Mainframe Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Mainframes
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Mainframe in permanent job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered in vacancies that cited Mainframe over the 6 months leading up to 26 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 579 507 597
Rank change year-on-year -72 +90 -177
Permanent jobs citing Mainframe 62 39 75
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.078% 0.11% 0.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.33% 0.29% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 32 23 43
10th Percentile £40,000 £25,313 -
25th Percentile £45,799 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £70,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% +27.27% -15.84%
75th Percentile £74,063 £83,625 £76,318
90th Percentile £80,000 £91,250 £111,250
UK median annual salary £72,500 £70,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.57% +33.33% -19.66%

All Generic Skills
UK excluding London

Mainframe falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 18,572 13,627 17,882
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 23.34% 39.14% 29.82%
Number of salaries quoted 12,008 6,389 9,606
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,000
25th Percentile £37,000 £32,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £47,500 £50,055
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.10% -8.99%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £87,500 £77,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +4.55% -4.35% -8.09%

Mainframe
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Mainframe relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Mainframe job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Mainframe
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Mainframe.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Mainframe

Mainframe
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Mainframe in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 26 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Mainframe in the UK excluding London

Mainframe
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Mainframe within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 26 August 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Wales - 25 £72,500 - 2
Midlands -20 20 £60,000 +20.00% 4
North of England -53 13 £42,224 -19.57% 4
East Midlands -12 10 £60,000 +41.18% 3
West Midlands -22 10 - - 1
Yorkshire -36 10 £40,000 +2.40% 3
North West -13 3 £44,447 -41.90%
South East -37 2 - - 3
Scotland -4 1 - - 2
East of England -24 1 - -
Mainframe
UK

Mainframe
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 7 (11.29%) CICS
2 3 (4.84%) Confluence
3 1 (1.61%) PegaRULES
Business Applications
1 6 (9.68%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 26 (41.94%) AWS
2 23 (37.10%) Serverless
3 21 (33.87%) AWS Lambda
3 21 (33.87%) Azure
3 21 (33.87%) GitHub
3 21 (33.87%) GitHub Actions
4 16 (25.81%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (20.97%) AWS CloudFormation
6 9 (14.52%) Amazon S3
7 6 (9.68%) Amazon ECS
7 6 (9.68%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (9.68%) Amazon EventBridge
7 6 (9.68%) Amazon SQS
7 6 (9.68%) CloudFront
8 3 (4.84%) GCP
8 3 (4.84%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (1.61%) Azure Event Grid
9 1 (1.61%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (1.61%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (12.90%) Db2
1 8 (12.90%) Relational Database
2 6 (9.68%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (4.84%) DynamoDB
4 2 (3.23%) Easytrieve
4 2 (3.23%) Hazelcast
5 1 (1.61%) Adabas
5 1 (1.61%) RDBMS
5 1 (1.61%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (37.10%) Jenkins
2 7 (11.29%) Git
3 6 (9.68%) JIRA
3 6 (9.68%) JUnit
3 6 (9.68%) Selenium
4 5 (8.06%) Cypress.io
5 3 (4.84%) GitLab
5 3 (4.84%) Newman
5 3 (4.84%) Postman
5 3 (4.84%) REST Assured
5 3 (4.84%) TestRail
5 3 (4.84%) Zephyr
6 2 (3.23%) Eclipse
6 2 (3.23%) IntelliJ
General
1 30 (48.39%) Public Sector
2 23 (37.10%) Social Skills
3 16 (25.81%) Finance
4 10 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (9.68%) Retail
6 3 (4.84%) Banking
6 3 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.61%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 10 (16.13%) Applications Consultant
1 10 (16.13%) Consultant
1 10 (16.13%) Mainframe Consultant
2 9 (14.52%) Architect
2 9 (14.52%) Lead
2 9 (14.52%) Mainframe Software Engineer
2 9 (14.52%) Software Engineer
2 9 (14.52%) Solutions Architect
3 8 (12.90%) Developer
4 7 (11.29%) Senior
5 5 (8.06%) Senior Developer
6 4 (6.45%) Analyst
6 4 (6.45%) Automation Analyst
6 4 (6.45%) COBOL Consultant
6 4 (6.45%) Full-Stack Developer
6 4 (6.45%) Java Consultant
6 4 (6.45%) Mainframe Analyst
7 3 (4.84%) QA Tester
7 3 (4.84%) Senior Full-Stack Developer
7 3 (4.84%) Senior Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (50.00%) Spring Boot
2 25 (40.32%) Spring
3 21 (33.87%) Ruby on Rails
4 19 (30.65%) Node.js
5 17 (27.42%) React
6 16 (25.81%) ISPF
6 16 (25.81%) Terraform
7 12 (19.35%) AWS CDK
8 11 (17.74%) REST
9 10 (16.13%) .NET
10 8 (12.90%) Kafka
11 7 (11.29%) Serverless Framework
12 6 (9.68%) AWS SAM
12 6 (9.68%) GraphQL
13 5 (8.06%) CSS
13 5 (8.06%) CSS3
13 5 (8.06%) HTML
13 5 (8.06%) HTML5
13 5 (8.06%) Jest
13 5 (8.06%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 27 (43.55%) Cloud Native
2 20 (32.26%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (22.58%) Legacy Applications
4 12 (19.35%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (12.90%) Digital Wallet
5 8 (12.90%) Product Ownership
6 2 (3.23%) Social Media
7 1 (1.61%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.61%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.61%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.61%) Manufacturing Execution System
7 1 (1.61%) Private Cloud
7 1 (1.61%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 6 (9.68%) AIX
1 6 (9.68%) zOS
2 4 (6.45%) Windows
3 3 (4.84%) Mac OS
3 3 (4.84%) VME
4 1 (1.61%) Linux
4 1 (1.61%) OpenVMS
4 1 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (56.45%) CI/CD
2 26 (41.94%) Agile
3 23 (37.10%) Software Engineering
3 23 (37.10%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 22 (35.48%) DevOps
5 21 (33.87%) Batch Processing
6 20 (32.26%) Technical Leadership
7 19 (30.65%) Microservices
8 17 (27.42%) Problem-Solving
9 16 (25.81%) Infrastructure as Code
9 16 (25.81%) Migration
9 16 (25.81%) Roadmaps
9 16 (25.81%) Scrum
10 14 (22.58%) Kanban
11 13 (20.97%) Event-Driven
11 13 (20.97%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 13 (20.97%) Observability
12 11 (17.74%) Collaborative Culture
12 11 (17.74%) Full-Stack Development
12 11 (17.74%) Re-Platforming
Programming Languages
1 33 (53.23%) Java
2 21 (33.87%) COBOL
2 21 (33.87%) Ruby
3 16 (25.81%) JCL
4 4 (6.45%) CLIST
4 4 (6.45%) JavaScript
4 4 (6.45%) REXX
4 4 (6.45%) SQL
5 2 (3.23%) Assembly Language
5 2 (3.23%) PL/SQL
5 2 (3.23%) TypeScript
6 1 (1.61%) Natural
6 1 (1.61%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.61%) Python
Qualifications
1 7 (11.29%) AWS Certification
1 7 (11.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
2 6 (9.68%) SC Cleared
2 6 (9.68%) Security Cleared
2 6 (9.68%) TOGAF Certification
3 3 (4.84%) BPSS Clearance
3 3 (4.84%) ISTQB
3 3 (4.84%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (1.61%) CompTIA Security+
4 1 (1.61%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (22.58%) WCAG
2 11 (17.74%) Accessibility
3 6 (9.68%) Government Security Classifications
3 6 (9.68%) NCSC
4 5 (8.06%) QA
5 1 (1.61%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (9.68%) Time Sharing Option
2 3 (4.84%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.61%) Ansible
Vendors
1 8 (12.90%) Oracle
2 6 (9.68%) Broadcom
2 6 (9.68%) OneLogin
3 5 (8.06%) IBM
4 3 (4.84%) Microsoft
4 3 (4.84%) ServiceNow
5 2 (3.23%) Pega
5 2 (3.23%) Unisys
6 1 (1.61%) Red Hat