2025 Mainframe Market Survey

Original Research into the Challenges, Priorities and Future of IBM Mainframes

The enterprise mainframe continues to underpin many of the world’s largest organisations, powering mission-critical applications across banking, insurance, government, retail, manufacturing and other sectors. Yet while confidence in the platform remains exceptionally strong, organisations continue to face growing pressure to deliver change faster, reduce costs, improve sustainability and modernise long-established delivery practices.

To better understand the current state of the market, PopUp Mainframe conducted a survey of mainframe professionals to explore the challenges, priorities and opportunities shaping the platform today.

The results paint an encouraging picture of a community that remains deeply committed to the mainframe while actively seeking new ways to improve development, testing and delivery.

4 key topics you will read about

Delivery Complexity and Organisational Silos

Mainframe delivery rarely involves a single team. Most respondents reported that multiple departments are involved in delivering even routine changes, requiring coordination between development, testing, operations, infrastructure and business stakeholders.

Cost and Operational Efficiency

Cost remains one of the biggest concerns facing enterprise mainframe organisations. Almost four in ten respondents identified operational cost and inefficiency as a major challenge.

Testing and Debugging

Application quality remains essential for organisations running critical workloads. However, respondents highlighted testing and debugging as one of the most significant barriers to improving delivery speed.

Sustainability Is Becoming a Strategic Priority

Environmental responsibility is increasingly influencing technology decisions. More than one-third of respondents said sustainability objectives now represent an important challenge for their organisation.