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 28 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 564 478 652
Rank change year-on-year -86 +174 -76
Permanent jobs citing Mainframe 22 43 97
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.033% 0.15% 0.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.13% 0.36% 0.41%
Number of salaries quoted 3 29 77
10th Percentile - £25,313 -
25th Percentile - £41,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £44,447 £74,870 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -40.63% +36.13% -6.78%
75th Percentile - £90,822 £73,886
90th Percentile - £91,250 £100,064
UK median annual salary £44,447 £65,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -31.62% +18.18% -14.10%

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 16,410 11,943 23,781
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 24.33% 41.95% 33.34%
Number of salaries quoted 9,197 5,049 15,215
10th Percentile £29,000 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £35,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,058 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.07% +2.12% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -15.38%

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
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 28 May 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
East Midlands -19 9 - -
Midlands -25 9 - -
North of England -55 7 £44,447 -38.64% 4
Scotland -10 4 - - 1
Yorkshire -60 4 £44,447 +13.78% 2
North West -11 3 £44,447 -49.08% 2
South West - 1 - - 1
East of England - 1 - - 2
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 3 (13.64%) CICS
2 1 (4.55%) PegaRULES
Cloud Services
1 4 (18.18%) Azure
2 2 (9.09%) AWS
2 2 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
2 2 (9.09%) GCP
3 1 (4.55%) Azure API Management
3 1 (4.55%) Azure Event Grid
3 1 (4.55%) Azure Logic Apps
3 1 (4.55%) Azure Service Bus
3 1 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (36.36%) DB2
2 2 (9.09%) Easytrieve
2 2 (9.09%) Hazelcast
2 2 (9.09%) Relational Database
3 1 (4.55%) NonStop SQL
3 1 (4.55%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 4 (18.18%) Git
2 2 (9.09%) Eclipse
2 2 (9.09%) IntelliJ
2 2 (9.09%) Jenkins
3 1 (4.55%) JIRA
General
1 4 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 3 (13.64%) Finance
2 3 (13.64%) Public Sector
2 3 (13.64%) Retail
Job Titles
1 9 (40.91%) Mainframe Software Engineer
1 9 (40.91%) Software Engineer
2 4 (18.18%) DB2 Specialist
2 4 (18.18%) Mainframe Specialist
2 4 (18.18%) Mainframe Systems Specialist
3 3 (13.64%) QA Tester
3 3 (13.64%) Tester
4 2 (9.09%) Developer
4 2 (9.09%) Java Developer
4 2 (9.09%) Pega Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Automation Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Dynamics 365 Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Dynamics 365 Solution Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Full-Stack Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Full-Stack Java Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Mainframe Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Technical Manager
5 1 (4.55%) Transformation Manager
5 1 (4.55%) Transformation Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) ISPF
2 2 (9.09%) AngularJS
2 2 (9.09%) CSS
2 2 (9.09%) CSS3
2 2 (9.09%) HTML
2 2 (9.09%) HTML5
2 2 (9.09%) J2EE
2 2 (9.09%) JMS
2 2 (9.09%) Kafka
2 2 (9.09%) Middleware
2 2 (9.09%) React
2 2 (9.09%) REST
2 2 (9.09%) RESTful
2 2 (9.09%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 4 (18.18%) Legacy Applications
1 4 (18.18%) Legacy Systems
2 2 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (4.55%) Enterprise Cloud
3 1 (4.55%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 3 (13.64%) VME
1 3 (13.64%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (40.91%) Software Engineering
2 4 (18.18%) Batch Processing
2 4 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (13.64%) Coaching
3 3 (13.64%) Line Management
3 3 (13.64%) Mentoring
4 2 (9.09%) Agile
4 2 (9.09%) CI/CD
4 2 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
4 2 (9.09%) Data Migration
4 2 (9.09%) Data Security
4 2 (9.09%) DevOps
4 2 (9.09%) Full-Stack Development
4 2 (9.09%) ITIL
4 2 (9.09%) Migration
4 2 (9.09%) Project Management
4 2 (9.09%) Root Cause Analysis
4 2 (9.09%) Scrum
4 2 (9.09%) SDLC
4 2 (9.09%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 5 (22.73%) COBOL
2 4 (18.18%) SQL
3 3 (13.64%) JCL
4 2 (9.09%) Assembly Language
4 2 (9.09%) Java
4 2 (9.09%) JavaScript
4 2 (9.09%) PL/SQL
5 1 (4.55%) CLIST
5 1 (4.55%) REXX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (13.64%) QA
2 1 (4.55%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (13.64%) Time Sharing Option
Vendors
1 2 (9.09%) IBM
1 2 (9.09%) Oracle
1 2 (9.09%) Pega