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 5 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 323 234 170
Rank change year-on-year -89 -64 +11
Contract jobs citing XML 376 360 613
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 1.13% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.74% 4.98% 6.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 245 323
10th Percentile £341 £375 £376
25th Percentile £406 £430 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £513
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -5.37% -6.82%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £616
90th Percentile £688 £628 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 £455 £500
% change year-on-year -5.71% -9.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 10 69
10th Percentile £29.07 £26.39 -
25th Percentile £29.92 £27.03 -
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.75 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.67% -19.19% -38.57%
75th Percentile £44.90 £58.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £89.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £32.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year +23.44% -25.58% -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 10,057 7,233 9,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.44% 22.78% 21.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,590 4,891 6,377
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £540
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -5.09% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £654
90th Percentile £738 £763 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 147 283
10th Percentile £30.00 £28.44 £22.55
25th Percentile £51.25 £35.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -15.38%
75th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.41 £74.35
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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -83 321 £525 +8.25% 105
UK excluding London -107 167 £429 -5.71% 71
London -75 153 £550 +0.95% 45
Work from Home -47 117 £525 +10.53% 46
South East -48 54 £513 +7.89% 28
North of England -75 47 £391 -13.06% 10
North West -46 38 £390 -13.33% 9
Midlands -45 30 £425 -1.16% 11
West Midlands -54 22 £425 -15.00% 4
South West -20 14 £550 +46.67% 11
East of England -29 11 £450 -18.18% 6
Yorkshire -51 9 £463 -11.90%
East Midlands -10 8 £471 +50.08% 7
Scotland -19 7 £413 -26.14% 3
Northern Ireland -3 2 £650 +36.84% 2
Wales -27 2 £635 +61.27% 1

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 23 (6.12%) Confluence
2 13 (3.46%) SharePoint
3 12 (3.19%) Anypoint
4 10 (2.66%) IIS
5 9 (2.39%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (2.13%) Mule
7 5 (1.33%) CMS
7 5 (1.33%) WebLogic
7 5 (1.33%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.80%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.53%) Appian
9 2 (0.53%) CICS
9 2 (0.53%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.53%) Mule ESB
10 1 (0.27%) Apache
10 1 (0.27%) BizTalk Server
10 1 (0.27%) JBoss
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
Applications
1 31 (8.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.86%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.53%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.53%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.39%) Oracle EBS
1 9 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.86%) NetSuite
3 6 (1.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.60%) Maximo
3 6 (1.60%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (1.60%) Oracle Payables
3 6 (1.60%) Summit
4 5 (1.33%) Elite 3E
4 5 (1.33%) Oracle Cash Management
4 5 (1.33%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (1.06%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (1.06%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.80%) Findur
6 3 (0.80%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.80%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.80%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.53%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.53%) NEC Housing
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 81 (21.54%) Azure
2 46 (12.23%) AWS
3 29 (7.71%) Azure DevOps
3 29 (7.71%) Boomi
4 18 (4.79%) GitHub
5 17 (4.52%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.26%) GCP
7 14 (3.72%) Serverless
8 13 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
9 12 (3.19%) AtomSphere
9 12 (3.19%) SaaS
10 10 (2.66%) OCI
11 9 (2.39%) Azure Functions
11 9 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
11 9 (2.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 9 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (2.13%) Amazon S3
12 8 (2.13%) Azure Service Bus
13 7 (1.86%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.79%) HTTP
2 8 (2.13%) FTP
3 6 (1.60%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.60%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.06%) RTCP
4 4 (1.06%) RTP
4 4 (1.06%) SSL
4 4 (1.06%) XCAP
5 3 (0.80%) Network Security
6 2 (0.53%) DNS
6 2 (0.53%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.53%) Internet
6 2 (0.53%) Intranet
6 2 (0.53%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.53%) WAN
6 2 (0.53%) Wireless
7 1 (0.27%) NAS
7 1 (0.27%) NFC
7 1 (0.27%) SAN
7 1 (0.27%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (10.64%) SQL Server
2 39 (10.37%) Relational Database
3 20 (5.32%) RDBMS
4 19 (5.05%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (4.26%) Data Warehouse
5 16 (4.26%) NoSQL
6 15 (3.99%) MongoDB
6 15 (3.99%) Oracle Database
7 13 (3.46%) Power BI
7 13 (3.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (3.19%) Data Lake
8 12 (3.19%) Metadata
8 12 (3.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (2.93%) Oracle Reports
10 10 (2.66%) MySQL
11 5 (1.33%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (1.33%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 4 (1.06%) DataStage
12 4 (1.06%) MS Access
12 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 39 (10.37%) Git
2 32 (8.51%) JIRA
3 30 (7.98%) Postman
4 12 (3.19%) Jenkins
5 10 (2.66%) GitLab
6 9 (2.39%) Maven
6 9 (2.39%) SoapUI
6 9 (2.39%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (2.13%) Visual Studio
8 6 (1.60%) JMeter
8 6 (1.60%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (1.60%) Selenium
9 5 (1.33%) Eclipse
9 5 (1.33%) Gradle
9 5 (1.33%) JUnit
9 5 (1.33%) Subversion
10 4 (1.06%) Bitbucket
10 4 (1.06%) Cypress.io
10 4 (1.06%) REST Assured
10 4 (1.06%) TeamCity
General
1 126 (33.51%) Social Skills
2 81 (21.54%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (19.41%) Finance
4 33 (8.78%) Banking
4 33 (8.78%) Public Sector
5 12 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.66%) Legal
8 9 (2.39%) Investment Banking
8 9 (2.39%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.39%) Publishing
9 8 (2.13%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.86%) Military
10 7 (1.86%) Retail
11 5 (1.33%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.33%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.33%) Marketing
12 4 (1.06%) Advertising
12 4 (1.06%) Billing
Job Titles
1 106 (28.19%) Developer
2 58 (15.43%) Consultant
3 44 (11.70%) Analyst
4 31 (8.24%) Senior
5 30 (7.98%) Implementation Consultant
6 26 (6.91%) Business Analyst
7 25 (6.65%) Architect
8 22 (5.85%) Data Engineer
9 14 (3.72%) Lead
10 13 (3.46%) C# Developer
10 13 (3.46%) Payroll Consultant
10 13 (3.46%) Software Engineer
11 12 (3.19%) Senior Developer
12 10 (2.66%) DBA
12 10 (2.66%) Integration Specialist
12 10 (2.66%) Software Developer
12 10 (2.66%) Technical Consultant
13 9 (2.39%) Applications Developer
13 9 (2.39%) Integration Developer
13 9 (2.39%) Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 183 (48.67%) JSON
2 125 (33.24%) REST
3 110 (29.26%) SOAP
4 55 (14.63%) Web Services
5 53 (14.10%) Middleware
6 51 (13.56%) .NET
7 38 (10.11%) XSLT
8 25 (6.65%) OAuth
9 24 (6.38%) HTML
10 21 (5.59%) Kafka
11 19 (5.05%) EDI
12 18 (4.79%) .NET Framework
12 18 (4.79%) CSS
12 18 (4.79%) RESTful
13 17 (4.52%) JWT
13 17 (4.52%) Swagger
14 15 (3.99%) OAuth2
14 15 (3.99%) Oracle Fusion
15 14 (3.72%) ASP.NET
15 14 (3.72%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 15 (3.99%) Data Structures
2 14 (3.72%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.19%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (2.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 8 (2.13%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.13%) Onboarding
5 7 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (1.86%) Credit Risk
5 7 (1.86%) Derivative
5 7 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (1.86%) Fixed Income
5 7 (1.86%) Market Risk
5 7 (1.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 6 (1.60%) CMDB
6 6 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (1.60%) Public Cloud
6 6 (1.60%) Replication
7 5 (1.33%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.33%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 22 (5.85%) Linux
2 21 (5.59%) Unix
3 13 (3.46%) Windows
4 5 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.53%) Android
6 2 (0.53%) VMS
6 2 (0.53%) zOS
7 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (27.39%) Problem-Solving
2 93 (24.73%) Agile
3 74 (19.68%) CI/CD
4 73 (19.41%) DevOps
5 58 (15.43%) Workflow
6 54 (14.36%) Validation
7 49 (13.03%) Integration Patterns
8 44 (11.70%) Migration
9 43 (11.44%) Data Modelling
9 43 (11.44%) ERP
10 36 (9.57%) Stakeholder Management
11 34 (9.04%) Data Mapping
11 34 (9.04%) ETL
11 34 (9.04%) User Acceptance Testing
12 33 (8.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 32 (8.51%) Software Engineering
14 30 (7.98%) Scrum
15 27 (7.18%) Performance Tuning
15 27 (7.18%) SDLC
15 27 (7.18%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 167 (44.41%) SQL
2 63 (16.76%) Java
3 56 (14.89%) Python
4 55 (14.63%) JavaScript
5 54 (14.36%) C#
6 43 (11.44%) T-SQL
7 24 (6.38%) PL/SQL
8 16 (4.26%) PowerShell
9 15 (3.99%) C++
10 14 (3.72%) Groovy
11 12 (3.19%) VB.NET
12 10 (2.66%) VB
13 9 (2.39%) VB6
13 9 (2.39%) VBA
14 8 (2.13%) XPath
15 6 (1.60%) Bicep
16 5 (1.33%) DataWeave
17 4 (1.06%) ABAP
17 4 (1.06%) R
17 4 (1.06%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 89 (23.67%) Security Cleared
2 67 (17.82%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.98%) Degree
4 10 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (2.39%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.33%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.33%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.06%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.06%) ISTQB
7 4 (1.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 4 (1.06%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.80%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.53%) CISSP
9 2 (0.53%) GIAC
9 2 (0.53%) HNC
9 2 (0.53%) HND
9 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.53%) SSCP
10 1 (0.27%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (7.18%) QA
2 19 (5.05%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.19%) GDPR
4 7 (1.86%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.86%) ISO 20022
5 6 (1.60%) HL7
6 4 (1.06%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (1.06%) GMP
6 4 (1.06%) GxP
6 4 (1.06%) WCAG
7 3 (0.80%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.80%) FATCA
7 3 (0.80%) GRC
7 3 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 17025
7 3 (0.80%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.80%) PSD2
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.53%) SLA
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 12 (3.19%) Docker
2 4 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.80%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.80%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.53%) RACF
4 2 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 13 (3.46%) Ansible
2 12 (3.19%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.86%) Terraform
4 5 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.80%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.53%) Grafana
6 2 (0.53%) QRadar
6 2 (0.53%) WMI
7 1 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 97 (25.80%) Oracle
2 70 (18.62%) Microsoft
3 29 (7.71%) SAP
4 28 (7.45%) ServiceNow
5 25 (6.65%) MuleSoft
6 20 (5.32%) Workday
7 17 (4.52%) IBM
7 17 (4.52%) Salesforce
8 13 (3.46%) Google
9 8 (2.13%) Databricks
10 7 (1.86%) Dell
11 6 (1.60%) webMethods
12 5 (1.33%) Intapp
12 5 (1.33%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.33%) Kronos
12 5 (1.33%) Talend
13 4 (1.06%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.06%) Okta
13 4 (1.06%) Pega
13 4 (1.06%) VMware