COBOL Contracts in the UK excluding London

COBOL
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London 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 2 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 307 378 405
Rank change year-on-year +71 +27 +66
Contract jobs citing COBOL 32 21 42
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.25% 0.10% 0.18%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.87% 0.43% 0.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 14 26
10th Percentile £372 £328 £353
25th Percentile £403 £343 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £364 £537
Median % change year-on-year +23.21% -32.18% +12.70%
75th Percentile £539 £402 £540
90th Percentile £638 £500 £550
UK median daily rate £447 £413 £525
% change year-on-year +8.36% -21.43% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £51.25 - -
Median hourly rate £52.50 - -
75th Percentile £53.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £62.50 - -

All Programming Languages
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 3,664 4,867 6,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 28.64% 23.45% 29.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,419 3,280 4,978
10th Percentile £325 £319 £339
25th Percentile £402 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +3.09%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £594
90th Percentile £650 £650 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 397 341
10th Percentile £22.43 £37.63 £24.00
25th Percentile £42.50 £51.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £64.00 £62.50 £61.18
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% +2.17% +23.54%
75th Percentile £68.75 £70.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £60.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +3.31% +0.83% +20.00%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing COBOL as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for COBOL in the UK excluding London

COBOL
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing COBOL in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for COBOL in the UK excluding London

COBOL
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing COBOL in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for COBOL in the UK excluding London

COBOL
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing COBOL in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for COBOL in the UK excluding London

COBOL
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing COBOL within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 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 of England +35 13 £425 +25.00% 3
Midlands +21 13 £507 +41.75% 7
West Midlands +16 12 £604 +68.64% 3
North West - 7 £402 -
Yorkshire +12 6 £450 +32.35% 3
South West +45 4 £500 -18.20% 10
South East +42 1 - - 1
Scotland +12 1 £550 +37.50% 1
East Midlands - 1 £358 -
COBOL
UK

COBOL
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 7 (21.88%) CICS
2 4 (12.50%) Confluence
3 3 (9.38%) WebSphere
4 2 (6.25%) Tuxedo
5 1 (3.13%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (15.63%) BASE24
2 2 (6.25%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2 (6.25%) AWS
2 1 (3.13%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (15.63%) ATM
2 1 (3.13%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (21.88%) DB2
2 5 (15.63%) NonStop SQL
3 3 (9.38%) Easytrieve
4 2 (6.25%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (6.25%) Hadoop
4 2 (6.25%) IDMS
5 1 (3.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (21.88%) Postman
2 4 (12.50%) Oracle Forms
3 3 (9.38%) Jenkins
4 2 (6.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 2 (6.25%) Bitbucket
4 2 (6.25%) CA Gen
4 2 (6.25%) JIRA
4 2 (6.25%) Selenium
4 2 (6.25%) SOAtest
4 2 (6.25%) VersaTest
5 1 (3.13%) Cucumber
5 1 (3.13%) Eclipse
General
1 9 (28.13%) Banking
2 8 (25.00%) Finance
3 6 (18.75%) Social Skills
4 4 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (9.38%) Retail Banking
6 2 (6.25%) General Ledger
6 2 (6.25%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (6.25%) Public Sector
7 1 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (37.50%) Developer
2 8 (25.00%) Architect
3 4 (12.50%) Lead
3 4 (12.50%) SAP Architect
3 4 (12.50%) SAP Developer
4 3 (9.38%) BASE24 Developer
4 3 (9.38%) COBOL Developer
4 3 (9.38%) Development Engineer
4 3 (9.38%) Mainframe Developer
4 3 (9.38%) Software Development Engineer
4 3 (9.38%) Software Engineer
5 2 (6.25%) ABAP Developer
5 2 (6.25%) Designer
5 2 (6.25%) Full-Stack Developer
5 2 (6.25%) Integration Architect
5 2 (6.25%) Lead Developer
5 2 (6.25%) Mainframe Designer
5 2 (6.25%) QA Leader
5 2 (6.25%) Test Architect
6 1 (3.13%) Mainframe Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (21.88%) Web Services
2 5 (15.63%) CSS
2 5 (15.63%) CSS3
2 5 (15.63%) HTML
2 5 (15.63%) HTML5
2 5 (15.63%) jQuery
2 5 (15.63%) REST
2 5 (15.63%) SAP Fiori
2 5 (15.63%) SAPUI5
3 3 (9.38%) IDoc
3 3 (9.38%) J2EE
3 3 (9.38%) SOAP
3 3 (9.38%) XML
4 2 (6.25%) BAPI
4 2 (6.25%) JSON
4 2 (6.25%) RESTful
4 2 (6.25%) SAP Smart Forms
5 1 (3.13%) EDI
5 1 (3.13%) Gherkin
5 1 (3.13%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 13 (40.63%) Mainframe
2 7 (21.88%) VSAM
3 4 (12.50%) EMV
4 3 (9.38%) Product Ownership
5 2 (6.25%) Mobile Payment
5 2 (6.25%) Tandem
6 1 (3.13%) APACS
6 1 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (3.13%) IBM Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 5 (15.63%) Unix
2 3 (9.38%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (28.13%) Digital Transformation Programme
2 7 (21.88%) Migration
3 6 (18.75%) Agile
3 6 (18.75%) Code Quality
3 6 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
4 5 (15.63%) Data Modelling
4 5 (15.63%) Full-Stack Development
4 5 (15.63%) Impact Analysis
4 5 (15.63%) MVC
4 5 (15.63%) User Experience
4 5 (15.63%) Validation
4 5 (15.63%) Workflow
5 4 (12.50%) Mentoring
6 3 (9.38%) Computer Science
6 3 (9.38%) Microservices
6 3 (9.38%) Regulatory Change
6 3 (9.38%) SDLC
6 3 (9.38%) Test Automation
6 3 (9.38%) Test Strategy
6 3 (9.38%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 8 (25.00%) ABAP
1 8 (25.00%) JCL
2 7 (21.88%) JavaScript
3 6 (18.75%) SQL
4 5 (15.63%) Java
4 5 (15.63%) REXX
5 4 (12.50%) PL/SQL
6 2 (6.25%) C++
7 1 (3.13%) Assembly Language
7 1 (3.13%) C
7 1 (3.13%) CLIST
7 1 (3.13%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 4 (12.50%) Degree
2 3 (9.38%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (6.25%) ISEB
3 2 (6.25%) ISTQB
3 2 (6.25%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (3.13%) CTC Cleared
4 1 (3.13%) SAP Certification
4 1 (3.13%) Security Cleared
4 1 (3.13%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (21.88%) QA
2 1 (3.13%) Accessibility
2 1 (3.13%) ISO 8583
2 1 (3.13%) PCI DSS
Systems Management
1 1 (3.13%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 8 (25.00%) SAP
2 6 (18.75%) Oracle
3 5 (15.63%) HP
4 3 (9.38%) Perforce
5 2 (6.25%) Ab Initio
5 2 (6.25%) Adobe
5 2 (6.25%) IBM
5 2 (6.25%) Informatica
5 2 (6.25%) Parasoft
6 1 (3.13%) Fujitsu
6 1 (3.13%) ICL
6 1 (3.13%) Microsoft
6 1 (3.13%) MuleSoft