ISPF Contracts

IBM Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring ISPF skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited ISPF 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 504 547 703
Rank change year-on-year +43 +156 +121
Contract jobs citing ISPF 15 53 10
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.051% 0.12% 0.017%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 0.23% 0.59% 0.072%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 33 3
10th Percentile £324 £402 -
25th Percentile £325 £430 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year -15.76% -3.16% -11.21%
75th Percentile £425 £588 £569
90th Percentile £490 - £618
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £450 £475
% change year-on-year -11.11% -5.26% -5.00%

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK

ISPF falls under the Software Libraries and Frameworks category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 6,629 8,962 13,891
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.67% 20.56% 23.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,551 6,219 10,140
10th Percentile £363 £338 £400
25th Percentile £425 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £650 £650 £675
90th Percentile £780 £769 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 231 153
10th Percentile £27.14 £21.25 £31.60
25th Percentile £48.25 £40.00 £48.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.75% -28.95% +32.65%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £82.87 £75.00 £80.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £47.50 £64.00
% change year-on-year +36.84% -25.78% +30.61%

ISPF
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for ISPF in the UK

ISPF
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for ISPF in the UK

ISPF
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for ISPF in the UK

ISPF
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for ISPF in the UK

ISPF
Top 7 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing ISPF 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 +35 15 £388 -9.88% 6
London +38 8 £375 -44.03% 2
UK excluding London +17 5 £400 -11.11% 3
North of England -3 5 £400 -6.98% 3
Yorkshire -17 4 £483 +12.21% 3
Work from Home +25 2 £565 +13.00% 5
North West - 1 £320 -

ISPF
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 6 (40.00%) CICS
1 6 (40.00%) SAS
2 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Communications & Networking
1 1 (6.67%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (20.00%) DB2
Development Applications
1 1 (6.67%) JIRA
General
1 12 (80.00%) Social Skills
2 3 (20.00%) Banking
3 1 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (6.67%) Finance
3 1 (6.67%) Financial Institution
3 1 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 10 (66.67%) Programmer
1 10 (66.67%) Systems Programmer
1 10 (66.67%) z/OS Systems Programmer
2 2 (13.33%) Assembler Developer
2 2 (13.33%) Developer
2 2 (13.33%) Mainframe Assembler Developer
2 2 (13.33%) Mainframe Developer
3 1 (6.67%) Analyst
3 1 (6.67%) Senior
3 1 (6.67%) Senior Analyst
3 1 (6.67%) Senior Technical Analyst
3 1 (6.67%) Technical Analyst
3 1 (6.67%) z/OS Specialist
Miscellaneous
1 15 (100.00%) Mainframe
2 3 (20.00%) IBM Mainframe
3 1 (6.67%) Distributed Applications
3 1 (6.67%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (6.67%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (6.67%) LPAR
3 1 (6.67%) Management Information System
3 1 (6.67%) Team-Oriented Environment
3 1 (6.67%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 15 (100.00%) zOS
2 1 (6.67%) Linux
2 1 (6.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (46.67%) Performance Monitoring
1 7 (46.67%) Problem-Solving
1 7 (46.67%) Risk Management
2 2 (13.33%) Migration
3 1 (6.67%) Agile
3 1 (6.67%) Hardware Maintenance
3 1 (6.67%) High Availability
3 1 (6.67%) Operational Acceptance Testing
3 1 (6.67%) Performance Optimisation
3 1 (6.67%) Performance Testing
3 1 (6.67%) Presales
3 1 (6.67%) Regulatory Compliance
3 1 (6.67%) SDLC
3 1 (6.67%) Security Management
3 1 (6.67%) System Integration Testing
3 1 (6.67%) Test Automation
3 1 (6.67%) Test Strategy
3 1 (6.67%) User Acceptance Testing
3 1 (6.67%) Validation
3 1 (6.67%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 15 (100.00%) JCL
2 12 (80.00%) REXX
3 10 (66.67%) Assembly Language
4 8 (53.33%) CLIST
5 2 (13.33%) COBOL
5 2 (13.33%) HLASM
6 1 (6.67%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (6.67%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (6.67%) QA
System Software
1 14 (93.33%) Time Sharing Option
2 2 (13.33%) Job Entry Subsystem
3 1 (6.67%) ACF2
3 1 (6.67%) Microcode
Systems Management
1 7 (46.67%) OMEGAMON
2 1 (6.67%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 15 (100.00%) IBM
2 2 (13.33%) Microsoft
3 1 (6.67%) Syncsort