COBOL Contract Job Trends in the South East

COBOL
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring COBOL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 222 - 173
Rank change year-on-year - - +35
Contract jobs citing COBOL 2 0 8
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.031% - 0.18%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.16% - 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 6
10th Percentile - - £355
25th Percentile £463 - £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 - £389
75th Percentile £488 - £451
90th Percentile - - £468
England median daily rate £535 £404 £410
% change year-on-year +32.59% -1.59% -8.89%

All Programming Languages
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 1,258 922 1,136
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 19.22% 26.22% 25.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 790 637 743
10th Percentile £303 £275 £325
25th Percentile £403 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £614
90th Percentile £688 £625 £658
England median daily rate £525 £515 £545
% change year-on-year +1.94% -5.50% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 33 56
10th Percentile £17.35 £50.00 £27.00
25th Percentile £38.00 £52.50 £46.75
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £69.69
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -21.08% +26.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £74.90
90th Percentile £77.50 - £75.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +3.17%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

COBOL job vacancy trend in the South East

COBOL
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing COBOL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing COBOL

COBOL
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing COBOL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing COBOL

COBOL
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing COBOL within the South East region over the 6 months to 28 September 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
Berkshire - 1 £475 - 1
Thames Valley - 1 £475 - 1
Home Counties - 1 - -
COBOL
England

COBOL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 1 (50.00%) CICS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (50.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (50.00%) Git
1 1 (50.00%) IBM UrbanCode
1 1 (50.00%) Jenkins
General
1 2 (100.00%) Finance
2 1 (50.00%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (50.00%) Banking
2 1 (50.00%) Documentation Skills
2 1 (50.00%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 1 (50.00%) Analyst
1 1 (50.00%) Analyst Programmer
1 1 (50.00%) Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (50.00%) ISPF
Miscellaneous
1 2 (100.00%) Mainframe
1 2 (100.00%) VSAM
2 1 (50.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (50.00%) IBM Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 1 (50.00%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) Problem-Solving
2 1 (50.00%) Agile
2 1 (50.00%) API Integration
2 1 (50.00%) Batch Processing
2 1 (50.00%) Business Continuity
2 1 (50.00%) Capacity Management
2 1 (50.00%) Capacity Planning
2 1 (50.00%) Change Management
2 1 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 1 (50.00%) Database Security
2 1 (50.00%) DevOps
2 1 (50.00%) Disaster Recovery
2 1 (50.00%) Performance Optimisation
2 1 (50.00%) Performance Tuning
2 1 (50.00%) Release Management
2 1 (50.00%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (100.00%) JCL
2 1 (50.00%) SQL
System Software
1 1 (50.00%) RACF
1 1 (50.00%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 1 (50.00%) Ansible
1 1 (50.00%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) IBM
2 1 (50.00%) Broadcom