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 23 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 522 551 683
Rank change year-on-year +29 +132 +153
Contract jobs citing ISPF 17 29 8
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.057% 0.066% 0.014%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 0.25% 0.31% 0.063%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 23 3
10th Percentile £310 £415 -
25th Percentile £320 £461 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +5.26% -15.93%
75th Percentile £400 £549 £488
90th Percentile £423 £588 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £317 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -36.70% +5.26% +21.79%

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 6,843 9,254 12,642
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.79% 21.21% 22.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,665 6,354 9,207
10th Percentile £356 £350 £390
25th Percentile £413 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £763 £788 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 280 152
10th Percentile £29.11 £22.45 £30.08
25th Percentile £39.25 £43.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -15.38% +26.83%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £81.01 £74.44 £80.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £57.13 £64.50
% change year-on-year +9.41% -11.43% +17.27%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 +67 16 £350 -28.39% 61
London +54 7 £375 -21.88% 18
UK excluding London +29 7 £317 -36.70% 45
North of England +16 7 £317 -39.71% 14
Yorkshire 0 4 £400 -23.81% 6
Work from Home +15 3 £313 -37.40% 10
North West - 3 £313 - 7

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 9 (52.94%) CICS
2 7 (41.18%) SAS
3 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 2 (11.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
Communications & Networking
1 1 (5.88%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (23.53%) DB2
Development Applications
1 1 (5.88%) GCC
1 1 (5.88%) JIRA
General
1 12 (70.59%) Social Skills
2 4 (23.53%) Banking
3 2 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (11.76%) Finance
3 2 (11.76%) Financial Institution
4 1 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (64.71%) Programmer
2 10 (58.82%) Systems Programmer
2 10 (58.82%) z/OS Systems Programmer
3 2 (11.76%) Platform Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Analyst
4 1 (5.88%) Assembler Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Mainframe Assembler Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Mainframe Developer
4 1 (5.88%) Mainframe Programmer
4 1 (5.88%) Senior
4 1 (5.88%) Senior Analyst
4 1 (5.88%) Senior Technical Analyst
4 1 (5.88%) Technical Analyst
4 1 (5.88%) z/OS Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (5.88%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 17 (100.00%) Mainframe
2 5 (29.41%) IBM Mainframe
3 3 (17.65%) VSAM
4 1 (5.88%) Distributed Applications
4 1 (5.88%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (5.88%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (5.88%) LPAR
4 1 (5.88%) Management Information System
4 1 (5.88%) Replication
4 1 (5.88%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 17 (100.00%) zOS
2 1 (5.88%) Linux
2 1 (5.88%) OS/2
2 1 (5.88%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (41.18%) Performance Monitoring
1 7 (41.18%) Problem-Solving
1 7 (41.18%) Risk Management
2 3 (17.65%) High Availability
2 3 (17.65%) SDLC
3 2 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
3 2 (11.76%) DevOps
3 2 (11.76%) Incident Management
3 2 (11.76%) ITIL
3 2 (11.76%) Migration
3 2 (11.76%) Performance Tuning
3 2 (11.76%) Platform Engineering
3 2 (11.76%) Problem Management
3 2 (11.76%) Release Management
4 1 (5.88%) Analytics
4 1 (5.88%) Batch Processing
4 1 (5.88%) Change Data Capture
4 1 (5.88%) Data Analytics
4 1 (5.88%) Knowledge Transfer
4 1 (5.88%) Software Deployment
Programming Languages
1 17 (100.00%) JCL
2 14 (82.35%) REXX
3 11 (64.71%) CLIST
4 10 (58.82%) Assembly Language
5 3 (17.65%) COBOL
6 1 (5.88%) HLASM
6 1 (5.88%) Java
6 1 (5.88%) PL/1
6 1 (5.88%) PowerShell
6 1 (5.88%) Python
6 1 (5.88%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (5.88%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.88%) GDPR
1 1 (5.88%) QA
1 1 (5.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (100.00%) Time Sharing Option
2 4 (23.53%) Job Entry Subsystem
3 2 (11.76%) RACF
4 1 (5.88%) Microcode
Systems Management
1 10 (58.82%) OMEGAMON
2 3 (17.65%) CA Endevor
3 1 (5.88%) Tivoli NetView
Vendors
1 16 (94.12%) IBM
2 2 (11.76%) Microsoft
3 1 (5.88%) Syncsort