COBOL Contracts in the North of England

COBOL
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North of 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 153 - 202
Rank change year-on-year - - +28
Contract jobs citing COBOL 13 0 18
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 0.39% - 0.31%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.40% - 1.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 0 7
10th Percentile £378 - £358
25th Percentile £402 - £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 - £488
Median % change year-on-year - - +19.27%
75th Percentile £449 - £497
90th Percentile £450 - £510
England median daily rate £436 £413 £500
% change year-on-year +5.70% -17.50% +6.38%

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 931 1,213 1,692
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 28.25% 25.44% 29.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 681 869 1,256
10th Percentile £356 £319 £350
25th Percentile £400 £400 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -8.65% +4.00%
75th Percentile £550 £550 £600
90th Percentile £638 £625 £680
England median daily rate £525 £540 £565
% change year-on-year -2.78% -4.42% +2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 47 27
10th Percentile £34.68 £38.08 £27.71
25th Percentile £55.31 £45.88 £38.15
Median hourly rate £76.25 £47.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.53% - +19.56%
75th Percentile £94.67 £66.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £100.97 £72.50 £70.00
England median hourly rate £62.75 £62.50 £61.84
% change year-on-year +0.40% +1.07% +23.68%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

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

Daily rate trend for COBOL in the North of England

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 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for COBOL in the North of England

COBOL
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

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

Hourly rate trend for COBOL in the North of England

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 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
North West - 7 £402 - 1
Yorkshire - 6 £450 - 3
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 7 (53.85%) CICS
2 3 (23.08%) WebSphere
3 2 (15.38%) Confluence
3 2 (15.38%) Tuxedo
4 1 (7.69%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (7.69%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 1 (7.69%) AWS
1 1 (7.69%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (53.85%) DB2
2 3 (23.08%) Easytrieve
3 2 (15.38%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (15.38%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 4 (30.77%) Oracle Forms
2 3 (23.08%) Jenkins
3 2 (15.38%) Selenium
3 2 (15.38%) SOAtest
General
1 8 (61.54%) Banking
2 5 (38.46%) Finance
3 4 (30.77%) Social Skills
4 3 (23.08%) Retail Banking
5 2 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (15.38%) General Ledger
6 1 (7.69%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (23.08%) Developer
1 3 (23.08%) Development Engineer
1 3 (23.08%) Software Development Engineer
1 3 (23.08%) Software Engineer
2 2 (15.38%) Architect
2 2 (15.38%) Designer
2 2 (15.38%) Mainframe Designer
2 2 (15.38%) Mainframe Developer
2 2 (15.38%) Test Architect
3 1 (7.69%) COBOL Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Consultant
3 1 (7.69%) Mainframe Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Mainframe Consultant
3 1 (7.69%) Tester
3 1 (7.69%) z/OS Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (38.46%) Web Services
2 2 (15.38%) J2EE
2 2 (15.38%) JSON
2 2 (15.38%) REST
2 2 (15.38%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (69.23%) Mainframe
2 7 (53.85%) VSAM
3 3 (23.08%) Product Ownership
4 2 (15.38%) Mobile Payment
5 1 (7.69%) IBM Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 3 (23.08%) Unix
1 3 (23.08%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (38.46%) Impact Analysis
2 4 (30.77%) Migration
3 3 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
4 2 (15.38%) Agile
4 2 (15.38%) API Integration
4 2 (15.38%) API Testing
4 2 (15.38%) Batch Processing
4 2 (15.38%) DevOps
4 2 (15.38%) ETL
4 2 (15.38%) Mentoring
4 2 (15.38%) Performance Management
4 2 (15.38%) Project Planning
4 2 (15.38%) Scenario Testing
4 2 (15.38%) SDLC
4 2 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (15.38%) Test Automation
4 2 (15.38%) Test Planning
4 2 (15.38%) Test Strategy
4 2 (15.38%) Translating Business Requirements
4 2 (15.38%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 8 (61.54%) JCL
2 5 (38.46%) REXX
3 4 (30.77%) PL/SQL
3 4 (30.77%) SQL
4 3 (23.08%) Java
5 1 (7.69%) Assembly Language
5 1 (7.69%) CLIST
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (30.77%) QA
Vendors
1 6 (46.15%) Oracle
2 3 (23.08%) Perforce
3 2 (15.38%) Ab Initio
3 2 (15.38%) IBM
3 2 (15.38%) Informatica
3 2 (15.38%) Parasoft
4 1 (7.69%) Microsoft