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 12 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
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 254 235
Rank change year-on-year -24 -19 +52
Contract jobs citing IBM 394 304 460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.03% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.10% 2.20% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 176 274
10th Percentile £311 £320 £400
25th Percentile £371 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £500 £544
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% -8.05% +3.57%
75th Percentile £576 £611 £650
90th Percentile £688 £726 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £475 £485
% change year-on-year -10.53% -2.01% -3.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 17 29
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £65.00 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £82.25 £27.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +199.09% -60.71% +20.16%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £27.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +220.00% -60.71% +68.16%

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 18,772 13,848 19,251
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.96% 47.05% 43.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,009 8,622 12,007
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 956 446 1,035
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.09 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.07 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -14.00% +17.93% -29.63%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.25
90th Percentile £76.04 £81.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.79 £27.63 £23.22
% change year-on-year -17.54% +19.02% -29.65%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -39 350 £469 -6.20% 80
UK excluding London -28 222 £425 -10.53% 60
London -40 130 £498 -5.24% 27
Work from Home -17 118 £481 -3.51% 38
North of England -51 61 £472 +11.06% 13
Midlands -30 49 £397 -16.45% 8
South East -34 48 £500 +107.26% 24
West Midlands -33 46 £394 -15.78% 5
North West -16 44 £469 +23.10% 11
South West -13 26 £375 -37.50% 10
East of England -8 25 £212 -57.61% 4
Scotland +9 16 £488 -4.88% 2
Yorkshire -66 16 £487 +1.46% 2
East Midlands -30 3 £837 +74.27% 3
Wales -7 1 - -
North East -20 1 £375 -10.45%

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 (5.84%) WebSphere
2 20 (5.08%) Confluence
3 15 (3.81%) CICS
4 12 (3.05%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.79%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (2.28%) SharePoint
7 8 (2.03%) nginx
7 8 (2.03%) Tomcat
8 6 (1.52%) MQSeries
9 5 (1.27%) Apache
9 5 (1.27%) ArcGIS
10 4 (1.02%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.76%) CMS
11 3 (0.76%) JBoss
11 3 (0.76%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.51%) IIS
12 2 (0.51%) SAS
13 1 (0.25%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 10 (2.54%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.51%) PlantUML
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.36%) Maximo
2 8 (2.03%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.78%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.02%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.76%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.76%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.76%) SAP R/3
5 3 (0.76%) SAP WM
5 3 (0.76%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.25%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 91 (23.10%) AWS
2 71 (18.02%) Azure
3 16 (4.06%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.55%) Datadog
5 12 (3.05%) GCP
6 11 (2.79%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.28%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.28%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.28%) SaaS
8 9 (2.28%) Serverless
9 8 (2.03%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.78%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 6 (1.52%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.52%) Power Platform
12 5 (1.27%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.31%) VSAN
2 15 (3.81%) Firewall
2 15 (3.81%) SAN
3 11 (2.79%) HTTP
3 11 (2.79%) HTTPS
4 9 (2.28%) VPN
5 8 (2.03%) Fibre Channel
6 7 (1.78%) NAS
6 7 (1.78%) SSH
7 6 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 5 (1.27%) APPN
8 5 (1.27%) iSCSI
8 5 (1.27%) SNA
9 4 (1.02%) DWDM
9 4 (1.02%) SNMP
10 3 (0.76%) DNS
11 2 (0.51%) LAN
11 2 (0.51%) MPLS
11 2 (0.51%) SDH
11 2 (0.51%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.85%) DB2
2 24 (6.09%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.82%) DataStage
4 18 (4.57%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.30%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (3.05%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.54%) GIS
8 8 (2.03%) Big Data
9 6 (1.52%) IBM InfoSphere
10 5 (1.27%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (1.27%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.27%) Power BI
11 4 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (1.02%) Apache Hive
11 4 (1.02%) Metadata
11 4 (1.02%) Oracle Database 10g
12 3 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 46 (11.68%) Rational DOORS
2 41 (10.41%) JIRA
3 17 (4.31%) Git
4 11 (2.79%) GitLab
5 9 (2.28%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.03%) Ant
6 8 (2.03%) PVCS
7 7 (1.78%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.27%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.27%) JUnit
9 4 (1.02%) ERwin
9 4 (1.02%) PowerDesigner
10 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.76%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.51%) Selenium
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.25%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.25%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
12 1 (0.25%) XPEDITER
General
1 95 (24.11%) Social Skills
2 93 (23.60%) Finance
3 49 (12.44%) Banking
4 35 (8.88%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.63%) Analytical Skills
6 28 (7.11%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.81%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.28%) Electronics
9 9 (2.28%) Retail
10 8 (2.03%) Financial Institution
10 8 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.52%) Aviation
11 6 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.27%) Law
12 5 (1.27%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.02%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.02%) Legal
13 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.02%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 65 (16.50%) Analyst
2 49 (12.44%) Developer
3 44 (11.17%) Architect
4 26 (6.60%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 25 (6.35%) Delivery Manager
6 24 (6.09%) Product Delivery Manager
6 24 (6.09%) Product Manager
7 23 (5.84%) Solutions Architect
7 23 (5.84%) Storage Analyst
8 22 (5.58%) Systems Manager
9 21 (5.33%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 20 (5.08%) Senior
11 16 (4.06%) Software Engineer
12 15 (3.81%) Data Engineer
13 13 (3.30%) Consultant
13 13 (3.30%) Lead
14 10 (2.54%) Administrator
14 10 (2.54%) DevOps Engineer
15 9 (2.28%) Azure Engineer
16 8 (2.03%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.87%) XML
2 30 (7.61%) Middleware
3 25 (6.35%) Kafka
4 20 (5.08%) Flash
4 20 (5.08%) SOAP
5 17 (4.31%) JMS
6 16 (4.06%) JSON
7 15 (3.81%) REST
8 14 (3.55%) XSLT
9 10 (2.54%) Web Services
10 8 (2.03%) ARM Templates
10 8 (2.03%) J2EE
10 8 (2.03%) WSDL
10 8 (2.03%) XSD
11 7 (1.78%) OAuth
11 7 (1.78%) OC4J
11 7 (1.78%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (1.78%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.78%) TIBCO EMS
12 6 (1.52%) IBM Integration Bus
Miscellaneous
1 55 (13.96%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.90%) Linux Command Line
3 27 (6.85%) Data Structures
3 27 (6.85%) Replication
4 26 (6.60%) Data Centre
4 26 (6.60%) Product Ownership
5 22 (5.58%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (3.81%) VSAM
7 10 (2.54%) DataPower
7 10 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (2.28%) Algorithms
9 8 (2.03%) BYOD
9 8 (2.03%) Cloud Native
9 8 (2.03%) Clustering
9 8 (2.03%) Management Information System
10 7 (1.78%) AS400
10 7 (1.78%) Enterprise Storage
10 7 (1.78%) Legacy Applications
10 7 (1.78%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 84 (21.32%) Linux
2 53 (13.45%) Windows
3 42 (10.66%) Unix
4 36 (9.14%) zOS
5 34 (8.63%) AIX
6 17 (4.31%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.81%) Solaris
8 12 (3.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (3.05%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.78%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.78%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.25%) Android
10 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.25%) MVS
10 1 (0.25%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.25%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.25%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (26.40%) Agile
2 56 (14.21%) Problem-Solving
3 55 (13.96%) Migration
4 47 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
5 45 (11.42%) Continuous Improvement
6 44 (11.17%) CI/CD
6 44 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 43 (10.91%) DevOps
8 39 (9.90%) Computer Science
9 37 (9.39%) Roadmaps
10 36 (9.14%) UML
11 33 (8.38%) ITIL
12 31 (7.87%) Requirements Management
13 29 (7.36%) Change Control
14 28 (7.11%) Asset Management
14 28 (7.11%) ETL
14 28 (7.11%) PRINCE2
15 27 (6.85%) Analytics
15 27 (6.85%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 26 (6.60%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 70 (17.77%) SQL
2 51 (12.94%) Python
3 38 (9.64%) Java
4 18 (4.57%) PL/SQL
4 18 (4.57%) PowerShell
5 16 (4.06%) JCL
6 15 (3.81%) COBOL
6 15 (3.81%) REXX
7 12 (3.05%) C
8 11 (2.79%) Bash
9 10 (2.54%) Perl
10 9 (2.28%) Bicep
10 9 (2.28%) C++
10 9 (2.28%) CLIST
11 8 (2.03%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.03%) XPath
12 7 (1.78%) Assembly Language
12 7 (1.78%) Embedded C
12 7 (1.78%) Embedded C++
13 6 (1.52%) Korn
Qualifications
1 112 (28.43%) Security Cleared
2 60 (15.23%) SC Cleared
3 47 (11.93%) Degree
4 17 (4.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.81%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.05%) CISM
7 12 (3.05%) CISSP
7 12 (3.05%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.78%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.78%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.78%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 7 (1.78%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.27%) ISTQB
10 5 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.02%) PMI Certification
11 4 (1.02%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.31%) Data Quality
2 16 (4.06%) QA
3 11 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.79%) SLA
4 10 (2.54%) NIST
5 7 (1.78%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.02%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.02%) SEPA
7 3 (0.76%) GRC
8 2 (0.51%) GDPR
8 2 (0.51%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.51%) NCSC
8 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.25%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.25%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.25%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS
9 1 (0.25%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (11.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.36%) vSphere
3 24 (6.09%) NFS
4 21 (5.33%) GPFS
4 21 (5.33%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.81%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (3.55%) Docker
7 8 (2.03%) RACF
8 6 (1.52%) Firmware
8 6 (1.52%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.52%) Job Entry Subsystem
8 6 (1.52%) KVM
9 4 (1.02%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (1.02%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.76%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.51%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.25%) Ceph
12 1 (0.25%) Lustre
12 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Directory Server
12 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 29 (7.36%) vRealize
2 27 (6.85%) Terraform
3 21 (5.33%) Kubernetes
4 20 (5.08%) Ansible
5 16 (4.06%) VxRail
6 8 (2.03%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.78%) TIBCO Hawk
7 7 (1.78%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.52%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.52%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.27%) Control-M
9 5 (1.27%) OMEGAMON
9 5 (1.27%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.02%) Nagios
10 4 (1.02%) Netcool
10 4 (1.02%) OpenView
10 4 (1.02%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.02%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 4 (1.02%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.76%) zSecure
Vendors
1 75 (19.04%) Oracle
2 55 (13.96%) VMware
3 45 (11.42%) Cisco
4 38 (9.64%) ServiceNow
5 30 (7.61%) Microsoft
6 25 (6.35%) HP
6 25 (6.35%) SAP
7 24 (6.09%) Dell
8 18 (4.57%) SolarWinds
9 16 (4.06%) AppDynamics
9 16 (4.06%) Red Hat
10 15 (3.81%) Google
11 14 (3.55%) Commvault
12 11 (2.79%) BMC
13 10 (2.54%) EMC
13 10 (2.54%) Splunk
14 8 (2.03%) ANSYS
14 8 (2.03%) Citrix
14 8 (2.03%) Software AG
14 8 (2.03%) TIBCO