Mainframe Contract Job Trends in the Midlands

Mainframes
England > Midlands

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Mainframe in contract job vacancies in the Midlands. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 5 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 148 125 136
Rank change year-on-year -23 +11 +55
Contract jobs citing Mainframe 9 12 5
As % of all contract jobs in the Midlands 0.31% 0.45% 0.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.81% 1.57% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 12 2
10th Percentile £340 - £323
25th Percentile £343 £469 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £374 £488 £375
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +30.00% -26.47%
75th Percentile £571 £507 £413
90th Percentile £654 £602 £428
England median daily rate £405 £488 £575
% change year-on-year -16.92% -15.22% -4.17%

All Generic Skills
Midlands

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 the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 1,105 765 862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 38.06% 28.72% 31.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 692 447 546
10th Percentile £251 £196 £263
25th Percentile £370 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +3.09%
75th Percentile £575 £622 £606
90th Percentile £653 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 19 52
10th Percentile - £15.42 £16.66
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.88 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +34.24% +30.98%
75th Percentile £44.00 £52.50 £58.88
90th Percentile £50.00 £55.65 £68.63
England median hourly rate £28.00 £47.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -41.05% +5.56% +66.79%

Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Mainframe relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Mainframe job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Mainframe
Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Mainframe.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Mainframe

Mainframe
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Mainframe in the Midlands over the 6 months to 5 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Mainframe in the Midlands

Mainframe
Hourly Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Mainframe.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Mainframe

Mainframe
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Mainframe within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 5 November 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
East Midlands -17 7 £345 -29.23% 1
West Midlands -17 2 £499 -16.88% 1
Mainframe
England

Mainframe
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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 3 (33.33%) CICS
Applications
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 3 (33.33%) AWS
2 1 (11.11%) Azure
2 1 (11.11%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (33.33%) DB2
2 2 (22.22%) Oracle Database
2 2 (22.22%) Relational Database
2 2 (22.22%) SQL Server
3 1 (11.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 3 (33.33%) Cucumber
1 3 (33.33%) Eclipse
1 3 (33.33%) Git
1 3 (33.33%) IntelliJ
1 3 (33.33%) Jenkins
1 3 (33.33%) Maven
1 3 (33.33%) Selenium
2 2 (22.22%) REST Assured
General
1 3 (33.33%) Automotive
1 3 (33.33%) Marketing
2 2 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Billing
3 1 (11.11%) Finance
3 1 (11.11%) Law
3 1 (11.11%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 4 (44.44%) Developer
1 4 (44.44%) Mainframe Developer
2 3 (33.33%) Automation Tester
2 3 (33.33%) Lead
2 3 (33.33%) Lead Developer
2 3 (33.33%) Tester
3 1 (11.11%) Analyst
3 1 (11.11%) Infrastructure Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Infrastructure Project Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Mainframe Tester
3 1 (11.11%) Migration Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Migration Project Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Project Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Report Analyst
Miscellaneous
1 3 (33.33%) VSAM
2 1 (11.11%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 1 (11.11%) Windows
1 1 (11.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (33.33%) Acceptance Criteria
1 3 (33.33%) CI/CD
1 3 (33.33%) Code Quality
1 3 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
1 3 (33.33%) DevOps
1 3 (33.33%) Root Cause Analysis
1 3 (33.33%) Software Testing
1 3 (33.33%) Test Automation
1 3 (33.33%) Test Scripting
1 3 (33.33%) Test Strategy
2 2 (22.22%) Scenario Testing
2 2 (22.22%) User Experience
3 1 (11.11%) Cloud Enablement
3 1 (11.11%) Data Analysis
3 1 (11.11%) Data Management
3 1 (11.11%) Data Mapping
3 1 (11.11%) Data Visualisation
3 1 (11.11%) Service Management
3 1 (11.11%) Virtual Environments
3 1 (11.11%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 4 (44.44%) SQL
2 3 (33.33%) COBOL
2 3 (33.33%) Java
2 3 (33.33%) JCL
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (11.11%) Data Quality
1 1 (11.11%) QA
Vendors
1 2 (22.22%) Microsoft
1 2 (22.22%) Oracle