IBM Mainframe Contract Job Trends

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 22 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 602 523 586
Rank change year-on-year -79 +63 +159
Contract jobs citing IBM Mainframe 4 9 15
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.010% 0.029% 0.034%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.029% 0.088% 0.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 6 9
10th Percentile £373 £395 £355
25th Percentile £397 £498 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £442 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -26.42% +4.35% +43.75%
75th Percentile £493 £675 £588
90th Percentile £520 - £680
UK excluding London median daily rate £358 £480 £355
% change year-on-year -25.42% +35.21% -11.25%

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 13,648 10,211 13,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.47% 33.22% 30.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,605 6,180 8,753
10th Percentile £275 £269 £258
25th Percentile £405 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £765 £751
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 651 322 838
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.51 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.37 £16.51
Median hourly rate £30.50 £33.27 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +2.37% +44.54%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £76.75 £82.48 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.11 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.37% -7.14% +59.09%

IBM Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend

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

IBM Mainframe job vacancy trend in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM Mainframe.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM Mainframe

IBM Mainframe
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IBM Mainframe over the 6 months to 22 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IBM Mainframe in the UK

IBM Mainframe
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM Mainframe.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IBM Mainframe

IBM Mainframe
Top 6 Contract Job 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 22 February 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
England -71 4 £442 -19.73% 1
UK excluding London -81 2 £358 -25.42% 1
Work from Home -20 1 £358 -44.92% 2
North of England -62 1 £358 -
North West - 1 £358 -
South East - 1 - -

IBM Mainframe
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 2 (50.00%) CICS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (25.00%) DB2
General
1 2 (50.00%) Banking
2 1 (25.00%) Finance
2 1 (25.00%) Financial Institution
2 1 (25.00%) Retail
2 1 (25.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 1 (25.00%) Administrator
1 1 (25.00%) Assembler Developer
1 1 (25.00%) Consultant
1 1 (25.00%) Developer
1 1 (25.00%) Mainframe Assembler Developer
1 1 (25.00%) Mainframe Consultant
1 1 (25.00%) Mainframe Developer
1 1 (25.00%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (50.00%) ISPF
2 1 (25.00%) Middleware
2 1 (25.00%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 4 (100.00%) Mainframe
2 2 (50.00%) VSAM
3 1 (25.00%) Clustering
3 1 (25.00%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 3 (75.00%) zOS
2 1 (25.00%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (25.00%) Agile
1 1 (25.00%) Collaborative Working
1 1 (25.00%) Configuration Management
1 1 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
1 1 (25.00%) DevOps
1 1 (25.00%) Knowledge Transfer
1 1 (25.00%) Migration
1 1 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
1 1 (25.00%) Problem Management
1 1 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
1 1 (25.00%) Project Delivery
1 1 (25.00%) Release Management
1 1 (25.00%) Roadmaps
1 1 (25.00%) SDLC
1 1 (25.00%) Technology Roadmap
1 1 (25.00%) Test Automation
1 1 (25.00%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 2 (50.00%) JCL
1 2 (50.00%) REXX
2 1 (25.00%) Assembly Language
2 1 (25.00%) CLIST
2 1 (25.00%) COBOL
2 1 (25.00%) HLASM
System Software
1 2 (50.00%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 1 (25.00%) CA Endevor
1 1 (25.00%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 4 (100.00%) IBM