XML Contract Job Trends

XML
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring XML skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 315 244 174
Rank change year-on-year -71 -70 +15
Contract jobs citing XML 399 363 613
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.75% 1.12% 1.43%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.87% 4.95% 6.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 249 323
10th Percentile £333 £373 £375
25th Percentile £409 £429 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £510
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -4.90% -7.27%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £613
90th Percentile £713 £626 £720
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £455 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -9.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 11 69
10th Percentile £29.07 £27.00 -
25th Percentile £29.92 £27.05 -
Median hourly rate £39.50 £37.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.33% -12.79% -38.57%
75th Percentile £44.90 £53.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £88.75 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £34.75 £43.00
% change year-on-year +13.67% -19.19% -38.57%

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK

XML falls under the Software Libraries and Frameworks category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 10,322 7,330 9,254
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.52% 22.59% 21.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,766 4,948 6,332
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £656
90th Percentile £738 £761 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 159 280
10th Percentile £30.00 £29.21 £22.73
25th Percentile £50.00 £38.52 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £55.63
Median % change year-on-year +16.07% +0.67% -14.42%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.20 £74.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -6.72%

XML
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing XML relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

XML job vacancy trend in the UK

XML
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing XML.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing XML

XML
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing XML over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing XML.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing XML

XML
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing XML over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing XML within the UK over the 6 months to 11 July 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -69 333 £525 +7.69% 79
UK excluding London -97 169 £438 -3.85% 57
London -42 165 £550 +1.40% 34
Work from Home -48 124 £519 +9.26% 36
South East -54 55 £500 +5.26% 19
North of England -75 47 £391 -13.06% 7
North West -55 38 £390 -13.33% 7
Midlands -45 30 £425 -1.16% 11
West Midlands -57 22 £425 -15.00% 6
South West -31 14 £550 +46.67% 9
East of England -26 11 £450 -18.18% 4
Yorkshire -47 9 £463 -11.90%
Scotland -12 8 £425 -23.90% 9
East Midlands -15 8 £471 +50.08% 5
Northern Ireland 0 2 £650 +36.84%
Wales -24 2 £635 +61.27%

XML
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 25 (6.27%) Confluence
2 18 (4.51%) SharePoint
3 16 (4.01%) IIS
4 14 (3.51%) Anypoint
4 14 (3.51%) Oracle Workflow
5 10 (2.51%) Mule
6 5 (1.25%) CMS
6 5 (1.25%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.25%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.50%) Appian
7 2 (0.50%) CICS
7 2 (0.50%) MQSeries
7 2 (0.50%) Mule ESB
7 2 (0.50%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 1 (0.25%) Apache
8 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.25%) JBoss
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 37 (9.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.76%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.75%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.50%) EngageOne
6 2 (0.50%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 15 (3.76%) Oracle EBS
2 12 (3.01%) Oracle Payables
3 10 (2.51%) Oracle Receivables
4 9 (2.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 7 (1.75%) NetSuite
6 6 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
6 6 (1.50%) Maximo
6 6 (1.50%) Oracle Assets
6 6 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (1.50%) Oracle General Ledger
6 6 (1.50%) Summit
7 5 (1.25%) Elite 3E
7 5 (1.25%) Oracle FAH
7 5 (1.25%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (1.00%) Oracle Cash Management
8 4 (1.00%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 4 (1.00%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (1.00%) Oracle Internet Expenses
8 4 (1.00%) Oracle iProcurement
8 4 (1.00%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 89 (22.31%) Azure
2 49 (12.28%) AWS
3 36 (9.02%) Azure DevOps
4 30 (7.52%) Boomi
5 18 (4.51%) GitHub
6 17 (4.26%) GCP
7 16 (4.01%) Power Platform
8 15 (3.76%) SaaS
9 14 (3.51%) Serverless
10 12 (3.01%) AtomSphere
10 12 (3.01%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (2.26%) Azure Functions
11 9 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
11 9 (2.26%) Azure Service Bus
11 9 (2.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 9 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (2.26%) OCI
12 8 (2.01%) Amazon S3
13 7 (1.75%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (5.76%) HTTP
2 8 (2.01%) FTP
3 6 (1.50%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.50%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.00%) Network Security
4 4 (1.00%) RTCP
4 4 (1.00%) RTP
4 4 (1.00%) SSL
4 4 (1.00%) XCAP
5 2 (0.50%) DNS
5 2 (0.50%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.50%) Internet
5 2 (0.50%) Intranet
5 2 (0.50%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.50%) WAN
5 2 (0.50%) Wireless
6 1 (0.25%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.25%) NFC
6 1 (0.25%) SAN
6 1 (0.25%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (11.53%) SQL Server
2 40 (10.03%) Relational Database
3 20 (5.01%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (5.01%) RDBMS
4 19 (4.76%) Oracle Database
5 18 (4.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 16 (4.01%) Oracle Reports
7 15 (3.76%) MongoDB
7 15 (3.76%) NoSQL
8 14 (3.51%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (3.26%) Metadata
10 12 (3.01%) Power BI
10 12 (3.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 11 (2.76%) Data Lake
12 10 (2.51%) MS Access
12 10 (2.51%) MySQL
12 10 (2.51%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 6 (1.50%) DataStage
14 5 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (1.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 44 (11.03%) Git
2 36 (9.02%) JIRA
3 30 (7.52%) Postman
4 17 (4.26%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.51%) Oracle Forms
5 14 (3.51%) Team Foundation Server
6 13 (3.26%) Visual Studio
7 10 (2.51%) GitLab
8 9 (2.26%) Maven
8 9 (2.26%) SoapUI
9 6 (1.50%) JDeveloper
9 6 (1.50%) JMeter
9 6 (1.50%) Selenium
10 5 (1.25%) Eclipse
10 5 (1.25%) Gradle
10 5 (1.25%) JUnit
10 5 (1.25%) Subversion
11 4 (1.00%) Bitbucket
11 4 (1.00%) Cypress.io
11 4 (1.00%) TeamCity
General
1 131 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 87 (21.80%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (20.05%) Finance
4 34 (8.52%) Banking
4 34 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.51%) Investment Banking
7 10 (2.51%) Publishing
7 10 (2.51%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.26%) Legal
8 9 (2.26%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.26%) Retail
9 7 (1.75%) General Ledger
10 6 (1.50%) Military
11 5 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.25%) Marketing
12 4 (1.00%) Advertising
12 4 (1.00%) Billing
12 4 (1.00%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 121 (30.33%) Developer
2 60 (15.04%) Consultant
3 44 (11.03%) Analyst
4 34 (8.52%) Senior
5 30 (7.52%) Implementation Consultant
6 28 (7.02%) Architect
7 26 (6.52%) Business Analyst
8 22 (5.51%) Data Engineer
9 18 (4.51%) Lead
10 16 (4.01%) Software Developer
11 15 (3.76%) Senior Developer
12 14 (3.51%) C# Developer
13 13 (3.26%) Payroll Consultant
13 13 (3.26%) Software Engineer
14 12 (3.01%) Technical Consultant
15 11 (2.76%) Oracle Developer
16 10 (2.51%) .NET Developer
16 10 (2.51%) Applications Developer
16 10 (2.51%) DBA
16 10 (2.51%) Integration Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (49.37%) JSON
2 133 (33.33%) REST
3 117 (29.32%) SOAP
4 58 (14.54%) .NET
4 58 (14.54%) Web Services
5 54 (13.53%) Middleware
6 45 (11.28%) XSLT
7 31 (7.77%) HTML
8 27 (6.77%) OAuth
9 24 (6.02%) Kafka
10 20 (5.01%) ASP.NET
10 20 (5.01%) RESTful
10 20 (5.01%) Swagger
11 19 (4.76%) .NET Framework
11 19 (4.76%) CSS
11 19 (4.76%) EDI
12 18 (4.51%) JWT
13 16 (4.01%) OAuth2
14 14 (3.51%) OpenAPI
14 14 (3.51%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.01%) Product Ownership
2 15 (3.76%) Data Structures
2 15 (3.76%) Legacy Systems
3 11 (2.76%) Replication
4 9 (2.26%) Management Information System
4 9 (2.26%) Onboarding
5 8 (2.01%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 8 (2.01%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 7 (1.75%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.75%) Credit Risk
6 7 (1.75%) Derivative
6 7 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.75%) Fixed Income
6 7 (1.75%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.50%) Algorithms
7 6 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (1.50%) Legacy Applications
7 6 (1.50%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (6.52%) Unix
2 24 (6.02%) Linux
3 20 (5.01%) Windows
4 6 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.50%) Android
6 2 (0.50%) VMS
6 2 (0.50%) zOS
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (26.82%) Problem-Solving
2 97 (24.31%) Agile
3 80 (20.05%) DevOps
4 74 (18.55%) CI/CD
5 65 (16.29%) Workflow
6 58 (14.54%) Validation
7 52 (13.03%) Migration
8 50 (12.53%) Integration Patterns
9 47 (11.78%) Data Modelling
10 43 (10.78%) ERP
11 38 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
12 36 (9.02%) Data Mapping
12 36 (9.02%) User Acceptance Testing
13 35 (8.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 34 (8.52%) Software Engineering
15 33 (8.27%) Scrum
16 31 (7.77%) ETL
17 30 (7.52%) Event-Driven
18 28 (7.02%) Performance Tuning
18 28 (7.02%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 183 (45.86%) SQL
2 62 (15.54%) Java
3 61 (15.29%) C#
4 57 (14.29%) Python
5 54 (13.53%) JavaScript
6 49 (12.28%) T-SQL
7 36 (9.02%) PL/SQL
8 18 (4.51%) VB.NET
9 17 (4.26%) PowerShell
10 15 (3.76%) C++
10 15 (3.76%) VBA
11 14 (3.51%) Groovy
12 13 (3.26%) XPath
13 10 (2.51%) VB
14 9 (2.26%) VB6
15 8 (2.01%) Shell Script
16 7 (1.75%) DataWeave
17 6 (1.50%) Bicep
17 6 (1.50%) VBScript
18 4 (1.00%) C
Qualifications
1 95 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 72 (18.05%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.52%) Degree
4 14 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (2.26%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.25%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.25%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.00%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.00%) ISTQB
7 4 (1.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 4 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.75%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.50%) CISSP
9 2 (0.50%) GIAC
9 2 (0.50%) HNC
9 2 (0.50%) HND
9 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.50%) SSCP
10 1 (0.25%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.02%) QA
2 20 (5.01%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.76%) GDPR
4 8 (2.01%) ISO 20022
5 7 (1.75%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.50%) HL7
7 5 (1.25%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 5 (1.25%) GMP
7 5 (1.25%) GxP
8 4 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 4 (1.00%) SLA
8 4 (1.00%) WCAG
9 3 (0.75%) FATCA
9 3 (0.75%) GRC
9 3 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.75%) PSD2
10 2 (0.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.50%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.50%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 12 (3.01%) Docker
2 4 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.75%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.75%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.50%) RACF
4 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 13 (3.26%) Ansible
2 12 (3.01%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.75%) Terraform
4 5 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.75%) QRadar
5 3 (0.75%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.50%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.50%) Grafana
6 2 (0.50%) WMI
7 1 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 113 (28.32%) Oracle
2 74 (18.55%) Microsoft
3 29 (7.27%) ServiceNow
4 28 (7.02%) MuleSoft
5 27 (6.77%) SAP
6 22 (5.51%) IBM
7 18 (4.51%) Workday
8 17 (4.26%) Salesforce
9 14 (3.51%) Google
10 8 (2.01%) Databricks
11 7 (1.75%) Dell
12 6 (1.50%) webMethods
13 5 (1.25%) Guidewire
13 5 (1.25%) Intapp
13 5 (1.25%) InterSystems
13 5 (1.25%) Kronos
13 5 (1.25%) Talend
14 4 (1.00%) Pega
14 4 (1.00%) Splunk
14 4 (1.00%) VMware