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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 510 509 522
Rank change year-on-year -1 +13 +168
Permanent jobs citing Mainframe 14 46 116
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.031% 0.14% 0.24%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.100% 0.40% 0.70%
Number of salaries quoted 5 16 94
10th Percentile £58,400 £33,125 £28,150
25th Percentile - £76,727 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £85,253 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -23.76% +55.00% -14.10%
75th Percentile £76,000 £93,778 £96,539
90th Percentile £78,400 - £100,064
UK median annual salary £70,500 £50,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +41.00% -9.09% -26.67%

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 14,055 11,628 16,686
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 30.63% 34.36% 34.40%
Number of salaries quoted 6,565 4,996 12,104
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,000 £26,750
25th Percentile £32,000 £41,250 £35,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £69,914 £65,603
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £81,088
UK median annual salary £55,000 £61,500 £57,291
% change year-on-year -10.57% +7.35% -11.86%

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 5 February 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 5 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Scotland -15 6 - - 2
Midlands +21 2 £59,500 +83.08% 1
Yorkshire -19 2 £78,000 -13.28% 1
North of England -21 2 £78,000 -10.64% 6
Northern Ireland - 2 - -
West Midlands +25 1 £65,000 +100.00%
South West +6 1 - -
East Midlands -12 1 £54,000 - 1
South East - 1 £65,000 - 3
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 4 (28.57%) CICS
2 2 (14.29%) WebSphere
3 1 (7.14%) Apache Spark
3 1 (7.14%) SAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (64.29%) DB2
2 1 (7.14%) Adabas
2 1 (7.14%) Hadoop
2 1 (7.14%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 2 (14.29%) JIRA
General
1 7 (50.00%) Finance
2 4 (28.57%) Marketing
3 2 (14.29%) Banking
3 2 (14.29%) Legal
3 2 (14.29%) Retail
3 2 (14.29%) Social Skills
4 1 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (35.71%) DB2 Specialist
1 5 (35.71%) Mainframe Specialist
1 5 (35.71%) Mainframe Systems Specialist
2 2 (14.29%) Application Development Manager
2 2 (14.29%) Applications Development Manager
2 2 (14.29%) Applications Manager
2 2 (14.29%) Development Manager
2 2 (14.29%) Digital Product Manager
2 2 (14.29%) Product Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Administrator
3 1 (7.14%) COBOL Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (7.14%) Mainframe Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Project Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Senior COBOL Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Senior Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Senior Mainframe Developer
3 1 (7.14%) Technical Manager
3 1 (7.14%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (7.14%) JSON
1 1 (7.14%) WebSphere MQ
1 1 (7.14%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 2 (14.29%) Distributed Systems
1 2 (14.29%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (14.29%) IBM Mainframe
1 2 (14.29%) Legacy Applications
1 2 (14.29%) VSAM
2 1 (7.14%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (7.14%) Data Structures
2 1 (7.14%) Product Ownership
2 1 (7.14%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 3 (21.43%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (35.71%) Agile
2 3 (21.43%) Performance Tuning
3 2 (14.29%) Backlog Management
3 2 (14.29%) Backlog Prioritisation
3 2 (14.29%) Capacity Planning
3 2 (14.29%) Coaching
3 2 (14.29%) Containerisation
3 2 (14.29%) Customer Experience
3 2 (14.29%) Data-Driven Decision Making
3 2 (14.29%) Decision-Making
3 2 (14.29%) Digital Marketing
3 2 (14.29%) Human-Centred Design
3 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (14.29%) Product Backlog
3 2 (14.29%) Product Management
3 2 (14.29%) Product Strategy
3 2 (14.29%) Project Delivery
3 2 (14.29%) Telematics
3 2 (14.29%) User Experience
3 2 (14.29%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 5 (35.71%) COBOL
2 3 (21.43%) JCL
3 2 (14.29%) Python
3 2 (14.29%) SQL
4 1 (7.14%) Natural
4 1 (7.14%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 1 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (7.14%) Degree
1 1 (7.14%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (7.14%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (21.43%) RACF
Systems Management
1 2 (14.29%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
2 1 (7.14%) Ansible
2 1 (7.14%) CA Endevor
2 1 (7.14%) Grafana
2 1 (7.14%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (21.43%) IBM
2 1 (7.14%) Broadcom
2 1 (7.14%) ServiceNow
2 1 (7.14%) Splunk