Mainframe Contract Job Trends in the South East

Mainframes
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Mainframe in contract job vacancies in the South East. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 19 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 175 178 208
Rank change year-on-year +3 +30 +24
Contract jobs citing Mainframe 3 3 2
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.074% 0.073% 0.037%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.24% 0.23% 0.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £950 £513 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £1,000 £525 -
Median % change year-on-year +90.48% - -
75th Percentile £1,050 £538 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median daily rate £411 £488 £575
% change year-on-year -15.64% -15.22% -4.17%

All Generic Skills
South East

Mainframe falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 1,266 1,279 1,708
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 31.28% 31.31% 31.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 810 722 1,068
10th Percentile £204 £254 £205
25th Percentile £363 £400 £357
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% +2.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £607
90th Percentile £675 £690 £689
England median daily rate £520 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -5.45% - -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 74 107
10th Percentile £12.50 £13.84 £18.77
25th Percentile £16.50 £26.44 £24.80
Median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.38% -1.87% +42.67%
75th Percentile £62.00 £71.74 £63.29
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.16 £76.92
England median hourly rate £29.00 £46.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -37.20% +2.62% +47.54%

Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Mainframe job vacancy trend in the South East

Mainframe
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Mainframe
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Mainframe
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 Mainframe within the South East region over the 6 months to 19 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
Thames Valley -1 2 - - 1
Berkshire - 2 - - 1
Surrey +7 1 £1,000 -
Mainframe
England

Mainframe
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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (66.67%) AWS
1 2 (66.67%) Azure
1 2 (66.67%) GCP
1 2 (66.67%) IaaS
1 2 (66.67%) PaaS
1 2 (66.67%) SaaS
General
1 2 (66.67%) Retail
2 1 (33.33%) Finance
Job Titles
1 2 (66.67%) Architect
1 2 (66.67%) Vulnerability Management Architect
2 1 (33.33%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 2 (66.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (33.33%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (33.33%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (66.67%) Application Security
1 2 (66.67%) Asset Management
1 2 (66.67%) Cloud Security
1 2 (66.67%) Collaborative Working
1 2 (66.67%) Cybersecurity
1 2 (66.67%) DevOps
1 2 (66.67%) Observability
1 2 (66.67%) Threat Modelling
1 2 (66.67%) Vulnerability Management
1 2 (66.67%) Zero Trust
2 1 (33.33%) Change Management
2 1 (33.33%) Coaching
2 1 (33.33%) ITIL
2 1 (33.33%) Migration
2 1 (33.33%) Service Delivery
2 1 (33.33%) SIAM
Vendors
1 2 (66.67%) Qualys
2 1 (33.33%) Oracle