Remember COBOL Programming Language
Do you remember Cobol?
It is astonishing that COBOL is now the 341st ranked skills in terms of number of job ads posted for contractors.
For many, many year it was the number 1, the top skill for most contractors.
How the world has moved on.
COBOL Rates Rising
Those older contractors who never managed to get off COBOL will be delighted to see rates have actually risen in the past year of only to £325 – around £75 below the average.
Perhaps the main programming language after COBOL was PL/I.
Then the next one after that was RPG2 (or was it 3?).
We used to work in DP – or Data Processing before it became IT.
The changeover took place around the mid to late eighties.
Staple Skill for IT Contractors
However, COBOL was the staple skill for contractors.
It means Common or Business Oriented Language.
Everyone knew that.
It used to be combined with CICS and DL/I – before DB2 database overtook DL/I.
Before the downturn of the early nineties COBOL CICS DB2 was the mainstream skillset.
The End of COBOL
That was about the end of the halcyon days for COBOL.
Now it is languishing in 341st place amongst all skills.
How have the mighty fallen.
However, with the major banks having to rebuild their Legacy Systems built in languages like COBOL perhaps their might be a renaissance.
Did you remember Cobol? Let’s hear from you in the comments section.
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