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 19 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
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 259 226
Rank change year-on-year -12 -33 +74
Contract jobs citing IBM 409 297 454
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.01% 1.02%
As % of the Vendors category 2.16% 2.15% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 171 273
10th Percentile £306 £320 £400
25th Percentile £363 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.20% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £569 £611 £650
90th Percentile £680 £726 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £469 £489
% change year-on-year -9.33% -4.14% +2.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 15 30
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £63.13 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £83.00 £24.66 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +236.58% -64.77% +8.53%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.38 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £24.66 £70.00
% change year-on-year +256.85% -64.77% +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 18,925 13,826 19,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.66% 47.21% 42.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,108 8,647 11,912
10th Percentile £310 £290 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.19% -2.47%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 968 460 1,026
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.60 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +18.37% -30.99%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £75.78 £83.16 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £27.43 £22.94
% change year-on-year -14.31% +19.58% -29.97%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -22 365 £453 -9.50% 82
UK excluding London -8 228 £425 -9.33% 56
London -31 138 £488 -7.14% 32
Work from Home -15 123 £475 -4.52% 35
North of England -57 62 £475 +11.76% 15
South East -35 50 £500 +175.88% 23
Midlands -36 50 £397 -16.45% 7
West Midlands -29 47 £394 -15.78% 4
North West -13 43 £469 +23.10% 11
South West -6 29 £315 -47.50% 9
East of England -1 24 £212 -68.60% 4
Yorkshire -57 18 £487 +1.19% 4
Scotland +8 16 £488 -4.88%
East Midlands -33 3 £837 +74.27% 3
Wales -11 1 - -
North East -14 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 (5.62%) Confluence
1 23 (5.62%) WebSphere
2 16 (3.91%) CICS
3 12 (2.93%) WebLogic
4 11 (2.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 11 (2.69%) SharePoint
5 8 (1.96%) nginx
5 8 (1.96%) Tomcat
6 5 (1.22%) Anypoint
6 5 (1.22%) ArcGIS
6 5 (1.22%) MQSeries
7 4 (0.98%) Apache
8 3 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.73%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.73%) CMS
8 3 (0.73%) JBoss
9 2 (0.49%) SAS
9 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Application Server
10 1 (0.24%) IIS
10 1 (0.24%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 10 (2.44%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.49%) PlantUML
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 27 (6.60%) Maximo
2 10 (2.44%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.71%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (1.22%) Temenos T24
5 4 (0.98%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.73%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.73%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.73%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.73%) SAP QM
6 3 (0.73%) SAP R/3
6 3 (0.73%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.49%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.49%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.24%) MetaTrader
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 94 (22.98%) AWS
2 72 (17.60%) Azure
3 15 (3.67%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.42%) Datadog
5 12 (2.93%) GCP
6 11 (2.69%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.44%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.20%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.20%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.20%) SaaS
8 9 (2.20%) Serverless
9 8 (1.96%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.71%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.71%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 6 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 5 (1.22%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.16%) VSAN
2 16 (3.91%) SAN
3 15 (3.67%) Firewall
4 12 (2.93%) HTTPS
5 11 (2.69%) HTTP
6 9 (2.20%) VPN
7 8 (1.96%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (1.71%) NAS
8 7 (1.71%) SSH
8 7 (1.71%) TCP/IP
9 6 (1.47%) APPN
9 6 (1.47%) SNA
9 6 (1.47%) SNMP
10 5 (1.22%) iSCSI
11 4 (0.98%) DWDM
12 3 (0.73%) DNS
13 2 (0.49%) MPLS
13 2 (0.49%) Network Security
13 2 (0.49%) WAN
13 2 (0.49%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.85%) DB2
2 24 (5.87%) SQL Server
3 20 (4.89%) DataStage
4 17 (4.16%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.18%) Oracle Reports
5 13 (3.18%) Relational Database
6 12 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
7 11 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (2.44%) GIS
9 8 (1.96%) Big Data
10 6 (1.47%) IBM InfoSphere
11 5 (1.22%) DynamoDB
11 5 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (1.22%) NoSQL
11 5 (1.22%) Power BI
12 4 (0.98%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
12 4 (0.98%) Apache Hive
12 4 (0.98%) Metadata
12 4 (0.98%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 47 (11.49%) Rational DOORS
2 42 (10.27%) JIRA
3 16 (3.91%) Git
4 12 (2.93%) GitLab
5 9 (2.20%) Ant
5 9 (2.20%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.96%) PVCS
7 7 (1.71%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.22%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.22%) JUnit
9 4 (0.98%) ERwin
9 4 (0.98%) Liquibase
9 4 (0.98%) PowerDesigner
10 2 (0.49%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.49%) Selenium
10 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.24%) ClearCase
11 1 (0.24%) TestDirector
11 1 (0.24%) Toad
11 1 (0.24%) XPEDITER
General
1 96 (23.47%) Social Skills
2 95 (23.23%) Finance
3 51 (12.47%) Banking
4 38 (9.29%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.31%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (7.09%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.20%) Retail
10 8 (1.96%) Electronics
10 8 (1.96%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.71%) Financial Institution
12 6 (1.47%) Aviation
12 6 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.47%) Law
13 5 (1.22%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.98%) Investment Banking
14 4 (0.98%) Legal
14 4 (0.98%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 64 (15.65%) Analyst
2 52 (12.71%) Developer
3 45 (11.00%) Architect
4 27 (6.60%) Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.36%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 26 (6.36%) Product Delivery Manager
5 26 (6.36%) Product Manager
6 23 (5.62%) Solutions Architect
6 23 (5.62%) Storage Analyst
7 22 (5.38%) Systems Manager
8 21 (5.13%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 18 (4.40%) Senior
10 17 (4.16%) Software Engineer
11 16 (3.91%) Data Engineer
12 14 (3.42%) Consultant
13 13 (3.18%) Lead
14 11 (2.69%) Administrator
15 10 (2.44%) DevOps Engineer
16 9 (2.20%) Azure Engineer
17 8 (1.96%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.58%) XML
2 30 (7.33%) Middleware
3 25 (6.11%) Kafka
4 20 (4.89%) Flash
4 20 (4.89%) SOAP
5 17 (4.16%) JMS
6 16 (3.91%) REST
7 15 (3.67%) JSON
8 14 (3.42%) XSLT
9 10 (2.44%) Web Services
10 8 (1.96%) ARM Templates
10 8 (1.96%) J2EE
10 8 (1.96%) WSDL
10 8 (1.96%) XSD
11 7 (1.71%) OC4J
11 7 (1.71%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (1.71%) scikit-learn
11 7 (1.71%) TIBCO EMS
11 7 (1.71%) WebSphere MQ
12 6 (1.47%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 57 (13.94%) Mainframe
2 39 (9.54%) Linux Command Line
3 28 (6.85%) Data Centre
3 28 (6.85%) Data Structures
3 28 (6.85%) Product Ownership
4 27 (6.60%) Replication
5 22 (5.38%) Legacy Systems
6 16 (3.91%) VSAM
7 10 (2.44%) Algorithms
7 10 (2.44%) DataPower
7 10 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (2.44%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 9 (2.20%) Clustering
8 9 (2.20%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.96%) BYOD
9 8 (1.96%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (1.71%) Legacy Applications
10 7 (1.71%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 87 (21.27%) Linux
2 54 (13.20%) Windows
3 42 (10.27%) Unix
4 40 (9.78%) zOS
5 37 (9.05%) AIX
6 16 (3.91%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.67%) Solaris
8 12 (2.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (2.93%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.71%) Windows 10
9 7 (1.71%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.71%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (1.71%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (1.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.24%) Android
10 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.24%) MVS
10 1 (0.24%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.24%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (26.89%) Agile
2 57 (13.94%) Migration
3 56 (13.69%) Problem-Solving
4 48 (11.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 46 (11.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 45 (11.00%) CI/CD
6 45 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 44 (10.76%) DevOps
8 41 (10.02%) Computer Science
9 37 (9.05%) UML
10 36 (8.80%) Roadmaps
11 34 (8.31%) ITIL
12 31 (7.58%) Requirements Management
13 30 (7.33%) PRINCE2
14 29 (7.09%) Analytics
14 29 (7.09%) Change Control
14 29 (7.09%) ETL
14 29 (7.09%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 28 (6.85%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
16 27 (6.60%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (17.36%) SQL
2 55 (13.45%) Python
3 37 (9.05%) Java
4 20 (4.89%) PowerShell
5 19 (4.65%) JCL
6 18 (4.40%) PL/SQL
7 16 (3.91%) COBOL
8 15 (3.67%) REXX
9 12 (2.93%) Bash
9 12 (2.93%) C
10 11 (2.69%) Perl
11 9 (2.20%) Bicep
11 9 (2.20%) C++
11 9 (2.20%) CLIST
12 8 (1.96%) XPath
13 7 (1.71%) Assembly Language
13 7 (1.71%) Embedded C
13 7 (1.71%) Embedded C++
13 7 (1.71%) Shell Script
14 6 (1.47%) Ada
Qualifications
1 121 (29.58%) Security Cleared
2 66 (16.14%) SC Cleared
3 49 (11.98%) Degree
4 17 (4.16%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.67%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.42%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (2.93%) CISM
7 12 (2.93%) CISSP
7 12 (2.93%) DV Cleared
8 8 (1.96%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.71%) IBM Certification
9 7 (1.71%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 7 (1.71%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.22%) ISTQB
10 5 (1.22%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (0.98%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.98%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.98%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.98%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.65%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.91%) QA
3 11 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.69%) SLA
4 10 (2.44%) NIST
5 7 (1.71%) NIST 800
6 5 (1.22%) SEPA
7 4 (0.98%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.73%) GRC
9 2 (0.49%) GDPR
9 2 (0.49%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.49%) NCSC
9 2 (0.49%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.24%) Basel III
10 1 (0.24%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.24%) IFRS
10 1 (0.24%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 44 (10.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.09%) vSphere
3 26 (6.36%) NFS
4 21 (5.13%) GPFS
4 21 (5.13%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.67%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (3.42%) Docker
7 8 (1.96%) RACF
8 7 (1.71%) Firmware
9 6 (1.47%) Hyper-V
9 6 (1.47%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 6 (1.47%) KVM
9 6 (1.47%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.98%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.73%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.73%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.24%) Ceph
12 1 (0.24%) Lustre
12 1 (0.24%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 29 (7.09%) vRealize
2 28 (6.85%) Terraform
3 21 (5.13%) Ansible
3 21 (5.13%) Kubernetes
4 16 (3.91%) VxRail
5 8 (1.96%) IBM BigFix
5 8 (1.96%) Tivoli
5 8 (1.96%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 7 (1.71%) TIBCO Hawk
7 6 (1.47%) Nagios
7 6 (1.47%) Netcool
7 6 (1.47%) OpenView
7 6 (1.47%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 6 (1.47%) Tivoli NetView
7 6 (1.47%) vCenter Server
7 6 (1.47%) ZABBIX
8 5 (1.22%) OMEGAMON
9 4 (0.98%) Control-M
9 4 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.73%) zSecure
Vendors
1 74 (18.09%) Oracle
2 55 (13.45%) VMware
3 45 (11.00%) Cisco
4 38 (9.29%) ServiceNow
5 30 (7.33%) Microsoft
6 28 (6.85%) HP
7 27 (6.60%) Dell
7 27 (6.60%) SAP
8 20 (4.89%) SolarWinds
9 16 (3.91%) Red Hat
10 15 (3.67%) AppDynamics
10 15 (3.67%) Google
11 14 (3.42%) Commvault
12 13 (3.18%) BMC
13 11 (2.69%) Splunk
14 10 (2.44%) EMC
15 9 (2.20%) Broadcom
16 8 (1.96%) ANSYS
16 8 (1.96%) Citrix
16 8 (1.96%) Software AG