Also called: Mainframe Developer, Legacy Systems Engineer
Maintains the decades-old mainframe programs that still process most bank transactions, airline bookings, and unemployment checks.
You open code written before your parents were born and carefully update it without breaking anything that moves billions of dollars. Banks struggle to find people who know COBOL, so you are surprisingly in demand.
Estimate; scarcity of COBOL skills pushes pay up.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's or associate; many companies run in-house mainframe training programs.
Ways in: 4-year college, 2-year college, On-the-job training, Certification. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Computer Science, Information Systems.
Growing slowly. Not tracked separately; a retiring workforce keeps openings steady even as systems are slowly modernized.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. AI tools now translate and explain COBOL, speeding migration off mainframes; retirements keep some demand for now.
Classes: AP Computer Science A, Accounting, Computer applications.
Official data: O*NET occupation 15-1251.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.