COBOL Contract Job Trends in the North of England

COBOL
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring COBOL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 28 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 217 147 176
Rank change year-on-year -70 +29 +14
Contract jobs citing COBOL 20 17 1
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.31% 0.52% 0.021%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.13% 1.84% 0.083%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 13 1
10th Percentile £356 £362 -
25th Percentile £373 £402 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £431 £425 £340
Median % change year-on-year +1.29% +25.00% -10.82%
75th Percentile £462 £450 -
90th Percentile £469 £490 -
England median daily rate £453 £447 £389
% change year-on-year +1.34% +14.91% -25.90%

All Programming Languages
North of 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 the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 1,763 926 1,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 27.04% 28.22% 25.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,151 682 848
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% -1.47% -9.52%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £575
90th Percentile £625 £610 £625
England median daily rate £513 £525 £548
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.11% -2.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 10 52
10th Percentile £36.28 £31.73 £37.56
25th Percentile £52.50 £55.88 £41.25
Median hourly rate £62.82 £74.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.68% +56.84% -3.06%
75th Percentile £74.26 £88.06 £68.75
90th Percentile £80.65 £95.36 £74.30
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% -

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing COBOL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

COBOL job vacancy trend in the North of England

COBOL
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing COBOL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing COBOL

COBOL
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing COBOL in the North of England over the 6 months to 28 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for COBOL in the North of England

COBOL
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing COBOL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing COBOL

COBOL
Contract Job Locations in the North of 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 North of England region over the 6 months to 28 May 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
North West -33 13 £425 +5.72% 1
Yorkshire -61 6 £525 +16.67% 1
North East - 1 - -
COBOL
England

COBOL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 12 (60.00%) CICS
2 1 (5.00%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (5.00%) Confluence
2 1 (5.00%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 1 (5.00%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (45.00%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (50.00%) DataStage
2 4 (20.00%) DB2
3 1 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (5.00%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 3 (15.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (5.00%) JIRA
General
1 15 (75.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (45.00%) Finance
2 9 (45.00%) Influencing Skills
3 3 (15.00%) Banking
4 2 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (10.00%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 1 (5.00%) Advertising
5 1 (5.00%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (5.00%) Retail
Job Titles
1 9 (45.00%) Designer
1 9 (45.00%) Infrastructure Designer
2 4 (20.00%) Administrator
3 1 (5.00%) Applications Support Analyst
3 1 (5.00%) AWS Architect
3 1 (5.00%) AWS Data Architect
3 1 (5.00%) Data Centre Architect
3 1 (5.00%) Data Engineer
3 1 (5.00%) DB2 Support
3 1 (5.00%) DevOps Engineer
3 1 (5.00%) DevOps Specialist
3 1 (5.00%) Java Architect
3 1 (5.00%) Mainframe Analyst
3 1 (5.00%) Mainframe Software Engineer
3 1 (5.00%) Mainframe Specialist
3 1 (5.00%) Mainframe Support
3 1 (5.00%) Senior
3 1 (5.00%) Senior DevOps
3 1 (5.00%) Senior DevOps Engineer
3 1 (5.00%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (45.00%) Middleware
2 4 (20.00%) ISPF
Miscellaneous
1 19 (95.00%) Mainframe
2 10 (50.00%) Data Centre
2 10 (50.00%) VSAM
3 9 (45.00%) BYOD
4 2 (10.00%) Management Information System
5 1 (5.00%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 10 (50.00%) Unix
2 9 (45.00%) AIX
2 9 (45.00%) Linux
2 9 (45.00%) Solaris
3 2 (10.00%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (45.00%) Business Case
1 9 (45.00%) Design Patterns
1 9 (45.00%) Process Improvement
1 9 (45.00%) Roadmaps
2 8 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
3 6 (30.00%) Change Management
4 4 (20.00%) DevOps
4 4 (20.00%) SDLC
5 3 (15.00%) CI/CD
5 3 (15.00%) Storage Management
6 2 (10.00%) Project Delivery
6 2 (10.00%) Release Management
7 1 (5.00%) Agile
7 1 (5.00%) Batch Processing
7 1 (5.00%) Capacity Planning
7 1 (5.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 1 (5.00%) Data Protection
7 1 (5.00%) Data Security
7 1 (5.00%) Disaster Recovery
7 1 (5.00%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 7 (35.00%) JCL
2 4 (20.00%) REXX
3 3 (15.00%) CLIST
4 2 (10.00%) Java
5 1 (5.00%) C++
5 1 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 1 (5.00%) Shell Script
5 1 (5.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (15.00%) BPSS Clearance
1 3 (15.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.00%) GDPR
System Software
1 3 (15.00%) ACF2
1 3 (15.00%) RACF
1 3 (15.00%) Time Sharing Option
1 3 (15.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (30.00%) CA Endevor
2 3 (15.00%) Tivoli
2 3 (15.00%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 1 (5.00%) Ansible
3 1 (5.00%) Control-M
Vendors
1 9 (45.00%) IBM
1 9 (45.00%) VMware
2 2 (10.00%) Microsoft
3 1 (5.00%) Ab Initio