Mainframe Contract Job Trends, Contractor Rates & Related Skills in Cheshire

Mainframes
North West > Cheshire

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Mainframe in contract job vacancies in Cheshire. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 14 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

	6 months to 14 Dec 2025	Same period 2024	Same period 2023
Rank	-	46	57
Rank change year-on-year	-	+11	-8
Contract jobs citing Mainframe	0	5	2
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire	-	1.11%	0.50%
As % of the Miscellaneous category	-	2.79%	1.18%
Number of daily rates quoted	0	4	0
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	-	£378	-
North West median daily rate	£325	£400	£600
% change year-on-year	-18.75%	-33.33%	+71.43%

All Generic Skills
Cheshire

Mainframe falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in Cheshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills	214	179	170
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire	32.62%	39.69%	42.82%
Number of daily rates quoted	163	94	113
10^th Percentile	£258	£316	£433
25^th Percentile	£358	£367	£500
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£447	£490	£525
Median % change year-on-year	-8.68%	-6.76%	+7.14%
75^th Percentile	£503	£550	£565
90^th Percentile	£638	£638	£611
North West median daily rate	£450	£489	£513
% change year-on-year	-7.98%	-4.59%	+2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted	10	10	5
10^th Percentile	-	£20.46	£14.42
25^th Percentile	£15.50	£21.83	£17.25
Median hourly rate	£16.25	£26.71	£17.72
Median % change year-on-year	-39.15%	+50.71%	+2.10%
75^th Percentile	£30.44	£33.75	£23.00
90^th Percentile	£67.25	£78.50	£54.20
North West median hourly rate	£45.46	£31.75	£41.87
% change year-on-year	+43.18%	-24.16%	+56.97%