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 8 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 240 231 191
Rank change year-on-year -9 -40 +23
Contract jobs citing XML 420 342 526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.14% 1.06% 1.24%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 5.09% 4.83% 5.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 217 334
10th Percentile £350 £223 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £628 £588 £613
90th Percentile £713 £653 £721
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £445 £533
% change year-on-year +1.12% -16.51% +7.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 1 30
10th Percentile £36.00 - £39.75
25th Percentile £41.25 £91.25 £46.59
Median hourly rate £43.00 £92.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year -53.51% +89.86% -35.04%
75th Percentile £48.75 £93.75 -
90th Percentile £88.25 - £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 - £48.72
% change year-on-year - - -11.42%

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 8,253 7,085 9,106
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.36% 21.96% 21.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,471 4,499 6,469
10th Percentile £356 £351 £361
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.12% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £770 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 82 165
10th Percentile £32.86 £21.33 £30.33
25th Percentile £45.00 £33.69 £46.18
Median hourly rate £61.00 £62.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.40% +19.05% -19.23%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 £62.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +0.80% +19.05% -19.23%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 8 January 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 +9 365 £475 -5.00% 120
London -4 192 £520 -2.80% 30
UK excluding London -27 166 £450 +1.12% 107
Work from Home +12 159 £475 +6.74% 55
North of England -27 51 £425 -15.25% 23
North West +3 42 £402 -9.15% 12
South East -34 38 £425 +21.43% 31
East of England +9 31 £550 - 16
Midlands -33 24 £429 -23.97% 19
West Midlands -33 21 £429 -24.34% 11
Scotland +2 11 £500 +11.11% 6
South West -3 10 £400 -9.86% 13
Yorkshire -46 9 £581 +2.51% 10
Wales -6 5 £375 +89.87% 2
East Midlands -26 3 - - 8

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 28 (6.67%) WebLogic
2 26 (6.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 14 (3.33%) Apache
4 13 (3.10%) Confluence
5 11 (2.62%) Oracle Service Bus
5 11 (2.62%) WebSphere
6 10 (2.38%) Anypoint
6 10 (2.38%) JBoss
6 10 (2.38%) Mule
7 7 (1.67%) Appian
7 7 (1.67%) MQSeries
7 7 (1.67%) nginx
8 6 (1.43%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (1.19%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.95%) Mule ESB
11 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.71%) Documentum
11 3 (0.71%) IIS
11 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.24%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.62%) FrameMaker
1 11 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.48%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.24%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.24%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.90%) Oracle BPM
1 8 (1.90%) SAP Payroll
2 7 (1.67%) BusinessWorks
2 7 (1.67%) SAP HCM
3 6 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (1.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 5 (1.19%) Maximo
4 5 (1.19%) Oracle General Ledger
4 5 (1.19%) Oracle Payables
4 5 (1.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.95%) Oracle 11i
5 4 (0.95%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.48%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 91 (21.67%) Azure
2 73 (17.38%) AWS
3 28 (6.67%) GitHub
4 26 (6.19%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (5.71%) OCI
6 21 (5.00%) GCP
6 21 (5.00%) Power Platform
6 21 (5.00%) SaaS
7 20 (4.76%) Cloud Computing
8 17 (4.05%) Serverless
9 14 (3.33%) Tricentis Tosca
10 13 (3.10%) Apigee
10 13 (3.10%) PaaS
11 12 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
12 11 (2.62%) Azure Logic Apps
12 11 (2.62%) IaaS
13 10 (2.38%) Amazon S3
13 10 (2.38%) Boomi
13 10 (2.38%) Power Automate
13 10 (2.38%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 35 (8.33%) HTTPS
2 27 (6.43%) HTTP
3 10 (2.38%) Firewall
3 10 (2.38%) SSL
4 4 (0.95%) AMQP
4 4 (0.95%) DSL
4 4 (0.95%) NFC
4 4 (0.95%) PPP
5 3 (0.71%) VPN
6 2 (0.48%) 5G
6 2 (0.48%) BGP
6 2 (0.48%) DNS
6 2 (0.48%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 2 (0.48%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 2 (0.48%) FIX Connectivity
6 2 (0.48%) FTP
6 2 (0.48%) MPLS
6 2 (0.48%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.24%) Network Security
7 1 (0.24%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (13.57%) Relational Database
2 43 (10.24%) SQL Server
3 24 (5.71%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (5.00%) MongoDB
5 19 (4.52%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (3.81%) Oracle Database
7 14 (3.33%) Oracle Reports
7 14 (3.33%) RDBMS
8 13 (3.10%) DataStage
9 12 (2.86%) Power BI
10 11 (2.62%) MySQL
11 10 (2.38%) NoSQL
12 9 (2.14%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (2.14%) Metadata
12 9 (2.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (1.90%) Amazon QuickSight
13 8 (1.90%) Apache Cassandra
13 8 (1.90%) DB2
14 7 (1.67%) Big Data
14 7 (1.67%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 54 (12.86%) JIRA
2 53 (12.62%) Git
3 40 (9.52%) Postman
4 35 (8.33%) Jenkins
5 28 (6.67%) Selenium
6 22 (5.24%) Cucumber
6 22 (5.24%) JUnit
7 13 (3.10%) Eclipse
7 13 (3.10%) GitLab
8 9 (2.14%) IntelliJ
8 9 (2.14%) SoapUI
8 9 (2.14%) SpecFlow
8 9 (2.14%) TestRail
8 9 (2.14%) Zephyr
9 8 (1.90%) Browser DevTools
9 8 (1.90%) Firebug
9 8 (1.90%) SonarQube
10 7 (1.67%) Robot Framework
10 7 (1.67%) Toad
11 6 (1.43%) Maven
General
1 144 (34.29%) Social Skills
2 93 (22.14%) Finance
3 68 (16.19%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (11.43%) Banking
5 47 (11.19%) Public Sector
6 15 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (3.57%) Publishing
7 13 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.62%) Telecoms
9 10 (2.38%) Aerospace
9 10 (2.38%) Investment Banking
10 9 (2.14%) Back Office
11 8 (1.90%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.90%) Legal
11 8 (1.90%) Private Banking
12 7 (1.67%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.43%) Digital Healthcare
13 6 (1.43%) Retail
14 5 (1.19%) Front Office
14 5 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 134 (31.90%) Developer
2 59 (14.05%) Analyst
3 42 (10.00%) Consultant
4 31 (7.38%) Senior
5 28 (6.67%) Business Analyst
6 26 (6.19%) Lead
7 21 (5.00%) Architect
7 21 (5.00%) Software Engineer
8 18 (4.29%) Integration Developer
9 16 (3.81%) webMethods Developer
10 15 (3.57%) Data Engineer
11 14 (3.33%) Author
11 14 (3.33%) Technical Author
12 13 (3.10%) Support Engineer
13 12 (2.86%) Java Developer
14 11 (2.62%) DBA
14 11 (2.62%) Senior Developer
14 11 (2.62%) Tester
15 10 (2.38%) Administrator
15 10 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 225 (53.57%) JSON
2 146 (34.76%) SOAP
3 144 (34.29%) REST
4 62 (14.76%) OAuth
5 50 (11.90%) Web Services
6 46 (10.95%) XSLT
7 41 (9.76%) HTML
8 33 (7.86%) JMS
9 32 (7.62%) RESTful
10 31 (7.38%) OAuth2
11 27 (6.43%) JWT
12 25 (5.95%) Middleware
12 25 (5.95%) Oracle Fusion
13 24 (5.71%) Spring
13 24 (5.71%) Swagger
13 24 (5.71%) XSD
14 23 (5.48%) .NET
15 22 (5.24%) J2EE
16 19 (4.52%) Kafka
17 18 (4.29%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (4.52%) Data Structures
2 18 (4.29%) Cloud Native
3 15 (3.57%) Virtual Team
4 14 (3.33%) Replication
5 11 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
5 11 (2.62%) Distributed Systems
6 9 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.14%) Onboarding
7 8 (1.90%) Algorithms
7 8 (1.90%) AS400
7 8 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.90%) Management Information System
7 8 (1.90%) Product Ownership
7 8 (1.90%) Public Cloud
7 8 (1.90%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 6 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.19%) Low-Code
9 5 (1.19%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.95%) iSeries
10 4 (0.95%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 46 (10.95%) Linux
2 23 (5.48%) Unix
3 21 (5.00%) Windows
4 5 (1.19%) AIX
4 5 (1.19%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.71%) Android
5 3 (0.71%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.24%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (36.19%) Agile
2 144 (34.29%) DevOps
3 97 (23.10%) Problem-Solving
4 87 (20.71%) CI/CD
5 59 (14.05%) Validation
6 58 (13.81%) Test Automation
7 53 (12.62%) Migration
8 51 (12.14%) ETL
8 51 (12.14%) Microservices
8 51 (12.14%) Scrum
9 48 (11.43%) Deployment Automation
10 46 (10.95%) ERP
11 44 (10.48%) Data Modelling
12 40 (9.52%) Computer Science
12 40 (9.52%) Data Migration
13 39 (9.29%) API Management
13 39 (9.29%) SDLC
14 33 (7.86%) Integration Patterns
14 33 (7.86%) Software Engineering
15 30 (7.14%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 156 (37.14%) SQL
2 128 (30.48%) Java
3 69 (16.43%) Python
4 60 (14.29%) C#
4 60 (14.29%) JavaScript
5 26 (6.19%) PL/SQL
6 20 (4.76%) PowerShell
7 18 (4.29%) XPath
8 11 (2.62%) T-SQL
9 10 (2.38%) C++
10 9 (2.14%) Scala
11 8 (1.90%) ABAP
11 8 (1.90%) RPG
11 8 (1.90%) Shell Script
12 7 (1.67%) Groovy
13 6 (1.43%) DataWeave
13 6 (1.43%) Korn
14 5 (1.19%) Perl
14 5 (1.19%) VBA
15 4 (0.95%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 103 (24.52%) Security Cleared
2 82 (19.52%) SC Cleared
3 58 (13.81%) Degree
4 33 (7.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.86%) HNC
6 12 (2.86%) HND
7 11 (2.62%) ISTQB
8 9 (2.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.67%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.43%) PMI Certification
11 5 (1.19%) CCNP
11 5 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.19%) ISEB
11 5 (1.19%) Master's Degree
11 5 (1.19%) PMP
12 4 (0.95%) DV Cleared
13 3 (0.71%) CEH
13 3 (0.71%) GIAC
13 3 (0.71%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (5.95%) Data Quality
1 25 (5.95%) QA
2 5 (1.19%) GAAP
3 4 (0.95%) SEPA
4 3 (0.71%) GDPR
4 3 (0.71%) IFRS
4 3 (0.71%) ISO 20022
4 3 (0.71%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.48%) Basel III
5 2 (0.48%) EMIR
5 2 (0.48%) HL7
5 2 (0.48%) IFRS 17
5 2 (0.48%) IFRS 9
5 2 (0.48%) PSD2
5 2 (0.48%) SLA
6 1 (0.24%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.24%) AIFMD
6 1 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.24%) DICOM
System Software
1 46 (10.95%) Docker
2 3 (0.71%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 18 (4.29%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.05%) Ansible
3 12 (2.86%) Control-M
4 10 (2.38%) Puppet
5 8 (1.90%) logstash
6 7 (1.67%) Kibana
6 7 (1.67%) TIBCO Hawk
7 6 (1.43%) Terraform
8 5 (1.19%) ITRS Geneos
9 3 (0.71%) CloudHub
10 2 (0.48%) Fluentd
10 2 (0.48%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.48%) QRadar
10 2 (0.48%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.24%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.24%) Podman
11 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.24%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 104 (24.76%) Oracle
2 54 (12.86%) SAP
3 45 (10.71%) Microsoft
4 41 (9.76%) IBM
5 31 (7.38%) webMethods
6 20 (4.76%) Workday
7 19 (4.52%) MuleSoft
8 13 (3.10%) Splunk
9 12 (2.86%) Pega
9 12 (2.86%) Software AG
9 12 (2.86%) TIBCO
10 11 (2.62%) Informatica
11 10 (2.38%) Axway
11 10 (2.38%) ServiceNow
12 9 (2.14%) Cisco
13 8 (1.90%) Red Hat
14 7 (1.67%) BEA
14 7 (1.67%) Google
14 7 (1.67%) Veracode
15 6 (1.43%) Talend