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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 259 172
Rank change year-on-year -33 -87 +43
Contract jobs citing XML 390 291 616
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.99% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.15% 4.35% 6.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 239 203 345
10th Percentile £350 £351 £407
25th Percentile £397 £418 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.26% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £650 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £450 £525
% change year-on-year -2.22% -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 64
10th Percentile £32.18 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £27.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £27.38 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.48% -39.16% -37.93%
75th Percentile £48.75 £77.42 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £93.75 £83.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £24.83 £45.00
% change year-on-year +91.30% -44.82% -37.93%

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 9,401 6,689 8,955
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.23% 22.64% 20.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,243 4,578 6,228
10th Percentile £358 £363 £334
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £726 £775 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 109 212
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.08 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £51.06 £37.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £83.17 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -25.78%

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 24 April 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 24 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 14 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 24 April 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 +3 354 £488 +2.63% 60
UK excluding London -37 180 £440 -2.22% 52
London -26 166 £525 - 21
Work from Home -30 101 £450 -5.01% 47
North of England -39 67 £393 -12.64% 10
South East -33 61 £500 +25.00% 24
North West -11 58 £391 -12.67% 7
Midlands -36 31 £450 -18.18% 4
West Midlands -43 23 £450 -18.18% 1
East of England -25 12 £675 +38.46% 2
Yorkshire -49 9 £431 -21.59% 3
East Midlands -27 8 £525 +46.65% 3
South West -28 7 £548 +46.00% 5
Scotland -4 5 £500 +1.21% 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 19 (4.87%) WebLogic
2 18 (4.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 13 (3.33%) Confluence
4 11 (2.82%) WebSphere
5 8 (2.05%) Anypoint
6 7 (1.79%) Apache
6 7 (1.79%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (1.28%) CMS
7 5 (1.28%) JBoss
7 5 (1.28%) Mule
8 4 (1.03%) Oracle Service Bus
9 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.77%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.77%) Mule ESB
9 3 (0.77%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 3 (0.77%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.51%) Appian
10 2 (0.51%) Documentum
10 2 (0.51%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.26%) SAS
Applications
1 33 (8.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.28%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.51%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.51%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.26%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 12 (3.08%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.31%) SAP Payroll
2 9 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (2.05%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (2.05%) Oracle Receivables
4 7 (1.79%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.79%) Maximo
4 7 (1.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (1.79%) SAP HCM
5 6 (1.54%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (1.54%) Summit
6 5 (1.28%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (1.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 5 (1.28%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
7 4 (1.03%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (1.03%) Oracle Cash Management
7 4 (1.03%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.77%) Findur
8 3 (0.77%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 84 (21.54%) Azure
2 55 (14.10%) AWS
3 28 (7.18%) OCI
4 26 (6.67%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (5.90%) GCP
5 23 (5.90%) Power Platform
6 21 (5.38%) GitHub
7 18 (4.62%) SaaS
8 16 (4.10%) PaaS
8 16 (4.10%) Serverless
9 14 (3.59%) IaaS
10 13 (3.33%) Apigee
10 13 (3.33%) Cloud Computing
11 12 (3.08%) Boomi
11 12 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
12 11 (2.82%) Azure Data Factory
12 11 (2.82%) Dynamics 365
13 10 (2.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 10 (2.56%) SuccessFactors
14 9 (2.31%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.18%) HTTP
2 10 (2.56%) HTTPS
3 9 (2.31%) FTP
4 7 (1.79%) Firewall
5 6 (1.54%) 3GPP
6 4 (1.03%) RTCP
6 4 (1.03%) RTP
6 4 (1.03%) XCAP
7 3 (0.77%) DNS
7 3 (0.77%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.51%) 5G
8 2 (0.51%) BGP
8 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 2 (0.51%) FIX Connectivity
8 2 (0.51%) MPLS
8 2 (0.51%) VPN
9 1 (0.26%) AMQP
9 1 (0.26%) NAS
9 1 (0.26%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (11.79%) Relational Database
2 42 (10.77%) SQL Server
3 26 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (5.90%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (5.90%) MongoDB
5 22 (5.64%) RDBMS
6 20 (5.13%) NoSQL
7 18 (4.62%) Power BI
8 16 (4.10%) Oracle Reports
9 15 (3.85%) Metadata
10 14 (3.59%) Oracle Database
11 11 (2.82%) Data Lake
11 11 (2.82%) MySQL
12 10 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 9 (2.31%) DataStage
14 8 (2.05%) DB2
15 6 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (1.28%) Oracle BI Publisher
16 5 (1.28%) Pentaho
16 5 (1.28%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 45 (11.54%) Git
2 44 (11.28%) Postman
3 41 (10.51%) JIRA
4 18 (4.62%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.59%) SoapUI
6 13 (3.33%) Selenium
7 12 (3.08%) JUnit
8 11 (2.82%) Cucumber
9 10 (2.56%) Maven
10 9 (2.31%) Eclipse
10 9 (2.31%) SpecFlow
10 9 (2.31%) TestRail
10 9 (2.31%) Zephyr
11 8 (2.05%) GitLab
12 7 (1.79%) Toad
13 6 (1.54%) Subversion
14 4 (1.03%) IntelliJ
15 3 (0.77%) Bitbucket
15 3 (0.77%) JMeter
15 3 (0.77%) MSTest
General
1 127 (32.56%) Social Skills
2 78 (20.00%) Finance
3 72 (18.46%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (8.97%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.72%) Banking
6 17 (4.36%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (3.33%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.56%) Legal
10 6 (1.54%) Military
10 6 (1.54%) Publishing
11 5 (1.28%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.28%) Retail
12 4 (1.03%) Advertising
12 4 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.03%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.77%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.77%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.77%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 91 (23.33%) Developer
2 70 (17.95%) Consultant
3 49 (12.56%) Analyst
4 33 (8.46%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (6.92%) Business Analyst
6 23 (5.90%) Architect
6 23 (5.90%) Senior
7 22 (5.64%) Lead
8 18 (4.62%) Data Engineer
9 16 (4.10%) Software Engineer
10 15 (3.85%) DBA
11 13 (3.33%) Payroll Consultant
12 10 (2.56%) Integration Specialist
12 10 (2.56%) SAP Consultant
12 10 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.56%) Tester
13 9 (2.31%) Applications Developer
13 9 (2.31%) Cloud Specialist
13 9 (2.31%) Senior Developer
13 9 (2.31%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 188 (48.21%) JSON
2 114 (29.23%) SOAP
3 112 (28.72%) REST
4 58 (14.87%) Web Services
5 44 (11.28%) XSLT
6 40 (10.26%) OAuth
7 33 (8.46%) JWT
8 32 (8.21%) .NET
8 32 (8.21%) Middleware
9 30 (7.69%) Oracle Fusion
10 28 (7.18%) HTML
11 24 (6.15%) Kafka
11 24 (6.15%) RESTful
12 23 (5.90%) Swagger
13 22 (5.64%) XSD
14 18 (4.62%) CSS
14 18 (4.62%) EDI
15 17 (4.36%) JMS
15 17 (4.36%) OAuth2
16 16 (4.10%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.36%) Data Structures
2 14 (3.59%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.08%) Management Information System
3 12 (3.08%) Public Cloud
3 12 (3.08%) Replication
4 9 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.05%) Fixed Income
5 8 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (1.79%) Derivative
7 6 (1.54%) Credit Risk
7 6 (1.54%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.54%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.28%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.28%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.28%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.28%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.28%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 4 (1.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 4 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 32 (8.21%) Linux
2 27 (6.92%) Unix
3 17 (4.36%) Windows
4 5 (1.28%) AIX
5 2 (0.51%) Android
5 2 (0.51%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.51%) VMS
6 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (30.51%) Agile
2 94 (24.10%) Problem-Solving
3 91 (23.33%) DevOps
4 60 (15.38%) CI/CD
5 52 (13.33%) Validation
6 51 (13.08%) Data Modelling
7 49 (12.56%) ERP
8 47 (12.05%) Migration
9 43 (11.03%) Integration Patterns
10 38 (9.74%) ETL
11 36 (9.23%) Requirements Gathering
11 36 (9.23%) Workflow
12 34 (8.72%) SDLC
13 33 (8.46%) Stakeholder Management
14 32 (8.21%) Microservices
14 32 (8.21%) Scrum
15 30 (7.69%) Computer Science
15 30 (7.69%) Mentoring
15 30 (7.69%) Software Engineering
16 29 (7.44%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 157 (40.26%) SQL
2 80 (20.51%) Java
3 51 (13.08%) Python
4 49 (12.56%) C#
5 38 (9.74%) JavaScript
6 32 (8.21%) T-SQL
7 19 (4.87%) PL/SQL
8 17 (4.36%) XPath
9 10 (2.56%) PowerShell
10 9 (2.31%) ABAP
10 9 (2.31%) Shell Script
11 7 (1.79%) Korn
12 5 (1.28%) Perl
13 4 (1.03%) Bicep
13 4 (1.03%) C++
13 4 (1.03%) DataWeave
13 4 (1.03%) Kotlin
13 4 (1.03%) Scala
14 3 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 3 (0.77%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 96 (24.62%) Security Cleared
2 68 (17.44%) SC Cleared
3 38 (9.74%) Degree
4 22 (5.64%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.79%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.79%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.54%) ISEB
7 6 (1.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (1.28%) CCNP
8 5 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.28%) DBS Check
9 4 (1.03%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.03%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.51%) CCNA
10 2 (0.51%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.51%) OCP
10 2 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
10 2 (0.51%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.51%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.13%) QA
2 15 (3.85%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.56%) GDPR
4 6 (1.54%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.28%) PSD2
6 4 (1.03%) GAAP
6 4 (1.03%) HL7
7 3 (0.77%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.77%) FATCA
7 3 (0.77%) ISO 8583
7 3 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.51%) Basel III
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.51%) SEPA
8 2 (0.51%) SLA
9 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.26%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 22 (5.64%) Docker
2 4 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.77%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.26%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 17 (4.36%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.79%) Ansible
2 7 (1.79%) TIBCO Hawk
3 5 (1.28%) Puppet
4 4 (1.03%) Control-M
5 3 (0.77%) Grafana
5 3 (0.77%) logstash
5 3 (0.77%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.51%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.51%) Fluentd
6 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.51%) QRadar
6 2 (0.51%) Terraform
7 1 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.26%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.26%) Kibana
7 1 (0.26%) Podman
7 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.26%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 113 (28.97%) Oracle
2 47 (12.05%) Microsoft
3 42 (10.77%) SAP
4 28 (7.18%) IBM
5 20 (5.13%) MuleSoft
6 19 (4.87%) Workday
7 18 (4.62%) ServiceNow
8 17 (4.36%) webMethods
9 11 (2.82%) Informatica
10 9 (2.31%) Red Hat
10 9 (2.31%) Splunk
11 8 (2.05%) Google
11 8 (2.05%) Pega
11 8 (2.05%) TIBCO
12 7 (1.79%) BEA
12 7 (1.79%) Databricks
12 7 (1.79%) Dell
12 7 (1.79%) Talend
13 5 (1.28%) Computacenter
13 5 (1.28%) OpenText