Hybrid/Remote COBOL Job Trends

COBOL
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for remote or hybrid work requiring COBOL skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 424 481 490
Rank change year-on-year +57 +9 +335
Permanent jobs citing COBOL 5 26 22
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 0.031% 0.11% 0.089%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.098% 0.29% 0.19%
Number of salaries quoted 2 25 20
10th Percentile £67,750 £52,500 £60,725
25th Percentile £70,000 £56,809 £61,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £61,206 £73,000
Median % change year-on-year +22.54% -16.16% +12.31%
75th Percentile £80,000 £71,991 £83,474
90th Percentile £82,250 - £91,318
UK median annual salary £80,000 £61,206 £62,750
% change year-on-year +30.71% -2.46% -1.57%

All Programming Languages
Work from Home

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

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 5,094 9,008 11,727
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 31.36% 38.60% 47.20%
Number of salaries quoted 3,442 6,176 10,124
10th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £64,000 £65,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.54% - +4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £85,000
90th Percentile £115,000 £118,750 £102,500
UK median annual salary £62,500 £62,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year - -3.85% +4.00%

COBOL
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options citing COBOL as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

COBOL trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

COBOL
Salary Trend for Jobs with Hybrid Work Options

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote work options citing COBOL.

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote work options citing COBOL

COBOL
Salary Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Salary distribution for jobs with remote working options citing COBOL over the 6 months to 17 September 2025.

COBOL salary histogram for jobs with a WFH option

COBOL
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options 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 1 (20.00%) Oracle SOA Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (20.00%) BASE24
Cloud Services
1 1 (20.00%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) ATM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (40.00%) DB2
1 2 (40.00%) NonStop SQL
2 1 (20.00%) Relational Database
2 1 (20.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) VersaTest
General
1 2 (40.00%) Analytical Skills
1 2 (40.00%) Finance
1 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Advertising
2 1 (20.00%) Banking
2 1 (20.00%) Electronics
2 1 (20.00%) Financial Institution
2 1 (20.00%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 2 (40.00%) Data Integration Engineer
1 2 (40.00%) Design Engineer
1 2 (40.00%) Integration Engineer
1 2 (40.00%) Lead
1 2 (40.00%) Middleware Engineer
2 1 (20.00%) Architect
2 1 (20.00%) COBOL Programmer
2 1 (20.00%) Java Architect
2 1 (20.00%) Java Solutions Architect
2 1 (20.00%) Kafka Architect
2 1 (20.00%) Lead Programmer
2 1 (20.00%) Lead Software Engineer
2 1 (20.00%) Programmer
2 1 (20.00%) Senior
2 1 (20.00%) Senior COBOL Programmer
2 1 (20.00%) Senior Programmer
2 1 (20.00%) SOA Architect
2 1 (20.00%) Software Engineer
2 1 (20.00%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (40.00%) Middleware
2 1 (20.00%) AngularJS
2 1 (20.00%) JSON
2 1 (20.00%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 2 (40.00%) Mainframe
1 2 (40.00%) Management Information System
2 1 (20.00%) EMV
2 1 (20.00%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (20.00%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (20.00%) Tandem
2 1 (20.00%) VAX
Operating Systems
1 1 (20.00%) Linux
1 1 (20.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 1 (20.00%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (60.00%) Agile
2 2 (40.00%) Data Integration
2 2 (40.00%) Migration
2 2 (40.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 1 (20.00%) Containerisation
3 1 (20.00%) Customer Service
3 1 (20.00%) Enterprise Architecture
3 1 (20.00%) Event-Driven
3 1 (20.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
3 1 (20.00%) Mentoring
3 1 (20.00%) Microservices
3 1 (20.00%) OO
3 1 (20.00%) OOD
3 1 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (20.00%) Regulatory Change
3 1 (20.00%) Scrum
3 1 (20.00%) SOA
3 1 (20.00%) Software Engineering
3 1 (20.00%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (20.00%) Thought Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1 (20.00%) Java
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) ISO 15022
1 1 (20.00%) ISO 20022
Vendors
1 2 (40.00%) HP
2 1 (20.00%) IBM
2 1 (20.00%) Oracle
2 1 (20.00%) Red Hat