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 13 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 235 156 167
Rank change year-on-year -79 +11 +9
Contract jobs citing COBOL 13 30 4
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.18% 0.75% 0.097%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.70% 2.72% 0.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 23 3
10th Percentile £413 £340 £350
25th Percentile £443 £349 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £405 £400
Median % change year-on-year +18.40% +1.25% -13.51%
75th Percentile £509 £450 £406
90th Percentile £526 £500 £410
England median daily rate £550 £402 £410
% change year-on-year +36.82% -1.95% -24.07%

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 1,855 1,104 1,019
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 25.12% 27.77% 24.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 791 716
10th Percentile £350 £315 £350
25th Percentile £413 £379 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £488
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -5.13% -4.41%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £575
90th Percentile £650 £600 £638
England median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 11 32
10th Percentile £28.65 £30.00 £37.50
25th Percentile £46.98 £33.88 £44.02
Median hourly rate £68.25 £70.00 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +30.23% +16.39%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.63 £71.59
90th Percentile £76.90 £95.00 £82.62
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.13 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.79% -12.12% +4.00%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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
Yorkshire -51 8 £513 +20.59% 1
North West -50 4 £428 +6.41%
North East -42 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 7 (53.85%) CICS
2 1 (7.69%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (7.69%) Confluence
2 1 (7.69%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 1 (7.69%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (23.08%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (46.15%) Db2
2 4 (30.77%) DataStage
3 1 (7.69%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (7.69%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 3 (23.08%) Jenkins
2 2 (15.38%) JIRA
General
1 6 (46.15%) Social Skills
2 5 (38.46%) Finance
3 4 (30.77%) Banking
4 3 (23.08%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (23.08%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (7.69%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (7.69%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (7.69%) Retail
Job Titles
1 3 (23.08%) Designer
1 3 (23.08%) Infrastructure Designer
2 1 (7.69%) Analyst
2 1 (7.69%) Applications Support
2 1 (7.69%) Applications Support Analyst
2 1 (7.69%) Architect
2 1 (7.69%) Data Architect
2 1 (7.69%) Data Centre Architect
2 1 (7.69%) Data Integration Architect
2 1 (7.69%) DB2 Specialist
2 1 (7.69%) DevOps Engineer
2 1 (7.69%) Integration Architect
2 1 (7.69%) Integration Engineer
2 1 (7.69%) Java Architect
2 1 (7.69%) Mainframe Software Engineer
2 1 (7.69%) Senior Software Engineer
2 1 (7.69%) Software Engineer
2 1 (7.69%) Support Analyst
2 1 (7.69%) Support Specialist
2 1 (7.69%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (30.77%) Middleware
2 1 (7.69%) ISPF
2 1 (7.69%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 11 (84.62%) Mainframe
2 4 (30.77%) Data Centre
2 4 (30.77%) VSAM
3 3 (23.08%) BYOD
4 2 (15.38%) Management Information System
5 1 (7.69%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (7.69%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 4 (30.77%) Unix
1 4 (30.77%) zOS
2 3 (23.08%) AIX
2 3 (23.08%) Linux
2 3 (23.08%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (46.15%) Problem-Solving
2 4 (30.77%) Change Management
2 4 (30.77%) DevOps
2 4 (30.77%) SDLC
3 3 (23.08%) Business Case
3 3 (23.08%) CI/CD
3 3 (23.08%) Design Patterns
3 3 (23.08%) Process Improvement
3 3 (23.08%) Roadmaps
4 2 (15.38%) Agile
4 2 (15.38%) Continuous Improvement
4 2 (15.38%) Performance Tuning
5 1 (7.69%) Analytics
5 1 (7.69%) Capacity Planning
5 1 (7.69%) Data Protection
5 1 (7.69%) Data Security
5 1 (7.69%) Disaster Recovery
5 1 (7.69%) ETL
5 1 (7.69%) Incident Management
5 1 (7.69%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 4 (30.77%) JCL
2 2 (15.38%) Java
2 2 (15.38%) REXX
3 1 (7.69%) C++
3 1 (7.69%) PowerShell
3 1 (7.69%) Shell Script
3 1 (7.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (7.69%) BPSS Clearance
1 1 (7.69%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (7.69%) GDPR
System Software
1 1 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (30.77%) CA Endevor
2 1 (7.69%) Ansible
2 1 (7.69%) Control-M
2 1 (7.69%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 4 (30.77%) IBM
2 3 (23.08%) VMware
3 2 (15.38%) Microsoft
4 1 (7.69%) Ab Initio