.57% +27.27%
75th Percentile £72.25 £68.75 -
90th Percentile £75.65 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £64.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% +30.82%

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 16,777 16,441 21,379
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.51% 44.95% 45.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,548 9,673 13,747
10th Percentile £285 £300 £258
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.59%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 864 519 688
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.43 £14.63
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.34 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.45 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.90% -31.57% +74.51%
75th Percentile £40.16 £63.15 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.80 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.08 £28.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -21.16% -37.08% +102.27%

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025. 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 -37 327 £500 +4.17% 212
UK excluding London -33 217 £474 +5.29% 163
Work from Home +22 125 £550 +12.82% 100
London -37 111 £550 +10.00% 68
North of England -19 69 £452 -16.39% 20
North West +7 54 £450 +25.00% 15
Midlands -6 51 £425 -3.41% 27
South East -29 40 £563 +29.31% 50
West Midlands +1 39 £448 +4.07% 15
East of England -9 23 £475 -5.00% 35
Scotland -1 18 £450 - 12
South West -24 15 £573 -4.58% 26
Yorkshire -58 15 £473 -21.24% 5
East Midlands -6 12 £415 -13.54% 11
Northern Ireland - 4 £350 - 2
Wales +4 1 £633 +201.19% 3

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 39 (10.48%) WebSphere
2 26 (6.99%) Confluence
3 24 (6.45%) Apache
4 18 (4.84%) IIS
5 17 (4.57%) WebSphere Application Server
6 16 (4.30%) CICS
7 14 (3.76%) JBoss
8 13 (3.49%) MQSeries
8 13 (3.49%) SharePoint
9 11 (2.96%) ArcGIS
10 10 (2.69%) iPlanet
11 7 (1.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 7 (1.88%) WebLogic
12 5 (1.34%) SAS
13 4 (1.08%) FileNet
14 3 (0.81%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.54%) nginx
16 1 (0.27%) Anypoint
16 1 (0.27%) IBM Transformation Extender
Applications
1 12 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.88%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.08%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.81%) Sketch
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 45 (12.10%) Maximo
2 5 (1.34%) BusinessWorks
3 4 (1.08%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 3 (0.81%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.54%) SAP EWM
5 2 (0.54%) SAP PM
5 2 (0.54%) SAP PP
5 2 (0.54%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.54%) SAP WM
5 2 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.27%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.27%) Cognos Controller
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.27%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
6 1 (0.27%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 93 (25.00%) AWS
2 59 (15.86%) Azure
3 28 (7.53%) GCP
4 24 (6.45%) OpenShift
5 12 (3.23%) AWS CloudFormation
6 11 (2.96%) IBM Cloud
6 11 (2.96%) Serverless
7 10 (2.69%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (2.69%) Datadog
8 9 (2.42%) Amazon ECS
8 9 (2.42%) Amazon S3
8 9 (2.42%) GitHub
9 8 (2.15%) OCI
9 8 (2.15%) Power Platform
9 8 (2.15%) SaaS
10 7 (1.88%) Azure API Management
10 7 (1.88%) PaaS
11 6 (1.61%) IBM Watson
12 5 (1.34%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.34%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.49%) SSH
2 12 (3.23%) HTTPS
3 10 (2.69%) Kerberos
3 10 (2.69%) VSAN
4 8 (2.15%) SAN
4 8 (2.15%) SSL
5 7 (1.88%) VPN
6 6 (1.61%) Firewall
7 4 (1.08%) HTTP
7 4 (1.08%) LAN
7 4 (1.08%) Network Security
8 3 (0.81%) WAN
9 2 (0.54%) Calico
9 2 (0.54%) DNS
9 2 (0.54%) DWDM
9 2 (0.54%) SDH
9 2 (0.54%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.54%) VLAN
10 1 (0.27%) SNA
10 1 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (9.68%) DB2
2 31 (8.33%) SQL Server
3 24 (6.45%) Oracle Database
4 21 (5.65%) Amazon RDS
4 21 (5.65%) Relational Database
5 14 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (2.42%) DataStage
7 9 (2.42%) GIS
8 8 (2.15%) Amazon Athena
8 8 (2.15%) NoSQL
9 6 (1.61%) Amazon Redshift
9 6 (1.61%) Couchbase
9 6 (1.61%) Metadata
9 6 (1.61%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (1.34%) IBM InfoSphere
10 5 (1.34%) Power BI
11 3 (0.81%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.81%) Oracle Database 10g
12 2 (0.54%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 39 (10.48%) JIRA
2 25 (6.72%) Git
2 25 (6.72%) Jenkins
3 18 (4.84%) GitLab
4 16 (4.30%) Rational DOORS
5 10 (2.69%) Bitbucket Server
5 10 (2.69%) CA Release Automation
6 9 (2.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (1.34%) Bitbucket
7 5 (1.34%) ERwin
8 4 (1.08%) IBM UrbanCode
8 4 (1.08%) JUnit
8 4 (1.08%) Rational Rhapsody
9 3 (0.81%) Ant
9 3 (0.81%) Log4j
9 3 (0.81%) Maven
9 3 (0.81%) SoapUI
9 3 (0.81%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.54%) PVCS
10 2 (0.54%) Toad
General
1 101 (27.15%) Social Skills
2 85 (22.85%) Finance
3 59 (15.86%) Banking
4 39 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (5.65%) Public Sector
6 14 (3.76%) Presentation Skills
7 11 (2.96%) Aerospace
7 11 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.15%) Financial Institution
8 8 (2.15%) Private Banking
9 5 (1.34%) Investment Banking
9 5 (1.34%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.08%) Electronics
10 4 (1.08%) International Banking
10 4 (1.08%) Law
11 3 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.81%) Legal
11 3 (0.81%) Retail
12 2 (0.54%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 67 (18.01%) Developer
2 55 (14.78%) Analyst
3 43 (11.56%) Architect
4 39 (10.48%) Consultant
5 30 (8.06%) Solutions Architect
6 21 (5.65%) Senior
7 19 (5.11%) Platform Engineer
8 16 (4.30%) Lead
9 15 (4.03%) Management Consultant
10 14 (3.76%) Data Engineer
10 14 (3.76%) Infrastructure Analyst
11 12 (3.23%) Maximo Consultant
11 12 (3.23%) webMethods Developer
12 11 (2.96%) Programmer
13 9 (2.42%) DevOps Engineer
13 9 (2.42%) Maximo Architect
13 9 (2.42%) Software Engineer
13 9 (2.42%) Technical Analyst
14 8 (2.15%) Storage Analyst
15 7 (1.88%) Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (11.83%) XML
2 31 (8.33%) Kafka
3 28 (7.53%) OAuth
4 27 (7.26%) SOAP
5 23 (6.18%) JSON
5 23 (6.18%) LDAP
6 22 (5.91%) SAML
7 21 (5.65%) OpenID
8 20 (5.38%) JMS
9 18 (4.84%) Middleware
10 16 (4.30%) Spring
10 16 (4.30%) Web Services
11 11 (2.96%) ISPF
12 10 (2.69%) Flash
12 10 (2.69%) Hibernate
12 10 (2.69%) REST
13 9 (2.42%) XSLT
14 7 (1.88%) EDI
15 6 (1.61%) WSDL
15 6 (1.61%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 39 (10.48%) Mainframe
2 28 (7.53%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (6.99%) Replication
4 19 (5.11%) Linux Command Line
5 16 (4.30%) IBM Mainframe
6 14 (3.76%) AS400
6 14 (3.76%) Data Centre
6 14 (3.76%) Tandem
7 12 (3.23%) Cloud Native
8 10 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.69%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (2.15%) VSAM
10 7 (1.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 6 (1.61%) CMDB
11 6 (1.61%) DataPower
11 6 (1.61%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.61%) PKI
12 5 (1.34%) iSeries
12 5 (1.34%) Legacy Applications
12 5 (1.34%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 74 (19.89%) Linux
2 64 (17.20%) Windows
3 40 (10.75%) Unix
4 22 (5.91%) zOS
5 19 (5.11%) Windows Server
6 10 (2.69%) AIX
7 7 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (1.61%) Windows 10
8 6 (1.61%) Windows 7
8 6 (1.61%) Windows Server 2003
8 6 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.81%) MVS
10 2 (0.54%) Android
10 2 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.54%) CentOS
10 2 (0.54%) OS/2
10 2 (0.54%) Solaris
10 2 (0.54%) VMS
11 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (18.28%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (17.74%) Agile
3 61 (16.40%) DevOps
3 61 (16.40%) Migration
4 58 (15.59%) CI/CD
5 46 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
6 35 (9.41%) Incident Response
7 34 (9.14%) Asset Management
8 31 (8.33%) Containerisation
9 29 (7.80%) ITIL
10 28 (7.53%) Computer Science
11 26 (6.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 25 (6.72%) Roadmaps
13 24 (6.45%) High Availability
14 23 (6.18%) Performance Tuning
15 22 (5.91%) Continuous Improvement
15 22 (5.91%) Data Protection
16 21 (5.65%) ETL
17 20 (5.38%) Change Management
17 20 (5.38%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 58 (15.59%) SQL
2 48 (12.90%) Python
3 45 (12.10%) Java
4 23 (6.18%) Shell Script
5 21 (5.65%) JavaScript
6 18 (4.84%) JCL
7 16 (4.30%) REXX
8 14 (3.76%) CLIST
9 13 (3.49%) RPG
10 12 (3.23%) COBOL
11 10 (2.69%) Groovy
12 8 (2.15%) PL/SQL
12 8 (2.15%) PowerShell
13 7 (1.88%) C++
14 6 (1.61%) Assembly Language
14 6 (1.61%) Bash
14 6 (1.61%) Korn
14 6 (1.61%) Perl
14 6 (1.61%) XPath
15 5 (1.34%) C
Qualifications
1 84 (22.58%) Security Cleared
2 69 (18.55%) SC Cleared
3 36 (9.68%) Degree
4 26 (6.99%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (4.84%) AWS Certification
6 9 (2.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 8 (2.15%) CISSP
8 7 (1.88%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (1.61%) CISM
9 6 (1.61%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (1.34%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.08%) GCIH
11 4 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.81%) CEH
12 3 (0.81%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.81%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.81%) PMP
12 3 (0.81%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.11%) QA
2 12 (3.23%) GDPR
3 9 (2.42%) HIPAA
4 8 (2.15%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.15%) ISO 20022
5 6 (1.61%) SEPA
6 5 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.08%) NIST
7 4 (1.08%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.08%) SLA
8 3 (0.81%) Basel III
8 3 (0.81%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.54%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.54%) MISRA
9 2 (0.54%) MISRA C
10 1 (0.27%) GRC
10 1 (0.27%) IFRS
10 1 (0.27%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.27%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 26 (6.99%) Docker
2 23 (6.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (5.38%) vSphere
4 15 (4.03%) Active Directory
5 13 (3.49%) Time Sharing Option
6 11 (2.96%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (2.69%) GPFS
7 10 (2.69%) NFS
8 8 (2.15%) RACF
8 8 (2.15%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 6 (1.61%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 5 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
11 4 (1.08%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
12 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.27%) KVM
12 1 (0.27%) SRDF
12 1 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.27%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (8.06%) Kubernetes
2 24 (6.45%) Terraform
3 18 (4.84%) vRealize
4 13 (3.49%) OMEGAMON
5 12 (3.23%) Tivoli
6 11 (2.96%) Progress Chef
7 10 (2.69%) Ansible
7 10 (2.69%) CA Single Sign-On
7 10 (2.69%) CA Wily
8 9 (2.42%) CA Endevor
8 9 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (2.42%) Tivoli Identity Manager
8 9 (2.42%) VxRail
9 7 (1.88%) Control-M
10 6 (1.61%) QRadar
10 6 (1.61%) Tivoli NetView
11 5 (1.34%) TIBCO Hawk
11 5 (1.34%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 4 (1.08%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.81%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 72 (19.35%) Oracle
2 66 (17.74%) Microsoft
3 29 (7.80%) VMware
4 26 (6.99%) Cisco
5 23 (6.18%) ServiceNow
6 21 (5.65%) Splunk
7 20 (5.38%) AppDynamics
8 18 (4.84%) HP
9 17 (4.57%) SAP
9 17 (4.57%) Software AG
10 15 (4.03%) Dell
11 13 (3.49%) Broadcom
12 12 (3.23%) Red Hat
12 12 (3.23%) webMethods
13 11 (2.96%) Citrix
13 11 (2.96%) Cognos
14 10 (2.69%) Commvault
14 10 (2.69%) Google
14 10 (2.69%) SolarWinds
15 8 (2.15%) TIBCO