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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 157 165 171
Rank change year-on-year +8 +6 +72
Contract jobs citing COBOL 29 7 26
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 0.73% 0.17% 0.52%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.49% 0.68% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 3 2
10th Percentile £315 £350 £421
25th Percentile £340 £364 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £400 £463
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -13.51% +5.11%
75th Percentile £440 £406 £484
90th Percentile £500 £410 £494
England median daily rate £402 £420 £475
% change year-on-year -4.29% -11.58% -5.00%

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 1,163 1,031 1,250
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 29.13% 24.91% 24.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 822 701 895
10th Percentile £315 £341 £352
25th Percentile £378 £400 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £608
90th Percentile £612 £638 £675
England median daily rate £513 £548 £550
% change year-on-year -6.39% -0.45% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 28 44
10th Percentile £30.60 £35.89 £27.97
25th Percentile £40.46 £37.55 £45.88
Median hourly rate £66.50 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +44.00% - -6.71%
75th Percentile £85.56 £63.75 £50.25
90th Percentile £94.38 £75.90 £71.13
England median hourly rate £56.25 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.46% - +13.04%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Job vacancy trend for COBOL 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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 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
Yorkshire -2 18 £386 +13.60%
North West -7 10 £402 +0.50% 6
North East - 1 £525 -
COBOL
England

COBOL
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of 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 (82.76%) CICS
2 14 (48.28%) CMS
3 3 (10.34%) WebSphere
Business Applications
1 14 (48.28%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 4 (13.79%) AWS
2 1 (3.45%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (34.48%) DB2
2 3 (10.34%) Easytrieve
3 2 (6.90%) Adabas
3 2 (6.90%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (6.90%) Hadoop
3 2 (6.90%) Oracle Database
3 2 (6.90%) Relational Database
3 2 (6.90%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (20.69%) ChangeMan
2 5 (17.24%) Jenkins
3 4 (13.79%) Selenium
4 3 (10.34%) Git
5 2 (6.90%) Cucumber
5 2 (6.90%) Eclipse
5 2 (6.90%) IntelliJ
5 2 (6.90%) Maven
5 2 (6.90%) REST Assured
5 2 (6.90%) SOAtest
General
1 17 (58.62%) Banking
2 12 (41.38%) Social Skills
3 9 (31.03%) Finance
4 6 (20.69%) Legal
5 5 (17.24%) Retail Banking
6 3 (10.34%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (6.90%) Financial Institution
7 2 (6.90%) General Ledger
8 1 (3.45%) Billing
8 1 (3.45%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 18 (62.07%) Developer
2 4 (13.79%) COBOL Developer
3 3 (10.34%) Tester
4 2 (6.90%) Architect
4 2 (6.90%) Automation Tester
4 2 (6.90%) Designer
4 2 (6.90%) Mainframe Designer
4 2 (6.90%) Test Architect
5 1 (3.45%) Adabas Natural Developer
5 1 (3.45%) CMS Developer
5 1 (3.45%) Consultant
5 1 (3.45%) Lead
5 1 (3.45%) Mainframe Architect
5 1 (3.45%) Mainframe Consultant
5 1 (3.45%) Mainframe Developer
5 1 (3.45%) Mainframe Tester
5 1 (3.45%) Platform Engineer
5 1 (3.45%) Programmer
5 1 (3.45%) Systems Programmer
5 1 (3.45%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (17.24%) Web Services
2 2 (6.90%) ISPF
2 2 (6.90%) J2EE
2 2 (6.90%) JSON
2 2 (6.90%) REST
2 2 (6.90%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (86.21%) Mainframe
2 17 (58.62%) VSAM
3 3 (10.34%) IBM Mainframe
4 2 (6.90%) Mobile Payment
5 1 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (3.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 4 (13.79%) zOS
2 3 (10.34%) Unix
3 1 (3.45%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (55.17%) DevOps
2 11 (37.93%) SDLC
3 9 (31.03%) Agile
4 7 (24.14%) Continuous Improvement
5 6 (20.69%) Batch Scheduling
5 6 (20.69%) Cybersecurity
5 6 (20.69%) Risk Management
5 6 (20.69%) Stakeholder Management
6 5 (17.24%) Migration
6 5 (17.24%) Root Cause Analysis
7 4 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
7 4 (13.79%) Scenario Testing
7 4 (13.79%) Test Automation
7 4 (13.79%) Test Strategy
8 3 (10.34%) Batch Processing
8 3 (10.34%) CI/CD
8 3 (10.34%) Code Quality
8 3 (10.34%) High Availability
9 2 (6.90%) Performance Management
9 2 (6.90%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 21 (72.41%) JCL
2 6 (20.69%) Java
3 5 (17.24%) REXX
4 2 (6.90%) Natural
4 2 (6.90%) SQL
5 1 (3.45%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 1 (3.45%) SC Cleared
1 1 (3.45%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (13.79%) QA
2 1 (3.45%) GDPR
2 1 (3.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 2 (6.90%) Time Sharing Option
2 1 (3.45%) Job Entry Subsystem
2 1 (3.45%) RACF
Systems Management
1 6 (20.69%) CA Endevor
2 1 (3.45%) Kubernetes
2 1 (3.45%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 4 (13.79%) IBM
1 4 (13.79%) Oracle
2 3 (10.34%) Microsoft
3 2 (6.90%) Ab Initio
3 2 (6.90%) Informatica
3 2 (6.90%) Parasoft