COBOL
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies requiring COBOL skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited COBOL over the 6 months leading up to 26 July 2024, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 732 828 1206
Rank change year-on-year +96 +378 -242
Permanent jobs citing COBOL 110 59 69
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.073% 0.039%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.40% 0.18% 0.075%
Number of salaries quoted 93 30 55
10th Percentile £52,500 £48,900 £42,500
25th Percentile £58,938 £56,250 £51,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £73,805 £66,750 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.57% +2.69% +36.84%
75th Percentile £84,964 £77,715 £75,750
90th Percentile - £82,918 £84,056
UK excluding London median annual salary £73,805 £68,224 £65,000
% change year-on-year +8.18% +4.96% +36.84%

All Programming Languages
UK

COBOL falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 27,596 32,430 91,738
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 30.53% 40.19% 52.34%
Number of salaries quoted 19,728 24,108 43,810
10th Percentile £36,250 £38,750 £37,171
25th Percentile £45,000 £48,750 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +4.00% +8.70%
75th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £107,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £53,850
% change year-on-year - +2.14% +7.70%

COBOL
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing COBOL.

Salary trend for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing COBOL over the 6 months to 26 July 2024.

Salary histogram for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing COBOL within the UK over the 6 months to 26 July 2024. 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
UK excluding London +31 107 £73,805 +8.18% 5
England +84 98 £73,805 +13.98% 5
Work from Home +111 89 £73,805 +6.27% 2
North of England +68 71 £73,805 +6.27% 3
Yorkshire +84 28 £73,805 -0.93% 2
North West +6 24 £73,805 +6.27% 1
North East - 19 £73,805 -
West Midlands -2 13 £73,805 -
Midlands -24 13 £73,805 +1.10%
Scotland -37 12 £71,991 -4.86%
London +82 10 £55,000 -12.00%
South East +9 9 £55,000 -0.18% 2
East of England -6 2 £42,000 -28.81%

COBOL
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 41 (37.27%) Tuxedo
2 11 (10.00%) CICS
Applications
1 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 42 (38.18%) AWS
2 1 (0.91%) Azure
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.91%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (11.82%) DB2
2 8 (7.27%) Relational Database
3 2 (1.82%) MySQL
4 1 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.91%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 11 (10.00%) ChangeMan
2 5 (4.55%) Eclipse
General
1 15 (13.64%) Finance
2 11 (10.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 11 (10.00%) Law
2 11 (10.00%) Marketing
2 11 (10.00%) Public Sector
3 5 (4.55%) Social Skills
4 3 (2.73%) Banking
Job Titles
1 59 (53.64%) Lead
1 59 (53.64%) Technical Leader
2 54 (49.09%) Senior
3 24 (21.82%) Software Engineer
4 14 (12.73%) Developer
5 12 (10.91%) Mainframe Software Engineer
6 11 (10.00%) Senior Software Engineer
7 9 (8.18%) COBOL Developer
8 8 (7.27%) Architect
8 8 (7.27%) Mainframe Developer
8 8 (7.27%) Senior Architect
8 8 (7.27%) Senior Solutions Architect
8 8 (7.27%) Solutions Architect
9 5 (4.55%) IBM Mainframe Developer
9 5 (4.55%) Senior Developer
9 5 (4.55%) Senior Software Developer
9 5 (4.55%) Software Developer
10 3 (2.73%) Analyst
10 3 (2.73%) Support Analyst
11 2 (1.82%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (27.27%) RESTful
2 5 (4.55%) EDI
2 5 (4.55%) OSGi
2 5 (4.55%) Spring
3 1 (0.91%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 21 (19.09%) Mainframe
2 11 (10.00%) Reference Data
2 11 (10.00%) VSAM
3 5 (4.55%) IBM Mainframe
4 1 (0.91%) Data Structures
4 1 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 28 (25.45%) Linux
2 11 (10.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 11 (10.00%) Windows
3 8 (7.27%) VME
4 2 (1.82%) Unix
5 1 (0.91%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (73.64%) Agile
2 78 (70.91%) Coaching
2 78 (70.91%) Mentoring
3 67 (60.91%) Product Roadmap
3 67 (60.91%) Roadmaps
4 59 (53.64%) Strategic Thinking
5 53 (48.18%) Software Engineering
6 40 (36.36%) Open Source
7 37 (33.64%) Re-Platforming
8 35 (31.82%) Front End Development
9 32 (29.09%) Continuous Integration
10 29 (26.36%) Architectural Design
10 29 (26.36%) Feasibility Study
11 22 (20.00%) Operational Stability
12 19 (17.27%) Decision-Making
13 11 (10.00%) Artificial Intelligence
13 11 (10.00%) CI/CD
13 11 (10.00%) Continuous Deployment
13 11 (10.00%) Infrastructure Maintenance
13 11 (10.00%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 84 (76.36%) Micro Focus COBOL
2 47 (42.73%) Java
3 41 (37.27%) Python
4 32 (29.09%) C
5 29 (26.36%) C++
6 16 (14.55%) SQL
7 12 (10.91%) JCL
8 2 (1.82%) C#
8 2 (1.82%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.91%) AWK
9 1 (0.91%) Bash
9 1 (0.91%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.91%) Perl
9 1 (0.91%) PHP
9 1 (0.91%) REXX
9 1 (0.91%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 8 (7.27%) CTC Cleared
1 8 (7.27%) Security Cleared
2 1 (0.91%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.55%) GDPR
System Software
1 11 (10.00%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 1 (0.91%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 84 (76.36%) Micro Focus
2 41 (37.27%) Oracle
3 8 (7.27%) Unisys
4 6 (5.45%) IBM
5 1 (0.91%) CA
5 1 (0.91%) Microsoft