IBM Mainframe Contracts

IBM Mainframe
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term IBM Mainframe in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited IBM Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 501 571 701
Rank change year-on-year +70 +130 +134
Contract jobs citing IBM Mainframe 18 29 12
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.062% 0.067% 0.020%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.18% 0.22% 0.060%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 20 2
10th Percentile £409 £334 £353
25th Percentile £463 £358 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £374 £446
Median % change year-on-year +28.21% -16.19% -15.00%
75th Percentile £600 £500 £509
90th Percentile £675 £588 £545
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £364 £330
% change year-on-year +48.35% +10.30% -40.00%

All Generic Skills
UK

IBM 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 9,915 13,252 19,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 30.40% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,331 8,505 13,670
10th Percentile £300 £263 £308
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £650 £660 £680
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.90% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 910 640
10th Percentile £16.46 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.17 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
Median % change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.99 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.93 £27.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +11.46% +26.14% +9.64%

IBM Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing IBM Mainframe as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for IBM Mainframe in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing IBM Mainframe.

Daily rate trend for IBM Mainframe in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IBM Mainframe over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for IBM Mainframe in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing IBM Mainframe.

Hourly rate trend for IBM Mainframe in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Top 10 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IBM Mainframe within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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
England +59 13 £479 +33.87% 2
UK excluding London +44 9 £540 +48.35% 1
Work from Home +37 7 £600 +39.53% 4
North of England +31 4 - -
Yorkshire +18 4 - -
London +34 3 £459 -21.87%
Scotland +5 2 £479 -4.20%
South West - 2 £600 -
Midlands +15 1 £480 +34.08%
East Midlands - 1 £480 -

IBM Mainframe
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 (44.44%) CICS
2 1 (5.56%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 1 (5.56%) Azure
1 1 (5.56%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 2 (11.11%) SNA
1 2 (11.11%) TCP/IP
2 1 (5.56%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (27.78%) DB2
2 1 (5.56%) Adabas
2 1 (5.56%) SQL Server
General
1 8 (44.44%) Finance
2 6 (33.33%) Banking
3 5 (27.78%) Social Skills
4 2 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (11.11%) Retail
5 1 (5.56%) Financial Institution
5 1 (5.56%) Retail Banking
5 1 (5.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 4 (22.22%) CICS Engineer
2 3 (16.67%) Administrator
2 3 (16.67%) Consultant
2 3 (16.67%) Mainframe Consultant
2 3 (16.67%) Senior
3 2 (11.11%) Developer
3 2 (11.11%) Mainframe Developer
3 2 (11.11%) Security Administrator
4 1 (5.56%) COBOL Developer
4 1 (5.56%) DB2 Developer
4 1 (5.56%) DBA
4 1 (5.56%) Development Manager
4 1 (5.56%) Development Project Manager
4 1 (5.56%) Mainframe DBA
4 1 (5.56%) Software Development Manager
4 1 (5.56%) Software Development Project Manager
4 1 (5.56%) Software Manager
4 1 (5.56%) Software Project Manager
4 1 (5.56%) SQL DBA
4 1 (5.56%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (33.33%) Middleware
2 3 (16.67%) ISPF
Miscellaneous
1 18 (100.00%) Mainframe
2 5 (27.78%) Clustering
3 2 (11.11%) Management Information System
4 1 (5.56%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (5.56%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (5.56%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (5.56%) LPAR
4 1 (5.56%) Onboarding
4 1 (5.56%) Product Ownership
4 1 (5.56%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 1 (5.56%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 10 (55.56%) zOS
2 1 (5.56%) Linux
2 1 (5.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (27.78%) Problem-Solving
2 4 (22.22%) Migration
2 4 (22.22%) Project Management
3 3 (16.67%) Project Delivery
4 2 (11.11%) Collaborative Working
4 2 (11.11%) Incident Response
4 2 (11.11%) Roadmaps
4 2 (11.11%) Security Auditing
4 2 (11.11%) Security Management
4 2 (11.11%) Technology Roadmap
4 2 (11.11%) Test Automation
5 1 (5.56%) Agile
5 1 (5.56%) Batch Scheduling
5 1 (5.56%) Data Migration
5 1 (5.56%) Data Protection
5 1 (5.56%) Manual Testing
5 1 (5.56%) Risk Management
5 1 (5.56%) Server Migrations
5 1 (5.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 1 (5.56%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 5 (27.78%) COBOL
1 5 (27.78%) JCL
2 3 (16.67%) REXX
2 3 (16.67%) SQL
3 2 (11.11%) Assembly Language
4 1 (5.56%) CLIST
4 1 (5.56%) HLASM
4 1 (5.56%) Natural
4 1 (5.56%) Python
Qualifications
1 3 (16.67%) SC Cleared
1 3 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 2 (11.11%) CISSP
2 2 (11.11%) IBM Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.56%) QA
System Software
1 3 (16.67%) Time Sharing Option
2 2 (11.11%) Job Entry Subsystem
2 2 (11.11%) RACF
3 1 (5.56%) Microcode
Systems Management
1 1 (5.56%) Ansible
1 1 (5.56%) Control-M
Vendors
1 18 (100.00%) IBM
2 1 (5.56%) Microsoft
2 1 (5.56%) Syncsort