Mainframe Contracts in England

Mainframes
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Mainframe in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 31 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 391 382 504
Rank change year-on-year -9 +122 +109
Contract jobs citing Mainframe 95 154 134
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.39% 0.42% 0.28%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.14% 1.37% 0.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 102 87
10th Percentile £325 £358 £413
25th Percentile £381 £430 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £475 £563
Median % change year-on-year -7.47% -15.56% +7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £650
90th Percentile £673 £723 £700
UK median daily rate £465 £475 £563
% change year-on-year -2.21% -15.56% +3.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £20.45 - -
Median hourly rate £22.04 - -
75th Percentile £31.16 - -
90th Percentile £44.71 - -
UK median hourly rate £22.04 - -

All Generic Skills
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 8,303 11,241 16,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.26% 30.58% 33.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,385 7,321 11,174
10th Percentile £300 £270 £313
25th Percentile £413 £415 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £572
Median % change year-on-year -3.09% -3.89% +4.05%
75th Percentile £663 £675 £696
90th Percentile £788 £800 £800
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 833 556
10th Percentile £15.84 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £20.50 £15.25 £10.63
Median hourly rate £33.91 £35.65 £22.34
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% +59.61% -15.72%
75th Percentile £63.75 £62.00 £63.00
90th Percentile £83.22 £71.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £34.21 £22.00
% change year-on-year -3.54% +55.50% -18.46%

Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for Mainframe in England

Mainframe
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Daily rate trend for Mainframe in England

Mainframe
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Mainframe in England over the 6 months to 31 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Mainframe in England

Mainframe
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Hourly rate trend for Mainframe in England

Mainframe
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Mainframe in England over the 6 months to 31 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Mainframe in England

Mainframe
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 Mainframe within the England region over the 6 months to 31 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
North of England -2 37 £402 -10.17% 17
London +28 36 £430 -31.24% 37
North West +22 19 £381 -14.86% 11
Yorkshire -15 18 £525 +19.32% 6
South West +51 8 £600 -6.80% 2
Midlands -1 4 £340 -10.05% 3
East Midlands +8 3 £333 -25.17% 3
South East +32 2 - - 5
West Midlands 0 1 £700 +92.31%
Mainframe
UK

Mainframe
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 24 (25.26%) CICS
2 7 (7.37%) SAS
3 6 (6.32%) Confluence
4 4 (4.21%) CMS
5 3 (3.16%) WebSphere
6 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (5.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (3.16%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (6.32%) VisionPLUS
2 2 (2.11%) BASE24
Cloud Services
1 15 (15.79%) AWS
2 6 (6.32%) Azure
3 2 (2.11%) GCP
4 1 (1.05%) Apigee
4 1 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (1.05%) OpenShift
4 1 (1.05%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.11%) ATM
2 1 (1.05%) DWDM
2 1 (1.05%) SNA
2 1 (1.05%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (16.84%) DB2
2 4 (4.21%) Easytrieve
3 3 (3.16%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.11%) Hadoop
4 2 (2.11%) NonStop SQL
4 2 (2.11%) Oracle Database
4 2 (2.11%) Relational Database
4 2 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 1 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (1.05%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (10.53%) JIRA
2 8 (8.42%) Jenkins
3 7 (7.37%) Selenium
4 5 (5.26%) JUnit
4 5 (5.26%) Maven
5 4 (4.21%) IntelliJ
5 4 (4.21%) Subversion
6 3 (3.16%) CA Release Automation
6 3 (3.16%) Gradle
6 3 (3.16%) HP UFT
6 3 (3.16%) NetBeans
7 2 (2.11%) Cucumber
7 2 (2.11%) Git
7 2 (2.11%) GitLab
7 2 (2.11%) REST Assured
7 2 (2.11%) SOAtest
8 1 (1.05%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (1.05%) Mockito
8 1 (1.05%) SoapUI
8 1 (1.05%) SpecFlow
General
1 34 (35.79%) Finance
2 28 (29.47%) Banking
3 25 (26.32%) Social Skills
4 19 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.26%) General Ledger
7 4 (4.21%) Retail Banking
8 3 (3.16%) Legal
8 3 (3.16%) Local Government
8 3 (3.16%) Retail
9 2 (2.11%) Billing
9 2 (2.11%) Financial Institution
9 2 (2.11%) Telecoms
10 1 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.05%) Electronics
10 1 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (1.05%) Investment Banking
10 1 (1.05%) Manufacturing
10 1 (1.05%) Marketing
10 1 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 14 (14.74%) Architect
2 13 (13.68%) Developer
3 10 (10.53%) Programmer
3 10 (10.53%) Systems Programmer
3 10 (10.53%) z/OS Systems Programmer
4 9 (9.47%) Senior
5 8 (8.42%) Administrator
5 8 (8.42%) Solutions Architect
6 7 (7.37%) Security Administrator
7 6 (6.32%) Consultant
7 6 (6.32%) Mainframe Developer
7 6 (6.32%) Project Manager
8 5 (5.26%) Lead
9 4 (4.21%) CICS Engineer
9 4 (4.21%) Infrastructure Architect
9 4 (4.21%) Mainframe Architect
10 3 (3.16%) COBOL Developer
10 3 (3.16%) Infrastructure Manager
10 3 (3.16%) Java Developer
10 3 (3.16%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (15.79%) ISPF
2 9 (9.47%) Web Services
3 6 (6.32%) J2EE
3 6 (6.32%) Middleware
4 5 (5.26%) Kafka
4 5 (5.26%) Spring Boot
5 4 (4.21%) AngularJS
5 4 (4.21%) Bootstrap
5 4 (4.21%) CSS
5 4 (4.21%) Hibernate
5 4 (4.21%) HTML
5 4 (4.21%) HTML5
5 4 (4.21%) Spring
5 4 (4.21%) Spring MVC
6 3 (3.16%) Ajax
6 3 (3.16%) jQuery
6 3 (3.16%) Node.js
6 3 (3.16%) REST
6 3 (3.16%) Spring Integration
7 2 (2.11%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 14 (14.74%) VSAM
2 12 (12.63%) IBM Mainframe
3 10 (10.53%) Product Ownership
4 7 (7.37%) Management Information System
5 6 (6.32%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (4.21%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (3.16%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (3.16%) Clustering
7 3 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 3 (3.16%) Data Structures
7 3 (3.16%) iSeries
7 3 (3.16%) Replication
8 2 (2.11%) Cloud Native
8 2 (2.11%) DataPower
8 2 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (2.11%) EMV
8 2 (2.11%) Mobile Payment
8 2 (2.11%) Tandem
9 1 (1.05%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (1.05%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 30 (31.58%) zOS
2 7 (7.37%) Linux
3 6 (6.32%) Unix
4 4 (4.21%) Windows
5 3 (3.16%) HPUX
5 3 (3.16%) MVS
5 3 (3.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (3.16%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (27.37%) Problem-Solving
2 16 (16.84%) Agile
2 16 (16.84%) Migration
3 13 (13.68%) DevOps
4 10 (10.53%) Risk Management
4 10 (10.53%) SDLC
4 10 (10.53%) Test Automation
5 9 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
5 9 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
6 8 (8.42%) CI/CD
6 8 (8.42%) Project Delivery
7 7 (7.37%) Data Protection
7 7 (7.37%) Microservices
7 7 (7.37%) Performance Monitoring
7 7 (7.37%) Validation
8 6 (6.32%) Disaster Recovery
8 6 (6.32%) High Availability
8 6 (6.32%) Project Management
8 6 (6.32%) Security Auditing
8 6 (6.32%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 37 (38.95%) JCL
2 25 (26.32%) COBOL
3 23 (24.21%) REXX
4 15 (15.79%) Assembly Language
5 12 (12.63%) Java
6 9 (9.47%) CLIST
7 4 (4.21%) C
7 4 (4.21%) JavaScript
7 4 (4.21%) SQL
8 3 (3.16%) Python
8 3 (3.16%) TypeScript
9 2 (2.11%) C++
9 2 (2.11%) HLASM
9 2 (2.11%) Natural
10 1 (1.05%) C#
10 1 (1.05%) Groovy
10 1 (1.05%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 6 (6.32%) CISSP
1 6 (6.32%) IBM Certification
1 6 (6.32%) Security Cleared
2 3 (3.16%) SC Cleared
3 1 (1.05%) CTC Cleared
3 1 (1.05%) Degree
3 1 (1.05%) ISTQB
3 1 (1.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 1 (1.05%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (7.37%) QA
2 2 (2.11%) ISO 8583
2 2 (2.11%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.05%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (14.74%) Time Sharing Option
2 8 (8.42%) RACF
3 7 (7.37%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (3.16%) Docker
5 2 (2.11%) ACF2
5 2 (2.11%) Job Entry Subsystem
6 1 (1.05%) Microcode
Systems Management
1 7 (7.37%) OMEGAMON
2 3 (3.16%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.16%) Progress Chef
2 3 (3.16%) Puppet
3 2 (2.11%) Ansible
3 2 (2.11%) Control-M
3 2 (2.11%) Terraform
4 1 (1.05%) CA Endevor
4 1 (1.05%) NetBackup
4 1 (1.05%) Tivoli NetView
Vendors
1 46 (48.42%) IBM
2 4 (4.21%) CA Agile Central
2 4 (4.21%) Oracle
3 3 (3.16%) HP
3 3 (3.16%) Microsoft
3 3 (3.16%) Sun
3 3 (3.16%) Unisys
4 2 (2.11%) Ab Initio
4 2 (2.11%) Broadcom
4 2 (2.11%) Fujitsu
4 2 (2.11%) Guidewire
4 2 (2.11%) Informatica
4 2 (2.11%) Parasoft
4 2 (2.11%) Software AG
5 1 (1.05%) Dynatrace
5 1 (1.05%) Google
5 1 (1.05%) Infor
5 1 (1.05%) MuleSoft
5 1 (1.05%) Splunk
5 1 (1.05%) Syncsort