COBOL Contract Job Trends in the North West

COBOL
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring COBOL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 115 128
Rank change year-on-year -50 +13 +23
Contract jobs citing COBOL 10 10 1
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.27% 0.46% 0.038%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.11% 1.81% 0.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 10 1
10th Percentile £385 £332 -
25th Percentile £408 £345 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £448 £390 £400
Median % change year-on-year +14.74% -2.50% -5.88%
75th Percentile £462 £404 £413
90th Percentile £469 £447 -
England median daily rate £469 £405 £400
% change year-on-year +15.80% +1.25% -25.93%

All Programming Languages
North West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 901 552 605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 24.44% 25.56% 22.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 425 439
10th Percentile £350 £315 £331
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £438 £475
Median % change year-on-year +10.63% -7.89% -8.65%
75th Percentile £585 £538 £550
90th Percentile £650 £625 £613
England median daily rate £520 £519 £543
% change year-on-year +0.19% -4.33% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 7 31
10th Percentile £29.98 £27.12 £37.55
25th Percentile £47.33 £48.75 £45.88
Median hourly rate £74.26 £70.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.09% +27.27% +19.10%
75th Percentile £77.50 £86.63 £72.19
90th Percentile £92.50 £91.25 £83.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £59.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +9.24% -8.46% +3.59%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing COBOL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

COBOL job vacancy trend in the North West

COBOL
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing COBOL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing COBOL

COBOL
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing COBOL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing COBOL

COBOL
Contract Job Locations in the North West

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 West region over the 6 months to 19 July 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
Manchester -32 9 £448 +37.06%
Cheshire -12 1 - -
COBOL
England

COBOL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 9 (90.00%) CICS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (90.00%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (90.00%) DataStage
General
1 9 (90.00%) Influencing Skills
1 9 (90.00%) Social Skills
2 8 (80.00%) Finance
3 2 (20.00%) Public Sector
4 1 (10.00%) Advertising
4 1 (10.00%) Banking
4 1 (10.00%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (90.00%) Designer
1 9 (90.00%) Infrastructure Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (90.00%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 10 (100.00%) Mainframe
2 9 (90.00%) BYOD
2 9 (90.00%) Data Centre
2 9 (90.00%) VSAM
3 1 (10.00%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 9 (90.00%) AIX
1 9 (90.00%) Linux
1 9 (90.00%) Solaris
1 9 (90.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (90.00%) Business Case
1 9 (90.00%) Design Patterns
1 9 (90.00%) Process Improvement
1 9 (90.00%) Roadmaps
2 1 (10.00%) Data Protection
2 1 (10.00%) Incident Management
2 1 (10.00%) Project Delivery
2 1 (10.00%) Root Cause Analysis
2 1 (10.00%) Strategic Roadmap
2 1 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
Qualifications
1 2 (20.00%) BPSS Clearance
1 2 (20.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 3 (30.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Vendors
1 9 (90.00%) IBM
1 9 (90.00%) VMware
2 1 (10.00%) Microsoft