RPG Job Trends

IBM RPG
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring RPG skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 630 689 684
Rank change year-on-year +59 -5 +321
Permanent jobs citing RPG 21 22 29
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.035% 0.040% 0.056%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.18% 0.12% 0.14%
Number of salaries quoted 10 10 29
10th Percentile £28,500 £44,000 £36,000
25th Percentile £81,563 £46,125 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +61.90% +5.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £102,500 £55,938 £58,750
90th Percentile £107,875 £57,500 -
UK excluding London median annual salary - £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -14.89%

All Programming Languages
UK

RPG 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 11,557 18,690 20,336
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 19.54% 33.84% 39.62%
Number of salaries quoted 8,453 11,016 16,552
10th Percentile £32,500 £37,500 £38,750
25th Percentile £45,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,000 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.62% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £84,563
90th Percentile £105,000 £110,000 £106,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000

RPG
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing RPG relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

RPG job vacancy trend in the UK

RPG
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing RPG.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing RPG

RPG
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing RPG over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for RPG in the UK

RPG
Top 5 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing RPG within the UK over the 6 months to 1 January 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
England +68 11 £85,000 +61.90% 11
London - 10 £85,000 - 2
Work from Home +77 9 £29,000 -44.76% 9
UK excluding London +43 1 - - 10
East of England - 1 - - 6

RPG
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 (14.29%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (42.86%) Maya
2 5 (23.81%) MotionBuilder
3 4 (19.05%) 3ds Max
3 4 (19.05%) Blender
4 1 (4.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (4.76%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Misys Equation
1 1 (4.76%) Misys Midas
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (14.29%) DB2
1 3 (14.29%) PostgreSQL
1 3 (14.29%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (14.29%) Bitbucket
1 3 (14.29%) Cucumber
1 3 (14.29%) Jenkins
1 3 (14.29%) JIRA
1 3 (14.29%) Selenium
1 3 (14.29%) TeamCity
2 2 (9.52%) Synon
2 2 (9.52%) webpack
General
1 12 (57.14%) Social Skills
2 11 (52.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 10 (47.62%) Games
4 8 (38.10%) Banking
4 8 (38.10%) Finance
5 5 (23.81%) Financial Institution
6 4 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (9.52%) Retail
8 1 (4.76%) Mandarin Language
Job Titles
1 10 (47.62%) Animator
1 10 (47.62%) Developer
2 6 (28.57%) Senior
3 5 (23.81%) Lead
3 5 (23.81%) RPG Developer
3 5 (23.81%) Senior Animator
4 2 (9.52%) Full-Stack Developer
4 2 (9.52%) Graduate
4 2 (9.52%) Graduate Developer
4 2 (9.52%) Java Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Agile Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Agile Java Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Full-Stack Java Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Graduate Software Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Lead Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Lead Full-Stack Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Senior Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Senior RPG Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Software Developer
5 1 (4.76%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (23.81%) React
2 3 (14.29%) CSS
2 3 (14.29%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (14.29%) Gherkin
2 3 (14.29%) HTML
2 3 (14.29%) Node.js
2 3 (14.29%) RESTful
3 2 (9.52%) CSS3
3 2 (9.52%) HTML5
3 2 (9.52%) Sass
4 1 (4.76%) Express.js
Miscellaneous
1 10 (47.62%) Animation
1 10 (47.62%) Xbox
2 5 (23.81%) State Machine
3 3 (14.29%) Greenfield Project
3 3 (14.29%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (9.52%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (4.76%) AS400
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (33.33%) Agile
2 6 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
3 5 (23.81%) Continuous Improvement
3 5 (23.81%) Game Development
3 5 (23.81%) Motion Capture
3 5 (23.81%) Storytelling
4 4 (19.05%) Computer Science
4 4 (19.05%) Mentoring
4 4 (19.05%) Migration
4 4 (19.05%) Process Improvement
4 4 (19.05%) Software Engineering
5 3 (14.29%) BDD
5 3 (14.29%) Continuous Integration
5 3 (14.29%) Integration Testing
5 3 (14.29%) Microservices
5 3 (14.29%) Risk Management
5 3 (14.29%) Scrum
5 3 (14.29%) Test Automation
5 3 (14.29%) Unit Testing
5 3 (14.29%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 5 (23.81%) Java
1 5 (23.81%) JavaScript
1 5 (23.81%) SQL
2 2 (9.52%) TypeScript
3 1 (4.76%) RPG IV
Qualifications
1 2 (9.52%) Degree
2 1 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (4.76%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (9.52%) QA
System Software
1 3 (14.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (14.29%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 7 (33.33%) IBM
2 2 (9.52%) Citrix
3 1 (4.76%) Atlassian
3 1 (4.76%) Misys
3 1 (4.76%) Temenos