Anecdotal of course but I had a taxi driver the other day (small town in north UK) who mentioned, after asking me what I do, that he gets about 1 job a year (fr

Anecdotal of course but I had a taxi driver the other day (small town in north UK) who mentioned, after asking me what I do, that he gets about 1 job a year (from a contact that has reached out because the place can't get anyone else) on COBOL from banks / FS who just need a little thing adding or some bug fixing. He said he basically gets a big holiday every year and some money to put away from it. Hasn't touched any other IT job since early 2000s. I know its a meme at this point but there is definitely some sort of demand, I think the problem is that, while the stock of people is diminishing, they want battle hardened experts to come in for a few grand a day and do a thing and leave. Not a young developer wanting salary with a big backlog of work.