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 10 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
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 249 235
Rank change year-on-year -38 -14 +52
Contract jobs citing IBM 388 310 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 1.05% 1.03%
As % of the Vendors category 2.08% 2.23% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 177 276
10th Percentile £311 £320 £400
25th Percentile £370 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £611 £650
90th Percentile £688 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £469 £495
% change year-on-year -9.33% -5.21% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 17 29
10th Percentile £25.77 - £62.50
25th Percentile £62.19 £24.18 £65.00
Median hourly rate £70.50 £27.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +156.36% -60.71% +20.16%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.50 £27.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +210.91% -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 18,681 13,883 19,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.03% 46.96% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,975 8,628 12,043
10th Percentile £306 £285 £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 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 936 450 1,032
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.02 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.93 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +19.57% -29.23%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -38 343 £469 -6.20% 108
UK excluding London -22 219 £425 -9.33% 78
London -35 127 £498 -2.93% 29
Work from Home -25 117 £481 -2.28% 68
North of England -49 62 £475 +11.76% 15
Midlands -36 49 £397 -16.45% 7
West Midlands -32 46 £394 -15.78% 4
North West -13 45 £469 +23.10% 10
South East -35 43 £500 +107.26% 30
South West -19 26 £375 -37.50% 11
East of England -14 25 £212 -57.61% 11
Scotland +11 17 £488 -4.88% 3
Yorkshire -59 16 £487 +1.46% 4
East Midlands -29 3 £837 +74.27% 3
Wales -3 1 - - 2
North East -20 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 (5.93%) WebSphere
2 20 (5.15%) Confluence
3 15 (3.87%) CICS
4 12 (3.09%) WebLogic
5 11 (2.84%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 8 (2.06%) nginx
6 8 (2.06%) SharePoint
6 8 (2.06%) Tomcat
7 6 (1.55%) Apache
7 6 (1.55%) MQSeries
8 5 (1.29%) ArcGIS
9 4 (1.03%) Anypoint
9 4 (1.03%) JBoss
10 3 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.77%) CMS
10 3 (0.77%) IIS
10 3 (0.77%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.52%) iPlanet
11 2 (0.52%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (2.58%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.52%) PlantUML
5 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.26%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (7.47%) Maximo
2 9 (2.32%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 7 (1.80%) BusinessWorks
3 7 (1.80%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.77%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP PP
5 3 (0.77%) SAP QM
5 3 (0.77%) SAP R/3
5 3 (0.77%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.52%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.26%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.26%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 93 (23.97%) AWS
2 71 (18.30%) Azure
3 17 (4.38%) OpenShift
4 14 (3.61%) Datadog
5 12 (3.09%) GCP
6 11 (2.84%) IBM Watson
7 10 (2.58%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.32%) Azure API Management
8 9 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.32%) SaaS
8 9 (2.32%) Serverless
9 8 (2.06%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.80%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.55%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.29%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.38%) VSAN
2 15 (3.87%) SAN
3 14 (3.61%) Firewall
4 11 (2.84%) HTTPS
5 10 (2.58%) HTTP
6 9 (2.32%) VPN
7 8 (2.06%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (1.80%) NAS
8 7 (1.80%) SSH
9 5 (1.29%) APPN
9 5 (1.29%) iSCSI
9 5 (1.29%) SNA
9 5 (1.29%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.03%) DWDM
10 4 (1.03%) SNMP
11 2 (0.52%) DNS
11 2 (0.52%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.52%) MPLS
11 2 (0.52%) Multicast
11 2 (0.52%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.96%) DB2
2 24 (6.19%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.90%) DataStage
4 18 (4.64%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.35%) Oracle Reports
6 12 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (3.09%) Relational Database
7 10 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.58%) GIS
8 8 (2.06%) Big Data
9 6 (1.55%) IBM InfoSphere
9 6 (1.55%) Power BI
10 5 (1.29%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (1.29%) NoSQL
11 4 (1.03%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (1.03%) Apache Hive
11 4 (1.03%) Metadata
11 4 (1.03%) Oracle Database 10g
12 3 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 42 (10.82%) Rational DOORS
2 41 (10.57%) JIRA
3 18 (4.64%) Git
4 10 (2.58%) GitLab
5 9 (2.32%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.06%) Ant
6 8 (2.06%) PVCS
7 7 (1.80%) SoapUI
8 5 (1.29%) IBM UrbanCode
8 5 (1.29%) JUnit
9 4 (1.03%) ERwin
9 4 (1.03%) PowerDesigner
10 3 (0.77%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.77%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.52%) Bitbucket Server
11 2 (0.52%) CA Release Automation
11 2 (0.52%) Selenium
11 2 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 94 (24.23%) Finance
2 93 (23.97%) Social Skills
3 47 (12.11%) Banking
4 35 (9.02%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.76%) Analytical Skills
6 24 (6.19%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.87%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.58%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.32%) Electronics
9 9 (2.32%) Retail
10 8 (2.06%) Financial Institution
10 8 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.55%) Aviation
11 6 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.29%) Law
12 5 (1.29%) Legal
12 5 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.03%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.03%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.03%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 65 (16.75%) Analyst
2 48 (12.37%) Developer
3 43 (11.08%) Architect
4 26 (6.70%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 23 (5.93%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (5.93%) Storage Analyst
6 21 (5.41%) Delivery Manager
6 21 (5.41%) Senior
7 20 (5.15%) Product Delivery Manager
7 20 (5.15%) Product Manager
8 18 (4.64%) Systems Manager
9 17 (4.38%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 16 (4.12%) Software Engineer
11 15 (3.87%) Data Engineer
12 14 (3.61%) Lead
13 13 (3.35%) Consultant
14 11 (2.84%) DevOps Engineer
15 10 (2.58%) Administrator
16 9 (2.32%) Azure Engineer
17 8 (2.06%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.99%) XML
2 29 (7.47%) Middleware
3 24 (6.19%) Kafka
4 20 (5.15%) Flash
4 20 (5.15%) SOAP
5 16 (4.12%) JMS
5 16 (4.12%) JSON
6 15 (3.87%) REST
7 14 (3.61%) XSLT
8 10 (2.58%) Web Services
9 8 (2.06%) ARM Templates
9 8 (2.06%) J2EE
9 8 (2.06%) OAuth
9 8 (2.06%) WSDL
9 8 (2.06%) XSD
10 7 (1.80%) OC4J
10 7 (1.80%) scikit-learn
10 7 (1.80%) TIBCO EMS
11 6 (1.55%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (1.55%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 54 (13.92%) Mainframe
2 39 (10.05%) Linux Command Line
3 27 (6.96%) Replication
4 26 (6.70%) Data Centre
5 23 (5.93%) Data Structures
6 22 (5.67%) Legacy Systems
6 22 (5.67%) Product Ownership
7 15 (3.87%) VSAM
8 10 (2.58%) DataPower
8 10 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (2.32%) Algorithms
9 9 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (2.06%) BYOD
10 8 (2.06%) Cloud Native
10 8 (2.06%) Management Information System
11 7 (1.80%) AS400
11 7 (1.80%) Clustering
11 7 (1.80%) Enterprise Storage
11 7 (1.80%) Legacy Applications
11 7 (1.80%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 84 (21.65%) Linux
2 52 (13.40%) Windows
3 42 (10.82%) Unix
4 36 (9.28%) zOS
5 34 (8.76%) AIX
6 18 (4.64%) Windows Server
7 15 (3.87%) Solaris
8 12 (3.09%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (1.80%) Windows 10
10 7 (1.80%) Windows 7
10 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (1.80%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.26%) Android
11 1 (0.26%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.26%) MVS
11 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (25.26%) Agile
2 56 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (13.92%) Migration
4 47 (12.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 44 (11.34%) CI/CD
5 44 (11.34%) DevOps
6 41 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 41 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 37 (9.54%) Roadmaps
8 36 (9.28%) Computer Science
9 32 (8.25%) ITIL
9 32 (8.25%) UML
10 28 (7.22%) Asset Management
10 28 (7.22%) ETL
11 27 (6.96%) Analytics
11 27 (6.96%) Requirements Management
12 25 (6.44%) Change Control
12 25 (6.44%) Data Modelling
12 25 (6.44%) Performance Tuning
13 24 (6.19%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 69 (17.78%) SQL
2 49 (12.63%) Python
3 38 (9.79%) Java
4 18 (4.64%) PL/SQL
5 17 (4.38%) PowerShell
6 16 (4.12%) JCL
7 15 (3.87%) COBOL
7 15 (3.87%) REXX
8 12 (3.09%) C
9 10 (2.58%) Bash
10 9 (2.32%) Bicep
10 9 (2.32%) C++
10 9 (2.32%) CLIST
10 9 (2.32%) Perl
10 9 (2.32%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.06%) XPath
12 7 (1.80%) Assembly Language
12 7 (1.80%) Embedded C
12 7 (1.80%) Embedded C++
13 6 (1.55%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 107 (27.58%) Security Cleared
2 59 (15.21%) SC Cleared
3 44 (11.34%) Degree
4 17 (4.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.87%) Azure Certification
6 14 (3.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (3.09%) DV Cleared
8 11 (2.84%) CISM
8 11 (2.84%) CISSP
9 8 (2.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.80%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.80%) IBM Certification
10 7 (1.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 7 (1.80%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.29%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.03%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.03%) PMP
13 3 (0.77%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.38%) Data Quality
1 17 (4.38%) QA
2 11 (2.84%) SLA
3 10 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (2.32%) NIST
5 7 (1.80%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.03%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.03%) SEPA
7 2 (0.52%) GDPR
7 2 (0.52%) GRC
7 2 (0.52%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.52%) NCSC
7 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.26%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.26%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 44 (11.34%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (7.47%) vSphere
3 24 (6.19%) NFS
4 21 (5.41%) GPFS
4 21 (5.41%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.87%) Docker
5 15 (3.87%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (2.06%) RACF
7 6 (1.55%) Firmware
7 6 (1.55%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.55%) Job Entry Subsystem
7 6 (1.55%) KVM
8 4 (1.03%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (1.03%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.77%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.52%) Active Directory
10 2 (0.52%) PowerHA
10 2 (0.52%) Tivoli Directory Server
11 1 (0.26%) Lustre
11 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 29 (7.47%) vRealize
2 27 (6.96%) Terraform
3 21 (5.41%) Kubernetes
4 19 (4.90%) Ansible
5 16 (4.12%) VxRail
6 8 (2.06%) IBM BigFix
7 7 (1.80%) TIBCO Hawk
7 7 (1.80%) Tivoli
8 6 (1.55%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (1.55%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.29%) Control-M
9 5 (1.29%) OMEGAMON
9 5 (1.29%) Tivoli NetView
10 4 (1.03%) Nagios
10 4 (1.03%) Netcool
10 4 (1.03%) OpenView
10 4 (1.03%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.03%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 4 (1.03%) ZABBIX
11 3 (0.77%) zSecure
Vendors
1 74 (19.07%) Oracle
2 55 (14.18%) VMware
3 45 (11.60%) Cisco
4 37 (9.54%) ServiceNow
5 30 (7.73%) Microsoft
6 25 (6.44%) HP
7 24 (6.19%) Dell
7 24 (6.19%) SAP
8 18 (4.64%) SolarWinds
9 16 (4.12%) AppDynamics
10 15 (3.87%) Google
10 15 (3.87%) Red Hat
11 14 (3.61%) Commvault
12 11 (2.84%) BMC
12 11 (2.84%) Splunk
13 10 (2.58%) EMC
14 8 (2.06%) Citrix
14 8 (2.06%) Software AG
14 8 (2.06%) TIBCO
14 8 (2.06%) webMethods