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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 320 245 162
Rank change year-on-year -75 -83 +31
Contract jobs citing XML 361 322 637
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.09% 1.46%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.69% 4.79% 6.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 215 223 335
10th Percentile £350 £363 £402
25th Percentile £406 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -10.88% -3.09%
75th Percentile £616 £586 £619
90th Percentile £685 £636 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 £455 £513
% change year-on-year -5.71% -11.22% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 70
10th Percentile £29.30 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £31.81 £27.00 -
Median hourly rate £41.75 £27.38 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +52.48% -36.33% -38.57%
75th Percentile £48.75 £73.67 £51.25
90th Percentile £56.28 £91.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.14% -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 9,792 6,720 9,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.57% 22.77% 21.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,434 4,601 6,355
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £535
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -2.80% -2.73%
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 279 120 265
10th Percentile £30.40 £29.23 £22.20
25th Percentile £51.25 £41.01 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £58.88 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.40% +17.75% -23.08%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.19 £68.75
90th Percentile £81.47 £81.35 £74.48
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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -65 317 £520 +6.94% 80
UK excluding London -83 164 £429 -5.71% 59
London -53 149 £550 +0.92% 32
Work from Home -75 100 £453 -4.74% 44
South East -47 57 £525 +10.53% 22
North of England -54 49 £394 -12.50% 8
North West -31 42 £391 -13.06% 3
Midlands -40 27 £425 -15.00% 8
West Midlands -41 19 £425 -22.73% 2
South West -14 13 £600 +26.32% 9
East of England -23 9 £450 -18.18% 5
East Midlands -14 8 £471 +50.08% 6
Scotland -19 8 £425 -20.56% 4
Yorkshire -51 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 (4.99%) Confluence
2 12 (3.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 10 (2.77%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.49%) Anypoint
4 9 (2.49%) 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 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.55%) Appian
10 2 (0.55%) CICS
10 2 (0.55%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.55%) Mule ESB
10 2 (0.55%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.28%) Apache
11 1 (0.28%) JBoss
Applications
1 31 (8.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.66%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.55%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.55%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.55%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.49%) Oracle Payables
1 9 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (2.22%) Oracle ERP
3 7 (1.94%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.94%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 6 (1.66%) Maximo
4 6 (1.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (1.66%) 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 (0.55%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.55%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.55%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 70 (19.39%) Azure
2 43 (11.91%) AWS
3 21 (5.82%) Azure DevOps
3 21 (5.82%) Boomi
4 18 (4.99%) OCI
5 17 (4.71%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.43%) GCP
6 16 (4.43%) GitHub
7 14 (3.88%) SaaS
8 13 (3.60%) Serverless
9 12 (3.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (3.05%) PaaS
11 10 (2.77%) IaaS
12 9 (2.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 8 (2.22%) Azure Functions
13 8 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (1.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 7 (1.94%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.94%) Azure Service Bus
14 7 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.16%) HTTP
2 8 (2.22%) FTP
3 6 (1.66%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.11%) RTCP
4 4 (1.11%) RTP
4 4 (1.11%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.11%) XCAP
5 2 (0.55%) DNS
5 2 (0.55%) FIX Connectivity
5 2 (0.55%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.55%) 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 (10.80%) SQL Server
2 32 (8.86%) Relational Database
3 22 (6.09%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (5.26%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (4.99%) RDBMS
6 17 (4.71%) Oracle Database
7 15 (4.16%) NoSQL
8 14 (3.88%) MongoDB
8 14 (3.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (3.60%) Data Lake
9 13 (3.60%) Power BI
10 11 (3.05%) Metadata
11 10 (2.77%) MySQL
11 10 (2.77%) Oracle Reports
11 10 (2.77%) 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%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (9.14%) Git
2 30 (8.31%) Postman
3 29 (8.03%) JIRA
4 10 (2.77%) GitLab
5 9 (2.49%) Maven
5 9 (2.49%) 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 (0.55%) Gatling
11 2 (0.55%) JDeveloper
General
1 119 (32.96%) Social Skills
2 77 (21.33%) Finance
3 71 (19.67%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (11.08%) Banking
5 24 (6.65%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.60%) Investment Banking
7 12 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.05%) Legal
8 11 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (2.22%) Publishing
9 8 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.94%) General Ledger
10 7 (1.94%) Military
11 6 (1.66%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.39%) Financial Institution
12 5 (1.39%) Front Office
12 5 (1.39%) Marketing
13 4 (1.11%) Advertising
13 4 (1.11%) Billing
14 3 (0.83%) Retail
Job Titles
1 91 (25.21%) Developer
2 59 (16.34%) Consultant
3 47 (13.02%) Analyst
4 30 (8.31%) Implementation Consultant
5 28 (7.76%) Business Analyst
6 26 (7.20%) Senior
7 22 (6.09%) Architect
8 21 (5.82%) Data Engineer
9 18 (4.99%) Lead
10 14 (3.88%) C# Developer
11 13 (3.60%) Payroll Consultant
11 13 (3.60%) Software Engineer
12 11 (3.05%) DBA
13 10 (2.77%) Integration Specialist
14 9 (2.49%) Integration Engineer
14 9 (2.49%) Senior Developer
14 9 (2.49%) Technical Consultant
15 8 (2.22%) Applications Developer
15 8 (2.22%) Integration Architect
15 8 (2.22%) Workflow Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (45.43%) JSON
2 109 (30.19%) REST
3 103 (28.53%) SOAP
4 49 (13.57%) Web Services
5 45 (12.47%) Middleware
6 42 (11.63%) .NET
7 39 (10.80%) XSLT
8 25 (6.93%) HTML
8 25 (6.93%) OAuth
9 24 (6.65%) Oracle Fusion
10 21 (5.82%) Swagger
11 19 (5.26%) RESTful
12 18 (4.99%) EDI
12 18 (4.99%) JWT
12 18 (4.99%) Kafka
12 18 (4.99%) XSD
13 17 (4.71%) CSS
14 14 (3.88%) .NET Framework
14 14 (3.88%) OpenAPI
15 12 (3.32%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.88%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.32%) Data Structures
3 9 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
3 9 (2.49%) 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%) Management Information System
5 7 (1.94%) Market Risk
5 7 (1.94%) Public Cloud
5 7 (1.94%) Replication
6 6 (1.66%) CMDB
6 6 (1.66%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.66%) 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 24 (6.65%) Linux
2 18 (4.99%) Unix
3 8 (2.22%) Windows
4 2 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.55%) VMS
4 2 (0.55%) zOS
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.28%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (26.32%) Agile
2 92 (25.48%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (18.28%) DevOps
4 60 (16.62%) CI/CD
5 53 (14.68%) Integration Patterns
6 51 (14.13%) Validation
7 46 (12.74%) Workflow
8 45 (12.47%) ERP
9 44 (12.19%) Migration
10 41 (11.36%) Data Modelling
10 41 (11.36%) ETL
11 36 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
12 31 (8.59%) Data Mapping
12 31 (8.59%) Scrum
13 29 (8.03%) User Acceptance Testing
14 28 (7.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 27 (7.48%) Software Engineering
16 26 (7.20%) Microservices
16 26 (7.20%) Requirements Gathering
17 25 (6.93%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 150 (41.55%) SQL
2 55 (15.24%) Java
3 50 (13.85%) C#
4 48 (13.30%) Python
5 45 (12.47%) JavaScript
6 39 (10.80%) T-SQL
7 20 (5.54%) PL/SQL
8 11 (3.05%) PowerShell
9 10 (2.77%) C++
9 10 (2.77%) VB
10 9 (2.49%) 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 (22.16%) Security Cleared
2 57 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 32 (8.86%) Degree
4 13 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.32%) 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 (0.55%) CCNP
9 2 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.55%) HNC
9 2 (0.55%) HND
9 2 (0.55%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.55%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.55%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.82%) QA
2 17 (4.71%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.77%) GDPR
4 6 (1.66%) 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 (0.55%) Basel III
8 2 (0.55%) IFRS
8 2 (0.55%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.55%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.55%) SLA
8 2 (0.55%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (3.32%) Docker
2 4 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.83%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.55%) RACF
4 2 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.28%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (2.77%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.49%) Ansible
3 6 (1.66%) Terraform
4 5 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.83%) Control-M
5 3 (0.83%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.55%) Grafana
6 2 (0.55%) TIBCO Hawk
7 1 (0.28%) QRadar
7 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 95 (26.32%) Oracle
2 58 (16.07%) Microsoft
3 31 (8.59%) SAP
4 26 (7.20%) Workday
5 25 (6.93%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.65%) MuleSoft
7 14 (3.88%) IBM
8 12 (3.32%) Google
9 9 (2.49%) Informatica
9 9 (2.49%) Pega
9 9 (2.49%) Salesforce
10 8 (2.22%) Databricks
10 8 (2.22%) Dell
11 7 (1.94%) webMethods
12 6 (1.66%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.66%) Talend
13 5 (1.39%) InterSystems
14 4 (1.11%) Bloomberg
14 4 (1.11%) Charles River
14 4 (1.11%) Citrix