COBOL Contracts in England

COBOL
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring COBOL skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited COBOL over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 441 506 589
Rank change year-on-year +65 +83 +137
Contract jobs citing COBOL 44 36 64
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.18% 0.097% 0.13%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.54% 0.33% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 24 41
10th Percentile £317 £328 £330
25th Percentile £380 £358 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £436 £413 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.70% -17.50% +6.38%
75th Percentile £506 £488 £540
90th Percentile £598 £596 £563
UK median daily rate £447 £419 £525
% change year-on-year +6.75% -20.24% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £53.00 - -
25th Percentile £55.63 - -
Median hourly rate £62.50 - -
75th Percentile £70.63 - -
90th Percentile £74.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £62.50 - -

All Programming Languages
England

COBOL falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 8,221 10,920 17,806
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.76% 29.36% 35.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,687 7,931 13,003
10th Percentile £363 £350 £388
25th Percentile £425 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £565
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -4.42% +2.73%
75th Percentile £650 £652 £688
90th Percentile £788 £775 £798
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 441 430
10th Percentile £25.25 £35.52 £26.24
25th Percentile £37.65 £48.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £62.75 £62.50 £61.84
Median % change year-on-year +0.40% +1.07% +23.68%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £60.50 £60.70
% change year-on-year +3.31% -0.33% +21.40%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing COBOL as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for COBOL in England

COBOL
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing COBOL in England.

Daily rate trend for COBOL in England

COBOL
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing COBOL in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for COBOL in England

COBOL
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing COBOL in England.

Hourly rate trend for COBOL in England

COBOL
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing COBOL in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for COBOL in England

COBOL
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing COBOL within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Midlands +24 13 £507 +41.75% 6
North of England - 13 £425 - 4
West Midlands +15 12 £604 +68.64% 2
London +31 11 £325 -30.11% 5
North West - 7 £402 - 1
Yorkshire - 6 £450 - 3
South West +48 4 £500 -18.20% 9
South East +42 1 - - 1
East Midlands - 1 £358 -
COBOL
UK

COBOL
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (22.73%) CICS
2 4 (9.09%) Confluence
3 3 (6.82%) WebSphere
4 2 (4.55%) Tuxedo
5 1 (2.27%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (18.18%) BASE24
2 2 (4.55%) SAP ERP
2 2 (4.55%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 2 (4.55%) AWS
2 1 (2.27%) Apple Pay
2 1 (2.27%) Azure
2 1 (2.27%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 8 (18.18%) ATM
2 2 (4.55%) SAN
3 1 (2.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (25.00%) DB2
2 7 (15.91%) NonStop SQL
3 3 (6.82%) Easytrieve
4 2 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (4.55%) Hadoop
4 2 (4.55%) IDMS
4 2 (4.55%) Oracle Database
5 1 (2.27%) Oracle9i Database
5 1 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (2.27%) Redis
5 1 (2.27%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (18.18%) Postman
2 4 (9.09%) Jenkins
2 4 (9.09%) Oracle Forms
3 3 (6.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 3 (6.82%) JIRA
4 2 (4.55%) Bitbucket
4 2 (4.55%) CA Gen
4 2 (4.55%) Selenium
4 2 (4.55%) SOAtest
4 2 (4.55%) VersaTest
5 1 (2.27%) Cucumber
5 1 (2.27%) Git
5 1 (2.27%) Maven
5 1 (2.27%) Mockito
5 1 (2.27%) PROIV
5 1 (2.27%) REST Assured
5 1 (2.27%) SoapUI
5 1 (2.27%) SonarQube
5 1 (2.27%) Subversion
5 1 (2.27%) XCTest
General
1 14 (31.82%) Finance
2 13 (29.55%) Banking
3 11 (25.00%) Social Skills
4 5 (11.36%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (6.82%) Retail Banking
6 2 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.55%) General Ledger
6 2 (4.55%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (4.55%) Public Sector
7 1 (2.27%) Financial Institution
7 1 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 18 (40.91%) Developer
2 8 (18.18%) Architect
3 7 (15.91%) Mainframe Developer
4 5 (11.36%) COBOL Developer
4 5 (11.36%) Lead
5 4 (9.09%) BASE24 Developer
5 4 (9.09%) SAP Architect
5 4 (9.09%) SAP Developer
6 3 (6.82%) Development Engineer
6 3 (6.82%) Lead Developer
6 3 (6.82%) Software Development Engineer
6 3 (6.82%) Software Engineer
7 2 (4.55%) Administrator
7 2 (4.55%) Assembler Developer
7 2 (4.55%) Designer
7 2 (4.55%) Full-Stack Developer
7 2 (4.55%) Mainframe Assembler Developer
7 2 (4.55%) Mainframe Designer
7 2 (4.55%) QA Leader
7 2 (4.55%) Test Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (20.45%) Web Services
2 6 (13.64%) CSS
2 6 (13.64%) CSS3
2 6 (13.64%) HTML
2 6 (13.64%) HTML5
2 6 (13.64%) REST
3 5 (11.36%) jQuery
3 5 (11.36%) SAP Fiori
3 5 (11.36%) SAPUI5
4 4 (9.09%) J2EE
4 4 (9.09%) SOAP
4 4 (9.09%) XML
5 3 (6.82%) IDoc
5 3 (6.82%) JSON
6 2 (4.55%) BAPI
6 2 (4.55%) ISPF
6 2 (4.55%) RESTful
6 2 (4.55%) SAP Smart Forms
7 1 (2.27%) Hibernate
7 1 (2.27%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 20 (45.45%) Mainframe
2 9 (20.45%) VSAM
3 6 (13.64%) EMV
4 4 (9.09%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (6.82%) Product Ownership
5 3 (6.82%) Tandem
6 2 (4.55%) IBM Mainframe
6 2 (4.55%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (4.55%) Mobile Payment
7 1 (2.27%) APACS
7 1 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (2.27%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 8 (18.18%) Unix
2 6 (13.64%) zOS
3 2 (4.55%) OpenVMS
3 2 (4.55%) VMS
4 1 (2.27%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (20.45%) Digital Transformation Programme
1 9 (20.45%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (18.18%) Agile
2 8 (18.18%) Migration
3 7 (15.91%) Code Quality
4 6 (13.64%) MVC
4 6 (13.64%) SDLC
5 5 (11.36%) Data Modelling
5 5 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
5 5 (11.36%) Impact Analysis
5 5 (11.36%) Mentoring
5 5 (11.36%) User Experience
5 5 (11.36%) Validation
5 5 (11.36%) Workflow
6 4 (9.09%) API Integration
6 4 (9.09%) Data Protection
6 4 (9.09%) Microservices
6 4 (9.09%) Test Automation
7 3 (6.82%) Regulatory Change
7 3 (6.82%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 12 (27.27%) JCL
2 10 (22.73%) SQL
3 8 (18.18%) ABAP
3 8 (18.18%) Java
3 8 (18.18%) JavaScript
4 5 (11.36%) C
4 5 (11.36%) REXX
5 4 (9.09%) C++
5 4 (9.09%) PL/SQL
6 3 (6.82%) Assembly Language
7 2 (4.55%) C#
7 2 (4.55%) Groovy
7 2 (4.55%) HLASM
7 2 (4.55%) Shell Script
8 1 (2.27%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 4 (9.09%) Degree
2 3 (6.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (4.55%) ISEB
3 2 (4.55%) ISTQB
3 2 (4.55%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (2.27%) CTC Cleared
4 1 (2.27%) SAP Certification
4 1 (2.27%) Security Cleared
4 1 (2.27%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (18.18%) QA
2 3 (6.82%) ISO 8583
3 2 (4.55%) PCI DSS
4 1 (2.27%) Accessibility
4 1 (2.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 1 (2.27%) Docker
1 1 (2.27%) Time Sharing Option
1 1 (2.27%) XYGATE
Systems Management
1 2 (4.55%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 9 (20.45%) Oracle
2 8 (18.18%) SAP
3 7 (15.91%) HP
4 4 (9.09%) IBM
5 3 (6.82%) Perforce
6 2 (4.55%) Ab Initio
6 2 (4.55%) Adobe
6 2 (4.55%) Informatica
6 2 (4.55%) Parasoft
7 1 (2.27%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (2.27%) Dynatrace
7 1 (2.27%) Microsoft
7 1 (2.27%) MuleSoft
7 1 (2.27%) Splunk