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 17 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 153 185 192
Rank change year-on-year +32 +7 +48
Contract jobs citing COBOL 14 1 20
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 0.42% 0.022% 0.36%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.50% 0.084% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 1 3
10th Percentile £360 - £348
25th Percentile £396 - £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £340 £425
Median % change year-on-year +22.06% -20.00% +3.03%
75th Percentile £448 - £481
90th Percentile £450 - £508
England median daily rate £436 £400 £525
% change year-on-year +9.00% -23.81% +6.06%

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 935 1,190 1,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 28.12% 25.63% 29.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 843 1,190
10th Percentile £350 £325 £362
25th Percentile £400 £403 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -9.52% +5.00%
75th Percentile £545 £569 £600
90th Percentile £615 £625 £688
England median daily rate £525 £550 £565
% change year-on-year -4.55% -2.65% +2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 51 28
10th Percentile £35.66 £37.63 £30.01
25th Percentile £58.63 £43.57 £39.45
Median hourly rate £79.00 £47.50 £49.29
Median % change year-on-year +66.32% -3.62% +15.96%
75th Percentile £91.88 £68.75 £64.25
90th Percentile £100.62 £74.50 £70.00
England median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year - - +22.43%

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 17 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 17 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 - 8 £402 - 1
Yorkshire +19 6 £450 +32.35% 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 8 (57.14%) CICS
2 3 (21.43%) WebSphere
3 2 (14.29%) Confluence
3 2 (14.29%) Tuxedo
4 1 (7.14%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 2 (14.29%) AWS
2 1 (7.14%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (57.14%) DB2
2 3 (21.43%) Easytrieve
3 2 (14.29%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (14.29%) Hadoop
4 1 (7.14%) Oracle Database
4 1 (7.14%) Relational Database
4 1 (7.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (28.57%) Jenkins
1 4 (28.57%) Oracle Forms
2 3 (21.43%) Selenium
3 2 (14.29%) SOAtest
4 1 (7.14%) Cucumber
4 1 (7.14%) Eclipse
4 1 (7.14%) Git
4 1 (7.14%) IntelliJ
4 1 (7.14%) Maven
4 1 (7.14%) REST Assured
General
1 8 (57.14%) Banking
2 5 (35.71%) Finance
3 4 (28.57%) Social Skills
4 3 (21.43%) Retail Banking
5 2 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (14.29%) General Ledger
6 1 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (21.43%) Developer
1 3 (21.43%) Development Engineer
1 3 (21.43%) Software Development Engineer
1 3 (21.43%) Software Engineer
2 2 (14.29%) Architect
2 2 (14.29%) Designer
2 2 (14.29%) Mainframe Designer
2 2 (14.29%) Mainframe Developer
2 2 (14.29%) Test Architect
2 2 (14.29%) Tester
3 1 (7.14%) Automation Tester
3 1 (7.14%) COBOL Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Consultant
3 1 (7.14%) Mainframe Architect
3 1 (7.14%) Mainframe Consultant
3 1 (7.14%) z/OS Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (35.71%) Web Services
2 2 (14.29%) J2EE
2 2 (14.29%) JSON
2 2 (14.29%) REST
2 2 (14.29%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (71.43%) Mainframe
2 8 (57.14%) VSAM
3 3 (21.43%) Product Ownership
4 2 (14.29%) Mobile Payment
5 1 (7.14%) IBM Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 3 (21.43%) Unix
1 3 (21.43%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (35.71%) Impact Analysis
2 4 (28.57%) Migration
3 3 (21.43%) DevOps
3 3 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (21.43%) Scenario Testing
3 3 (21.43%) Test Automation
3 3 (21.43%) Test Strategy
4 2 (14.29%) API Integration
4 2 (14.29%) API Testing
4 2 (14.29%) Batch Processing
4 2 (14.29%) CI/CD
4 2 (14.29%) Code Quality
4 2 (14.29%) Mentoring
4 2 (14.29%) Performance Management
4 2 (14.29%) Project Planning
4 2 (14.29%) SDLC
4 2 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (14.29%) Test Planning
4 2 (14.29%) Translating Business Requirements
4 2 (14.29%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 9 (64.29%) JCL
2 5 (35.71%) REXX
2 5 (35.71%) SQL
3 4 (28.57%) Java
3 4 (28.57%) PL/SQL
4 1 (7.14%) Assembly Language
4 1 (7.14%) CLIST
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (28.57%) QA
Vendors
1 7 (50.00%) Oracle
2 3 (21.43%) Perforce
3 2 (14.29%) Ab Initio
3 2 (14.29%) IBM
3 2 (14.29%) Informatica
3 2 (14.29%) Parasoft
4 1 (7.14%) Microsoft