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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 242 162
Rank change year-on-year -80 -80 +33
Contract jobs citing XML 360 321 644
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.09% 1.48%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.68% 4.77% 6.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 222 343
10th Percentile £350 £363 £401
25th Percentile £404 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £534
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -11.05% -2.91%
75th Percentile £618 £586 £619
90th Percentile £686 £637 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £433 £455 £519
% change year-on-year -4.78% -12.29% +3.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 6 70
10th Percentile £29.37 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £33.63 £27.00 -
Median hourly rate £42.00 £27.38 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.40% -36.33% -38.57%
75th Percentile £48.75 £73.67 £51.25
90th Percentile £55.20 £91.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.15 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.81% -42.26% -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 9,789 6,726 9,219
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.59% 22.85% 21.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,432 4,599 6,367
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £536
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -2.94% -2.59%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £768 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 118 263
10th Percentile £31.03 £29.20 £22.10
25th Percentile £51.25 £39.84 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £58.88 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.40% +18.94% -23.85%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.56 £68.38
90th Percentile £81.25 £81.35 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.77% +15.00% -15.38%

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 12 June 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 12 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 15 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 12 June 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 -57 318 £520 +7.22% 71
UK excluding London -65 164 £433 -4.78% 57
London -57 149 £550 +0.92% 27
Work from Home -63 99 £453 -4.74% 43
South East -57 58 £525 +10.53% 22
North of England -65 49 £394 -12.50% 7
North West -26 42 £391 -13.06% 3
Midlands -46 27 £425 -15.00% 7
West Midlands -46 19 £425 -22.73% 1
South West -17 13 £600 +26.32% 7
East of England -18 9 £450 -18.18% 5
East Midlands -17 8 £471 +50.08% 6
Scotland -15 7 £431 -19.39% 5
Yorkshire -50 7 £463 -9.76% 2
Northern Ireland -9 1 - - 3

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 18 (5.00%) Confluence
2 12 (3.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 10 (2.78%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.50%) Anypoint
4 9 (2.50%) WebSphere
5 8 (2.22%) IIS
5 8 (2.22%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (1.94%) WebLogic
7 5 (1.39%) CMS
7 5 (1.39%) Mule
8 4 (1.11%) Oracle Service Bus
9 3 (0.83%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.56%) Appian
10 2 (0.56%) CICS
10 2 (0.56%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.56%) Mule ESB
10 2 (0.56%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.28%) Apache
11 1 (0.28%) JBoss
Applications
1 31 (8.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.67%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.56%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.56%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.50%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (2.22%) Oracle ERP
2 8 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.94%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.94%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 6 (1.67%) Maximo
4 6 (1.67%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (1.67%) Summit
5 5 (1.39%) Oracle Cash Management
5 5 (1.39%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.39%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (1.11%) Oracle EBS
6 4 (1.11%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.83%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.83%) Findur
7 3 (0.83%) Oracle Assets
8 2 (0.56%) BusinessWorks
8 2 (0.56%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.56%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 69 (19.17%) Azure
2 42 (11.67%) AWS
3 21 (5.83%) Azure DevOps
3 21 (5.83%) Boomi
4 18 (5.00%) OCI
5 17 (4.72%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.44%) GitHub
7 15 (4.17%) GCP
8 14 (3.89%) SaaS
9 13 (3.61%) Serverless
10 12 (3.33%) Azure Data Factory
11 11 (3.06%) PaaS
12 10 (2.78%) IaaS
13 9 (2.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 8 (2.22%) Azure Functions
14 8 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (1.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 7 (1.94%) Azure Logic Apps
15 7 (1.94%) Azure Service Bus
15 7 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.17%) HTTP
2 8 (2.22%) FTP
3 6 (1.67%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.11%) RTCP
4 4 (1.11%) RTP
4 4 (1.11%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.11%) XCAP
5 2 (0.56%) DNS
5 2 (0.56%) FIX Connectivity
5 2 (0.56%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.56%) SSL
6 1 (0.28%) AMQP
6 1 (0.28%) Firewall
6 1 (0.28%) Internet
6 1 (0.28%) Intranet
6 1 (0.28%) NAS
6 1 (0.28%) Network Security
6 1 (0.28%) SAN
6 1 (0.28%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (10.83%) SQL Server
2 32 (8.89%) Relational Database
3 22 (6.11%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
4 18 (5.00%) RDBMS
5 17 (4.72%) Oracle Database
6 15 (4.17%) NoSQL
7 14 (3.89%) MongoDB
7 14 (3.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (3.61%) Power BI
9 12 (3.33%) Data Lake
10 11 (3.06%) Metadata
11 10 (2.78%) MySQL
11 10 (2.78%) Oracle Reports
11 10 (2.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (1.39%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.39%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 4 (1.11%) DataStage
13 4 (1.11%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 3 (0.83%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 33 (9.17%) Git
2 30 (8.33%) Postman
3 29 (8.06%) JIRA
4 10 (2.78%) GitLab
5 9 (2.50%) Maven
5 9 (2.50%) SoapUI
6 8 (2.22%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (2.22%) Visual Studio
7 7 (1.94%) Jenkins
8 5 (1.39%) Eclipse
8 5 (1.39%) Subversion
9 4 (1.11%) Gradle
9 4 (1.11%) JMeter
9 4 (1.11%) JUnit
10 3 (0.83%) ClearCase
10 3 (0.83%) MSTest
10 3 (0.83%) Newman
10 3 (0.83%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.56%) JDeveloper
11 2 (0.56%) Selenium
General
1 119 (33.06%) Social Skills
2 77 (21.39%) Finance
3 71 (19.72%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (11.11%) Banking
5 24 (6.67%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.61%) Investment Banking
7 12 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.06%) Legal
8 11 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (2.22%) Publishing
9 8 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.94%) General Ledger
10 7 (1.94%) Military
11 5 (1.39%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.39%) Front Office
11 5 (1.39%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.39%) Marketing
12 4 (1.11%) Advertising
12 4 (1.11%) Billing
13 3 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 91 (25.28%) Developer
2 59 (16.39%) Consultant
3 46 (12.78%) Analyst
4 30 (8.33%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.50%) Business Analyst
6 26 (7.22%) Senior
7 22 (6.11%) Architect
8 21 (5.83%) Data Engineer
9 18 (5.00%) Lead
10 14 (3.89%) C# Developer
10 14 (3.89%) Software Engineer
11 13 (3.61%) Payroll Consultant
12 10 (2.78%) DBA
12 10 (2.78%) Integration Specialist
13 9 (2.50%) Integration Engineer
13 9 (2.50%) Senior Developer
13 9 (2.50%) Technical Consultant
14 8 (2.22%) Applications Developer
14 8 (2.22%) Integration Architect
14 8 (2.22%) Workflow Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (45.56%) JSON
2 109 (30.28%) REST
3 103 (28.61%) SOAP
4 49 (13.61%) Web Services
5 45 (12.50%) Middleware
6 42 (11.67%) .NET
7 39 (10.83%) XSLT
8 25 (6.94%) HTML
8 25 (6.94%) OAuth
9 24 (6.67%) Oracle Fusion
10 21 (5.83%) Swagger
11 19 (5.28%) RESTful
12 18 (5.00%) JWT
12 18 (5.00%) Kafka
12 18 (5.00%) XSD
13 17 (4.72%) CSS
13 17 (4.72%) EDI
14 14 (3.89%) .NET Framework
14 14 (3.89%) OpenAPI
15 12 (3.33%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.89%) Product Ownership
2 11 (3.06%) Data Structures
3 9 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
3 9 (2.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 8 (2.22%) Fixed Income
5 7 (1.94%) Credit Risk
5 7 (1.94%) Derivative
5 7 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (1.94%) Market Risk
5 7 (1.94%) Public Cloud
6 6 (1.67%) CMDB
6 6 (1.67%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.67%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.67%) Replication
6 6 (1.67%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 5 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.39%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.39%) Digital Wallet
7 5 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.11%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.94%) Linux
2 18 (5.00%) Unix
3 8 (2.22%) Windows
4 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.56%) VMS
4 2 (0.56%) zOS
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.28%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (26.39%) Agile
2 92 (25.56%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (18.61%) DevOps
4 60 (16.67%) CI/CD
5 53 (14.72%) Integration Patterns
6 51 (14.17%) Validation
7 46 (12.78%) Workflow
8 45 (12.50%) ERP
9 44 (12.22%) Migration
10 40 (11.11%) Data Modelling
10 40 (11.11%) ETL
11 36 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
12 31 (8.61%) Scrum
13 30 (8.33%) Data Mapping
14 28 (7.78%) Software Engineering
14 28 (7.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 28 (7.78%) User Acceptance Testing
15 26 (7.22%) Microservices
15 26 (7.22%) Requirements Gathering
16 25 (6.94%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 149 (41.39%) SQL
2 55 (15.28%) Java
3 50 (13.89%) C#
4 48 (13.33%) Python
5 45 (12.50%) JavaScript
6 39 (10.83%) T-SQL
7 20 (5.56%) PL/SQL
8 11 (3.06%) PowerShell
9 10 (2.78%) C++
9 10 (2.78%) VB
10 9 (2.50%) VB6
11 8 (2.22%) VBA
12 7 (1.94%) Groovy
12 7 (1.94%) VB.NET
12 7 (1.94%) XPath
13 5 (1.39%) DataWeave
14 4 (1.11%) Bicep
15 3 (0.83%) ABAP
15 3 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 3 (0.83%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 80 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 58 (16.11%) SC Cleared
3 32 (8.89%) Degree
4 13 (3.61%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (2.22%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.39%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.39%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.11%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.11%) DBS Check
8 4 (1.11%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.56%) CCNP
9 2 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.56%) HNC
9 2 (0.56%) HND
9 2 (0.56%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.56%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.83%) QA
2 17 (4.72%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.78%) GDPR
4 6 (1.67%) HL7
5 5 (1.39%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.39%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.39%) PSD2
6 4 (1.11%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.11%) GAAP
7 3 (0.83%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.83%) FATCA
7 3 (0.83%) GRC
7 3 (0.83%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.56%) Basel III
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.56%) SLA
8 2 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (3.33%) Docker
2 4 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.83%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.56%) RACF
4 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.28%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (2.78%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.22%) Ansible
3 6 (1.67%) Terraform
4 5 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.83%) Control-M
5 3 (0.83%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.56%) Grafana
6 2 (0.56%) TIBCO Hawk
7 1 (0.28%) QRadar
7 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 95 (26.39%) Oracle
2 57 (15.83%) Microsoft
3 30 (8.33%) SAP
4 26 (7.22%) Workday
5 25 (6.94%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.67%) MuleSoft
7 14 (3.89%) IBM
8 11 (3.06%) Google
9 9 (2.50%) Pega
9 9 (2.50%) Salesforce
10 8 (2.22%) Databricks
10 8 (2.22%) Dell
10 8 (2.22%) Informatica
11 7 (1.94%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.94%) webMethods
12 5 (1.39%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.39%) Talend
13 4 (1.11%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.11%) Kronos
13 4 (1.11%) VMware