COBOL Contracts

COBOL
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring COBOL skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited COBOL over the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 474 553 597
Rank change year-on-year +79 +44 +183
Contract jobs citing COBOL 56 41 91
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.19% 0.094% 0.16%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.56% 0.31% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 28 42
10th Percentile £313 £325 £413
25th Percentile £358 £348 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £374 £540
Median % change year-on-year +13.64% -30.74% +4.45%
75th Percentile £550 £463 £553
90th Percentile £738 £533 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £358 £540
% change year-on-year +24.86% -33.70% +6.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £53.00 - -
25th Percentile £55.63 - -
Median hourly rate £62.50 - -
75th Percentile £70.63 - -
90th Percentile £74.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 - -

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 contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 10,065 13,166 18,799
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.85% 30.20% 33.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,822 9,246 13,516
10th Percentile £350 £350 £381
25th Percentile £413 £425 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £676
90th Percentile £756 £765 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £500
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 542 435
10th Percentile £25.98 £31.35 £30.30
25th Percentile £33.91 £46.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £60.70
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +2.97% +16.17%
75th Percentile £68.63 £70.00 £70.13
90th Percentile £84.80 £75.00 £79.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -4.62% +4.00% +19.05%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing COBOL.

Daily rate trend for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing COBOL over the 6 months to 17 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing COBOL.

Hourly rate trend for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing COBOL over the 6 months to 17 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for COBOL in the UK

COBOL
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing COBOL within the UK over the 6 months to 17 June 2025. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +93 52 £425 +13.64% 155
UK excluding London +50 37 £447 +24.86% 121
Work from Home +36 20 £396 +10.00% 34
North of England +23 18 £415 +22.06% 35
Midlands +14 15 £358 - 20
London +44 13 £390 -17.89% 50
West Midlands +11 11 £700 +95.53% 9
Yorkshire +16 9 £450 +32.35% 14
North West - 9 £402 - 15
South West +37 4 £500 -40.30% 15
East Midlands - 4 £345 - 10
South East +37 1 - - 29
Scotland +3 1 £550 +37.50% 8

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 17 (30.36%) CICS
2 4 (7.14%) CMS
3 3 (5.36%) Confluence
3 3 (5.36%) WebSphere
4 2 (3.57%) Tuxedo
5 1 (1.79%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (1.79%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (10.71%) BASE24
1 6 (10.71%) VisionPLUS
2 2 (3.57%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 7 (12.50%) AWS
2 3 (5.36%) Azure
2 3 (5.36%) OpenShift
3 1 (1.79%) GCP
3 1 (1.79%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 6 (10.71%) ATM
2 2 (3.57%) SAN
3 1 (1.79%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (28.57%) DB2
2 8 (14.29%) NonStop SQL
3 4 (7.14%) Easytrieve
3 4 (7.14%) Oracle Database
3 4 (7.14%) SQL Server
4 3 (5.36%) Relational Database
5 2 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (3.57%) Hadoop
6 1 (1.79%) Adabas
6 1 (1.79%) IDMS
6 1 (1.79%) Oracle9i Database
6 1 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (1.79%) Redis
Development Applications
1 8 (14.29%) Postman
2 7 (12.50%) Jenkins
3 5 (8.93%) Selenium
4 4 (7.14%) Eclipse
4 4 (7.14%) Git
4 4 (7.14%) Maven
4 4 (7.14%) Oracle Forms
5 3 (5.36%) Cucumber
5 3 (5.36%) IntelliJ
5 3 (5.36%) REST Assured
6 2 (3.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (3.57%) JIRA
6 2 (3.57%) SOAtest
6 2 (3.57%) VersaTest
7 1 (1.79%) Bitbucket
7 1 (1.79%) CA Gen
7 1 (1.79%) Mockito
7 1 (1.79%) PROIV
7 1 (1.79%) SoapUI
7 1 (1.79%) SonarQube
General
1 16 (28.57%) Banking
1 16 (28.57%) Finance
2 15 (26.79%) Social Skills
3 6 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (7.14%) Retail Banking
5 3 (5.36%) Legal
5 3 (5.36%) Public Sector
6 2 (3.57%) General Ledger
6 2 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.79%) Billing
7 1 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.79%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (39.29%) Developer
2 11 (19.64%) Architect
3 7 (12.50%) COBOL Developer
3 7 (12.50%) Mainframe Developer
4 5 (8.93%) Lead
5 4 (7.14%) SAP Architect
5 4 (7.14%) SAP Developer
5 4 (7.14%) Solutions Architect
5 4 (7.14%) Tester
6 3 (5.36%) Automation Tester
6 3 (5.36%) BASE24 Developer
6 3 (5.36%) Consultant
6 3 (5.36%) Development Engineer
6 3 (5.36%) Lead Developer
6 3 (5.36%) Senior
6 3 (5.36%) Software Development Engineer
6 3 (5.36%) Software Engineer
7 2 (3.57%) COBOL Consultant
7 2 (3.57%) Full-Stack Developer
7 2 (3.57%) Mainframe Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (14.29%) Web Services
2 6 (10.71%) CSS
2 6 (10.71%) CSS3
2 6 (10.71%) HTML
2 6 (10.71%) HTML5
2 6 (10.71%) REST
3 5 (8.93%) jQuery
3 5 (8.93%) SAP Fiori
3 5 (8.93%) SAPUI5
4 4 (7.14%) J2EE
4 4 (7.14%) SOAP
5 3 (5.36%) IDoc
5 3 (5.36%) JSON
5 3 (5.36%) Kafka
5 3 (5.36%) XML
6 2 (3.57%) AngularJS
6 2 (3.57%) BAPI
6 2 (3.57%) ISPF
6 2 (3.57%) RESTful
6 2 (3.57%) SAP Smart Forms
Miscellaneous
1 30 (53.57%) Mainframe
2 16 (28.57%) VSAM
3 6 (10.71%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (8.93%) EMV
5 4 (7.14%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (7.14%) Tandem
6 3 (5.36%) IBM Mainframe
6 3 (5.36%) Product Ownership
7 2 (3.57%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (3.57%) Mobile Payment
8 1 (1.79%) APACS
8 1 (1.79%) AS400
8 1 (1.79%) Cloud Native
8 1 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (1.79%) iSeries
8 1 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (1.79%) VAX
Operating Systems
1 6 (10.71%) Unix
1 6 (10.71%) zOS
2 4 (7.14%) OpenVMS
3 2 (3.57%) Linux
3 2 (3.57%) VMS
4 1 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (21.43%) Migration
2 11 (19.64%) Agile
3 10 (17.86%) Code Quality
3 10 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (17.86%) SDLC
4 9 (16.07%) DevOps
4 9 (16.07%) Digital Transformation Programme
5 7 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 7 (12.50%) User Experience
6 6 (10.71%) Mentoring
6 6 (10.71%) MVC
6 6 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
6 6 (10.71%) Test Automation
7 5 (8.93%) CI/CD
7 5 (8.93%) Data Modelling
7 5 (8.93%) Full-Stack Development
7 5 (8.93%) Microservices
7 5 (8.93%) Test Strategy
7 5 (8.93%) Validation
7 5 (8.93%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 21 (37.50%) JCL
2 12 (21.43%) SQL
3 11 (19.64%) Java
4 8 (14.29%) ABAP
4 8 (14.29%) JavaScript
5 5 (8.93%) REXX
6 4 (7.14%) C
6 4 (7.14%) PL/SQL
7 3 (5.36%) Assembly Language
7 3 (5.36%) C++
8 2 (3.57%) C#
8 2 (3.57%) Groovy
8 2 (3.57%) HLASM
8 2 (3.57%) Shell Script
9 1 (1.79%) CLIST
9 1 (1.79%) Natural
9 1 (1.79%) Perl
9 1 (1.79%) Python
9 1 (1.79%) RPG
Qualifications
1 4 (7.14%) Degree
2 3 (5.36%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (1.79%) CFA
3 1 (1.79%) CTC Cleared
3 1 (1.79%) ISEB
3 1 (1.79%) ISTQB
3 1 (1.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 1 (1.79%) SAP Certification
3 1 (1.79%) Security Cleared
3 1 (1.79%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (12.50%) QA
2 2 (3.57%) ISO 15022
2 2 (3.57%) ISO 20022
2 2 (3.57%) ISO 8583
2 2 (3.57%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 1 (1.79%) Docker
1 1 (1.79%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 2 (3.57%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 12 (21.43%) Oracle
2 8 (14.29%) IBM
2 8 (14.29%) SAP
3 7 (12.50%) HP
4 3 (5.36%) Microsoft
4 3 (5.36%) Perforce
5 2 (3.57%) Ab Initio
5 2 (3.57%) Adobe
5 2 (3.57%) Informatica
5 2 (3.57%) Parasoft
6 1 (1.79%) Avaloq
6 1 (1.79%) CA Agile Central
6 1 (1.79%) Dynatrace
6 1 (1.79%) FNZ
6 1 (1.79%) Fujitsu
6 1 (1.79%) ICL
6 1 (1.79%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.79%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.79%) Splunk
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