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 8 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 177 162 183
Rank change year-on-year -15 +21 +52
Contract jobs citing COBOL 22 6 15
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.48% 0.15% 0.31%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.67% 0.61% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 2 1
10th Percentile £283 £389 -
25th Percentile £340 £391 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £360 £400 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -20.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £459 £409 -
90th Percentile £500 £411 -
England median daily rate £410 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -13.68% -2.56% -1.52%

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 1,314 982 1,223
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 28.95% 24.61% 25.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 911 631 899
10th Percentile £315 £325 £325
25th Percentile £375 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £544 £558 £587
90th Percentile £644 £625 £650
England median daily rate £514 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.37% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 26 54
10th Percentile £36.00 £33.44 £32.26
25th Percentile £49.25 £37.51 -
Median hourly rate £66.50 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +44.00% - -12.04%
75th Percentile £74.26 £62.81 £50.19
90th Percentile £86.00 £82.50 £65.88
England median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -0.26%

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 8 November 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 8 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
Yorkshire -19 17 £386 -
North West -15 4 £308 -23.13% 20
North East - 1 £525 -
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 17 (77.27%) CICS
2 14 (63.64%) CMS
Business Applications
1 14 (63.64%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 2 (9.09%) AWS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (18.18%) DB2
2 2 (9.09%) Adabas
3 1 (4.55%) Easytrieve
3 1 (4.55%) Oracle Database
3 1 (4.55%) Relational Database
3 1 (4.55%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (27.27%) ChangeMan
2 2 (9.09%) Git
3 1 (4.55%) Cucumber
3 1 (4.55%) Eclipse
3 1 (4.55%) IntelliJ
3 1 (4.55%) Jenkins
3 1 (4.55%) Maven
3 1 (4.55%) REST Assured
3 1 (4.55%) Selenium
General
1 12 (54.55%) Banking
2 11 (50.00%) Social Skills
3 7 (31.82%) Finance
4 6 (27.27%) Legal
5 2 (9.09%) Financial Institution
5 2 (9.09%) Retail Banking
6 1 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (4.55%) Billing
6 1 (4.55%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 17 (77.27%) Developer
2 4 (18.18%) COBOL Developer
3 1 (4.55%) Adabas Natural Developer
3 1 (4.55%) Administrator
3 1 (4.55%) Automation Tester
3 1 (4.55%) CMS Developer
3 1 (4.55%) Lead
3 1 (4.55%) Mainframe Tester
3 1 (4.55%) Platform Engineer
3 1 (4.55%) Programmer
3 1 (4.55%) Systems Programmer
3 1 (4.55%) Tester
3 1 (4.55%) z/OS Systems Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) ISPF
Miscellaneous
1 18 (81.82%) Mainframe
2 10 (45.45%) VSAM
3 2 (9.09%) IBM Mainframe
4 1 (4.55%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (4.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (9.09%) zOS
2 1 (4.55%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (63.64%) DevOps
2 9 (40.91%) SDLC
3 7 (31.82%) Agile
4 6 (27.27%) Batch Scheduling
4 6 (27.27%) Continuous Improvement
4 6 (27.27%) Cybersecurity
4 6 (27.27%) Risk Management
5 4 (18.18%) Root Cause Analysis
5 4 (18.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 3 (13.64%) High Availability
7 2 (9.09%) Requirements Gathering
8 1 (4.55%) Acceptance Criteria
8 1 (4.55%) Batch Processing
8 1 (4.55%) CI/CD
8 1 (4.55%) Code Quality
8 1 (4.55%) Collaborative Working
8 1 (4.55%) Compliance Audit
8 1 (4.55%) Platform Engineering
8 1 (4.55%) Problem-Solving
8 1 (4.55%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 15 (68.18%) JCL
2 3 (13.64%) REXX
3 2 (9.09%) CLIST
3 2 (9.09%) Java
3 2 (9.09%) Natural
4 1 (4.55%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (4.55%) SC Cleared
1 1 (4.55%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.55%) GDPR
1 1 (4.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 3 (13.64%) Time Sharing Option
2 2 (9.09%) RACF
3 1 (4.55%) ACF2
3 1 (4.55%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 7 (31.82%) CA Endevor
2 1 (4.55%) Kubernetes
2 1 (4.55%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 3 (13.64%) IBM
1 3 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 1 (4.55%) Oracle