COBOL Jobs in 2025: Career Demand, Stability, and Future Outlook

Are COBOL Programmers Still in Demand? Yes, Here's Why

Every time you swipe your credit card, check your bank balance, or book a flight, you're almost certainly interacting with COBOL. This 65-year-old programming language doesn't make headlines or trend on social media, yet it processes more transactions in a single day than Google handles in searches, and the gap isn't even close.

The numbers tell a remarkable story. COBOL facilitates $3 trillion in commercial transactions daily and runs 95% of ATM operations worldwide. According to IBM, more than three-quarters of the top 100 banks rely on mainframe systems, with 220 billion lines of COBOL code currently in production. Industry estimates suggest 70% of all business transaction processing still depends on this proven technology.

But here's where the story gets interesting for your career: in 2025, COBOL isn't just surviving, it's experiencing a renaissance driven by artificial intelligence, critical talent shortages, and a dawning realization that these systems aren't going anywhere for decades to come.

The job market for COBOL developers has never been stronger. According to Deloitte's 2025 research, 79% of companies cite acquiring mainframe talent as their top challenge, 71% of mainframe teams are currently understaffed, and 93% of organizations report that finding qualified mainframe talent is moderately to extremely challenging.

Is COBOL a Stable Career? What the Data Actually Shows

If you're wondering whether learning COBOL will provide long-term job security, the evidence is compelling. Unlike trendy frameworks that come and go, COBOL expertise offers unusual career stability for several concrete reasons.

The retirement wave is accelerating the talent shortage. Nearly half of experienced mainframe professionals are reaching retirement age, creating what one healthcare IT director described as a concern for long-term stability. This profession is largely recession-resistant due to its critical nature in supporting essential services. When economic downturns hit other tech sectors, COBOL developers maintain steady employment because the systems they support cannot afford downtime.

Organizations are expanding, not abandoning, their mainframe operations. While 91% of businesses plan to expand their mainframe operations by 2025, they're doing so while facing significant funding constraints with 54% report being underfunded for these initiatives. This creates sustained demand for professionals who can do more with existing systems.

IBM's long-term commitment signals industry confidence. IBM has committed to platform updates through 2050, signaling long-term confidence in mainframe technology. This isn't nostalgia or inertia, it's a pragmatic recognition that these systems deliver unmatched reliability, security, and transactional throughput for critical workloads.

The stability extends beyond full-time employment. Contract and consulting opportunities remain abundant for COBOL specialists, offering flexibility for those who prefer project-based work or higher hourly rates.

Which Industries Actually Use COBOL in 2025?

COBOL's dominance isn't limited to a single sector. The technology underpins critical operations across the global economy, making it indispensable for organizations that prioritize reliability, security, and transaction volume.

Financial Services leads the way, with major institutions like Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and American Express maintaining extensive COBOL-based operations. These banks process billions of transactions daily through systems that have proven their reliability over decades. The cost and risk of replacing these systems remain prohibitively high.

Insurance companies including MetLife, CVS Health, and UnitedHealth Group continue running COBOL-heavy policy and claims systems. For these organizations, data accuracy and regulatory compliance are non-negotiable, making proven “legacy” systems preferable to unproven alternatives.

Government agencies managing Social Security, unemployment insurance, and SBA loans still rely heavily on COBOL and mainframes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, states like New Jersey publicly called for COBOL programmers to help process the overwhelming surge in unemployment claims, not because the technology failed, but because there weren't enough people who knew how to modify it.

Global consulting firms like Deloitte, Accenture, and Cognizant continue to support and maintain COBOL systems for their clients worldwide. These firms recognize that modernization doesn't mean abandonment, it means strategic evolution.

Even organizations actively developing new systems in modern languages maintain their COBOL infrastructure. Bankdata, a technology company serving Danish banks representing over 30% of the country's banking market, still operates over 70 million lines of mainframe code while simultaneously pursuing cloud-native development.

Should You Learn COBOL? The Honest Career Assessment

This is the question that matters most if you're considering entering this field. The honest answer depends on what you want your career to look like. However, the market realities are clearer than ever.

If you prioritize career stability and job security, COBOL is an excellent choice. The supply and demand dynamic is favorable for skilled COBOL professionals, leading to competitive salaries and job security. Developers with mainframe expertise rarely face unemployment, and the skills shortage means employers compete for available talent.

If you want to work on cutting-edge consumer products, COBOL probably isn't the right path. You won't be building viral mobile apps or shipping products to millions of users. COBOL work focuses on maintaining and enhancing critical business systems that must never fail.

If you value work-life balance and predictability, mainframe development excels. Most COBOL positions offer stable 9-to-5 schedules without the constant crunch time common in startup environments or aggressive product development cycles.

If you're early in your career (under 30), consider the hybrid approach: learn COBOL to gain rare expertise and stable employment, but maintain proficiency in modern languages and cloud technologies. This positions you as a "bridge developer" who can translate between the older and more modern systems.

The strategic question isn't "should I learn COBOL instead of modern languages?" but rather "should I add COBOL expertise to my skill set?" The developers in highest demand in 2025 are those who understand both worlds and can help organizations safely modernize their critical systems.

6 good starting points for learning COBOL and Mainframes in 2025:

Will COBOL Jobs Disappear? Understanding the Long-Term Outlook

Predictions about COBOL's demise have been circulating for decades, yet demand continues growing. Understanding why requires looking at the economic and technical realities these organizations face.

Complete replacement remains economically prohibitive. Organizations spend up to 20% of their IT budgets simply maintaining aging systems, with total technical debt in the United States estimated at $1.52 trillion. However, the cost and risk of completely replacing proven systems typically exceeds the cost of maintaining and strategically modernizing them.

AI is enabling modernization without replacement. Rather than fading away, mainframe systems are being enhanced with artificial intelligence capabilities. The IBM z17 becomes the first mainframe purpose-built for AI workloads, capable of processing up to 450 billion inference operations per day with latency as low as 1 millisecond. This transforms mainframes from systems of record into real-time intelligence platforms.

The skills gap is structural, not temporary. "It takes at least one to two years to bring new talent up to speed on mainframe technologies compared to other technologies," a VP of Security Engineering at a major financial services organization explained. This training timeline, combined with ongoing retirements, means the shortage won't resolve quickly even as training programs expand.

Automation and AI are unlikely to fully replace COBOL developers in the near term; instead, they may assist with code analysis and refactoring, making the developer's role more strategic. Rather than eliminating COBOL jobs, AI tools are making these positions more valuable by enabling developers to accomplish more complex modernization work.

The timeline is clear: with IBM's commitment to platform updates through 2050 and the continued expansion of mainframe operations, COBOL expertise will remain valuable for at least the next 25 years—likely longer.

How AI Is Transforming COBOL Careers (Not Eliminating Them)

While headlines focus on AI generating images and writing marketing copy, some of the most significant AI applications in 2025 are happening on the mainframe and they're creating new opportunities for COBOL developers rather than replacing them.

AI-assisted development is making COBOL work more accessible. IBM's watsonx Code Assistant for Z uses generative AI to analyze, understand, and modernize existing COBOL applications. The tool provides code explanation, automated refactoring, and optimization advice, dramatically lowering the barrier for modern developers to work with decades-old systems.

Microsoft and GitHub have developed comprehensive frameworks for COBOL migration using AI agents. Their approach automates discovery, documentation, and translation processes while preserving business logic. This doesn't eliminate the need for COBOL expertise, it multiplies what experienced developers can accomplish.

Mainframes are becoming real-time AI platforms. Rather than moving data to separate analytics platforms, a slow, expensive, and risky process, organizations can now bring AI directly to where data already lives. This enables real-time fraud detection and risk assessment at the point of transaction instead of after-the-fact analysis.

For COBOL developers, this creates entirely new career opportunities. Rather than just maintaining “legacy” code, experienced professionals can now lead AI-enabled modernization efforts, integrate machine learning capabilities into critical systems, and bridge the gap between traditional mainframe operations and modern data science.

AI tools are accelerating learning curves for new developers. Junior operators encountering performance issues can now ask natural-language questions and receive accurate answers pulled from trusted documentation through Retrieval-Augmented Generation. This democratization of expertise means the next generation of mainframe professionals can succeed faster than ever before.

The Real Challenge: Finding and Training New Talent

The talent shortage has sparked innovative responses across industry and academia. Organizations recognize that waiting for experienced COBOL developers to appear on the job market is no longer viable. They must create their own talent pipelines.

Corporate training programs are proliferating. Companies like Kyndryl are adding 100 early professional hires annually to their mainframe teams through structured apprenticeship programs. SEB in Sweden runs internal COBOL bootcamps to ensure a steady supply of skilled staff. These programs recognize that mainframe expertise cannot be outsourced or delayed, it must be developed systematically.

Academic partnerships continue expanding. Marist College in New York partners with IBM's Poughkeepsie facility to offer hands-on mainframe training. Cameron Seay's COBOL classes at colleges and universities consistently fill each term, demonstrating strong student interest when programs are available.

Industry-wide initiatives are making resources more accessible. The Open Mainframe Project, along with IBM, Rocket Software, and Broadcom, offer online and in-person training resources. Interskill Learning delivered over 1 million hours of IBM Z mainframe training globally in 2023 alone.

The barrier to entry is lower than many assume. COBOL is known for its readability and logical structure, making it accessible to developers who can already program in other languages. Most training programs report bringing developers to productivity within six to twelve months which is faster than the one to two years industry leaders cite for full proficiency.

Skills That Make COBOL Developers Indispensable

Success in the COBOL market requires more than just programming knowledge. The most valuable professionals combine technical depth with business understanding and adaptability.

Core technical skills remain foundational. COBOL, JCL, CICS, DB2, z/OS, VSAM, and TSO/ISPF form the traditional mainframe stack. Proficiency in these technologies opens doors across industries and geographies.

Hybrid modernization capabilities increasingly differentiate candidates. Organizations value professionals who understand Java, Python, AWS, Azure, APIs, and Kafka alongside their mainframe expertise. The ability to bridge proven and modern systems makes developers indispensable to modernization efforts.

Problem-solving and resilience matter enormously. Debugging undocumented code, managing high-risk systems, and maintaining composure during critical incidents are skills developed through experience. Organizations specifically seek individuals who can handle the pressure and complexity of maintaining systems that cannot fail.

Business insight separates good developers from exceptional ones. Understanding the workflows embedded in decades-old systems, knowing not just how the code works but why it was written that way, enables professionals to make informed decisions about modernization and optimization.

Developers who cross-train in complementary skills like Java, Python, or cloud platforms gain a significant competitive edge, becoming invaluable "bridge" architects. These hybrid-skilled professionals command premium compensation and have the widest range of career opportunities.

Where COBOL Jobs Are in 2025: Geography and Opportunities

COBOL demand extends far beyond traditional financial centers, with opportunities spanning continents and work arrangements. The global nature of mainframe operations means talent can work from nearly anywhere while supporting critical systems worldwide.

In the United States, demand clusters around financial hubs including New York, Jersey City, Phoenix, Charlotte, Raleigh, Chicago, Dallas, and Columbus. Major employers include Bank of New York Mellon, which maintains 343 million lines of COBOL code across 112,500 different programs, and Citibank, which operates massive mainframe centers processing billions of transactions through overnight batch windows. Government agencies also create steady demand; the Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Justice all maintain critical COBOL systems. Increasingly, organizations offer remote positions as they compete for limited talent, expanding geographic flexibility for developers.

European opportunities concentrate in the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Nordic countries. German banks are actively modernizing their COBOL applications while maintaining mainframe infrastructure, partnering with firms like IBA Group and GFT for hybrid modernization projects. Bankdata in Denmark, serving over 30% of the country's banking market, operates more than 70 million lines of mainframe code. UK universities continue teaching COBOL and mainframe technologies, recognizing their ongoing strategic importance to British financial institutions. Swiss banks and Nordic financial services firms offer competitive packages to attract skilled professionals.

Asia-Pacific markets including India, Japan, and Singapore maintain substantial mainframe operations and actively recruit talent. Many global consulting firms staff projects across these regions, creating opportunities for international work and cross-cultural experience in enterprise systems.

Companies with junior-friendly programs include IBM, DXC, Infosys, and Accenture, all offering structured pathways for newcomers to the field. These organizations recognize that investing in early-career professionals pays dividends as these individuals develop deep expertise over time.

Contract and consulting work remains abundant. Organizations frequently need temporary expertise for specific modernization projects, system migrations, or capacity during peak periods. This creates opportunities for experienced developers who prefer project-based work or want to maximize their earning potential through higher hourly rates.

Breaking Down Silos: How Modern Integration Makes COBOL Work More Appealing

The narrative around COBOL has shifted dramatically in 2025. Rather than viewing mainframes as isolated obstacles, forward-thinking organizations recognize them as strategic assets that can be enhanced, integrated, and modernized without wholesale replacement.

Rocket Software announced groundbreaking innovations to its COBOL solutions in September 2025, emphasizing disruption-free transformation through GenAI-assisted development, expanded processor support, and tools that standardize COBOL development alongside other programming languages. Their philosophy recognizes that organizations with COBOL at their core cannot afford expensive, risky rewrite projects.

Integration extends beyond code translation. Mainframes are adopting OpenTelemetry, the open observability standard that unifies metrics, logs, and traces across enterprise systems. This means mainframe operational data can now be integrated with cloud and distributed system telemetry for the first time, creating a single-pane-of-glass view from mobile app to mainframe transaction.

This ends the old culture of "Mean Time to Innocence," where teams rushed to prove problems weren't their fault. Instead, modern hybrid architectures enable collaborative problem-solving across the entire application stack, making mainframe work feel less isolated and more connected to broader organizational initiatives.

For developers, this integration means working with modern tools, participating in cross-functional teams, and applying contemporary DevOps practices to mainframe operations, all factors that make these positions more attractive to professionals accustomed to modern development environments.

The Bottom Line: Is a COBOL Career Right for You?

The COBOL job market in 2025 defies conventional wisdom about aging technologies. Rather than fading into obsolescence, mainframe systems are experiencing renewed relevance as organizations recognize their strategic value.

The opportunity is real and substantial. With 79% of companies struggling to find mainframe talent and 91% planning to expand operations, skilled professionals enter a market desperate for their expertise. This isn't a temporary shortage, it's a structural reality created by decades of underinvestment in training combined with accelerating retirements.

Career stability is exceptional. These aren't gig economy jobs or positions vulnerable to the next economic downturn. Organizations depend on these systems for their core operations and cannot afford the turnover and knowledge loss that plague other development fields.

The work isn't for everyone. If you dream of working at cutting-edge startups, building viral consumer apps, or being surrounded by the latest frameworks and tools, COBOL probably isn't the right fit. The work focuses on maintaining and enhancing critical business systems—important, high-impact work, but fundamentally different from product development.

The hybrid path offers the best of both worlds. The most successful approach for many developers is building expertise in both proven and modern systems. This positions you as a bridge professional who can help organizations safely modernize their critical infrastructure which is expertise that commands premium compensation and provides maximum career flexibility.

Whether you're a mid-career professional seeking stability, a career switcher looking for accessible entry into technology, or a new graduate wanting to differentiate yourself in a crowded market, COBOL expertise offers rare skills, high impact, and long-term security in an uncertain job market.

The backbone systems aren't going anywhere. The question is: will you develop the expertise to master them?

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