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 21 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 234 227 195
Rank change year-on-year -7 -32 +14
Contract jobs citing XML 430 367 550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.08% 1.26%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 5.23% 4.93% 5.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 235 348
10th Percentile £335 £203 £362
25th Percentile £387 £392 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% -0.05%
75th Percentile £600 £581 £613
90th Percentile £700 £650 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £432 £445 £523
% change year-on-year -2.92% -14.83% +4.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 1 34
10th Percentile £31.25 - £41.50
25th Percentile £40.75 £91.25 -
Median hourly rate £43.00 £92.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year -53.51% +89.86% -2.56%
75th Percentile £48.75 £93.75 £69.25
90th Percentile £84.20 - £78.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 - £48.72
% change year-on-year - - +3.68%

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 8,225 7,446 9,651
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.39% 21.93% 22.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,450 4,726 6,854
10th Percentile £354 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -0.91% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 93 173
10th Percentile £30.75 £21.40 £32.60
25th Percentile £43.00 £35.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £58.00 £62.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.20% +19.05% -19.23%
75th Percentile £67.00 £65.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £74.97 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.25 £65.00 £51.89
% change year-on-year -2.69% +25.26% -20.17%

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 21 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025. 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 +7 370 £475 -5.00% 70
UK excluding London +9 183 £432 -2.92% 59
London -13 180 £518 -3.27% 27
Work from Home +15 167 £475 +7.34% 40
North of England -16 50 £442 -11.86% 12
South East -32 41 £400 +14.29% 21
North West -6 40 £425 -3.95% 7
East of England +11 35 £550 - 9
Midlands -33 29 £429 -19.17% 8
West Midlands -26 26 £429 -23.97% 3
South West -3 14 £375 -15.49% 7
Scotland +3 10 £500 +11.11% 5
Yorkshire -44 10 £650 +14.64% 5
Wales -3 8 £375 +89.87%
East Midlands -19 3 - - 5

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 29 (6.74%) WebLogic
2 22 (5.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 15 (3.49%) Apache
4 14 (3.26%) Confluence
4 14 (3.26%) Oracle Service Bus
5 13 (3.02%) Anypoint
5 13 (3.02%) Mule
6 10 (2.33%) JBoss
7 7 (1.63%) Appian
7 7 (1.63%) MQSeries
7 7 (1.63%) nginx
7 7 (1.63%) WebSphere
8 5 (1.16%) IIS
8 5 (1.16%) Tomcat
9 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.93%) Mule ESB
10 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.70%) Documentum
10 3 (0.70%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.23%) SAS
Applications
1 18 (4.19%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.56%) FrameMaker
3 10 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.47%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.23%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.23%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 11 (2.56%) Oracle BPM
2 8 (1.86%) SAP Payroll
3 7 (1.63%) SAP HCM
4 6 (1.40%) Maximo
4 6 (1.40%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.16%) BusinessWorks
6 4 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.93%) Oracle 11i
6 4 (0.93%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.70%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.47%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.47%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.47%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.23%) Aladdin
9 1 (0.23%) Endur
9 1 (0.23%) SAP MDG
9 1 (0.23%) Sonata
Cloud Services
1 101 (23.49%) Azure
2 70 (16.28%) AWS
3 31 (7.21%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (6.51%) GitHub
5 20 (4.65%) GCP
5 20 (4.65%) Power Platform
6 18 (4.19%) SaaS
7 17 (3.95%) Cloud Computing
7 17 (3.95%) OCI
7 17 (3.95%) Serverless
8 15 (3.49%) Power Automate
9 14 (3.26%) Tricentis Tosca
10 12 (2.79%) Dynamics 365
10 12 (2.79%) SuccessFactors
11 11 (2.56%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (2.33%) Amazon S3
12 10 (2.33%) Apigee
12 10 (2.33%) Boomi
12 10 (2.33%) PaaS
13 9 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 35 (8.14%) HTTPS
2 33 (7.67%) HTTP
3 10 (2.33%) Firewall
3 10 (2.33%) SSL
4 7 (1.63%) AMQP
4 7 (1.63%) DSL
5 4 (0.93%) NFC
5 4 (0.93%) PPP
6 3 (0.70%) VPN
7 2 (0.47%) 5G
7 2 (0.47%) BGP
7 2 (0.47%) DNS
7 2 (0.47%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 2 (0.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (0.47%) FTP
7 2 (0.47%) MPLS
7 2 (0.47%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.23%) NAS
8 1 (0.23%) Network Security
8 1 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (14.65%) Relational Database
2 45 (10.47%) SQL Server
3 22 (5.12%) MongoDB
4 19 (4.42%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (4.42%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (3.95%) Oracle Database
6 15 (3.49%) MySQL
7 14 (3.26%) RDBMS
8 13 (3.02%) DataStage
9 11 (2.56%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (2.56%) Power BI
10 10 (2.33%) Metadata
11 9 (2.09%) Amazon Redshift
11 9 (2.09%) NoSQL
12 8 (1.86%) Amazon QuickSight
12 8 (1.86%) Apache Cassandra
12 8 (1.86%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (1.63%) Big Data
13 7 (1.63%) MariaDB
13 7 (1.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 63 (14.65%) Git
2 59 (13.72%) JIRA
3 42 (9.77%) Postman
4 40 (9.30%) Jenkins
5 29 (6.74%) Selenium
6 23 (5.35%) Cucumber
6 23 (5.35%) JUnit
7 16 (3.72%) GitLab
8 15 (3.49%) Eclipse
9 12 (2.79%) SoapUI
10 11 (2.56%) IntelliJ
11 10 (2.33%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (2.33%) Firebug
12 9 (2.09%) PVCS
12 9 (2.09%) SpecFlow
12 9 (2.09%) TestRail
12 9 (2.09%) Zephyr
13 8 (1.86%) SonarQube
14 7 (1.63%) Robot Framework
14 7 (1.63%) Toad
General
1 157 (36.51%) Social Skills
2 82 (19.07%) Finance
3 81 (18.84%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (11.16%) Public Sector
5 38 (8.84%) Banking
6 15 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (3.49%) Publishing
7 13 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.56%) Telecoms
9 10 (2.33%) Aerospace
9 10 (2.33%) Back Office
10 9 (2.09%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.86%) Private Banking
12 6 (1.40%) Digital Healthcare
12 6 (1.40%) Financial Institution
12 6 (1.40%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.40%) Retail
13 5 (1.16%) Automotive
13 5 (1.16%) Front Office
13 5 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 139 (32.33%) Developer
2 62 (14.42%) Analyst
3 47 (10.93%) Consultant
4 32 (7.44%) Senior
5 26 (6.05%) Business Analyst
6 22 (5.12%) Software Engineer
7 21 (4.88%) Architect
8 19 (4.42%) Lead
9 18 (4.19%) Integration Developer
10 17 (3.95%) Support Engineer
11 16 (3.72%) webMethods Developer
12 15 (3.49%) Data Engineer
12 15 (3.49%) Java Developer
13 14 (3.26%) Author
13 14 (3.26%) Technical Author
14 12 (2.79%) Oracle Consultant
14 12 (2.79%) Senior Developer
14 12 (2.79%) Tester
15 11 (2.56%) SAP Consultant
16 10 (2.33%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (53.72%) JSON
2 155 (36.05%) SOAP
3 143 (33.26%) REST
4 65 (15.12%) OAuth
5 52 (12.09%) Web Services
6 44 (10.23%) HTML
6 44 (10.23%) XSLT
7 39 (9.07%) RESTful
8 37 (8.60%) OAuth2
9 34 (7.91%) JMS
10 30 (6.98%) XSD
11 27 (6.28%) JWT
11 27 (6.28%) Spring
12 26 (6.05%) Swagger
13 23 (5.35%) .NET
14 22 (5.12%) CSS
14 22 (5.12%) Kafka
15 20 (4.65%) Hibernate
16 19 (4.42%) J2EE
16 19 (4.42%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 21 (4.88%) Cloud Native
2 19 (4.42%) Data Structures
3 18 (4.19%) Virtual Team
4 14 (3.26%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.79%) Replication
6 10 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.09%) Onboarding
8 8 (1.86%) Algorithms
8 8 (1.86%) AS400
8 8 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.86%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.86%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 7 (1.63%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.40%) Low-Code
10 6 (1.40%) Mobile App
11 4 (0.93%) CMDB
11 4 (0.93%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 41 (9.53%) Linux
2 27 (6.28%) Windows
3 24 (5.58%) Unix
4 5 (1.16%) AIX
4 5 (1.16%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.70%) Android
5 3 (0.70%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (37.44%) Agile
2 152 (35.35%) DevOps
3 104 (24.19%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (21.63%) CI/CD
5 68 (15.81%) Test Automation
6 61 (14.19%) Validation
7 57 (13.26%) Scrum
8 52 (12.09%) Migration
9 51 (11.86%) Microservices
10 48 (11.16%) Deployment Automation
11 44 (10.23%) Data Modelling
12 43 (10.00%) ETL
13 40 (9.30%) API Management
13 40 (9.30%) ERP
14 39 (9.07%) Data Migration
15 36 (8.37%) Computer Science
15 36 (8.37%) SDLC
16 34 (7.91%) Software Engineering
17 33 (7.67%) Continuous Improvement
18 31 (7.21%) API Design
Programming Languages
1 167 (38.84%) SQL
2 135 (31.40%) Java
3 72 (16.74%) Python
4 68 (15.81%) JavaScript
5 57 (13.26%) C#
6 30 (6.98%) PL/SQL
7 20 (4.65%) PowerShell
8 16 (3.72%) XPath
9 14 (3.26%) T-SQL
10 10 (2.33%) C++
11 9 (2.09%) ABAP
11 9 (2.09%) DataWeave
11 9 (2.09%) Scala
12 8 (1.86%) RPG
12 8 (1.86%) Shell Script
12 8 (1.86%) VBA
13 7 (1.63%) Groovy
14 6 (1.40%) Korn
15 5 (1.16%) Perl
16 4 (0.93%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 112 (26.05%) Security Cleared
2 91 (21.16%) SC Cleared
3 56 (13.02%) Degree
4 31 (7.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.79%) HNC
6 12 (2.79%) HND
7 11 (2.56%) ISTQB
8 10 (2.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.63%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.40%) ISEB
11 5 (1.16%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.93%) PMI Certification
13 3 (0.70%) CCNP
13 3 (0.70%) CEH
13 3 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.70%) GIAC
13 3 (0.70%) OCP
13 3 (0.70%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.70%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (7.21%) QA
2 29 (6.74%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.93%) SEPA
4 3 (0.70%) HL7
4 3 (0.70%) ISO 20022
4 3 (0.70%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.70%) SLA
5 2 (0.47%) EMIR
5 2 (0.47%) GDPR
5 2 (0.47%) GxP
5 2 (0.47%) PSD2
6 1 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 1 (0.23%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.23%) AIFMD
6 1 (0.23%) DICOM
6 1 (0.23%) GAAP
6 1 (0.23%) GMP
6 1 (0.23%) IFRS
6 1 (0.23%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 49 (11.40%) Docker
2 3 (0.70%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (4.88%) Kubernetes
2 18 (4.19%) Ansible
3 11 (2.56%) Control-M
4 10 (2.33%) Puppet
5 9 (2.09%) logstash
5 9 (2.09%) Terraform
6 8 (1.86%) Kibana
7 5 (1.16%) ITRS Geneos
7 5 (1.16%) TIBCO Hawk
8 4 (0.93%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.70%) CloudHub
10 2 (0.47%) Fluentd
10 2 (0.47%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.47%) QRadar
11 1 (0.23%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.23%) Podman
11 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 104 (24.19%) Oracle
2 55 (12.79%) Microsoft
3 52 (12.09%) SAP
4 38 (8.84%) IBM
5 32 (7.44%) webMethods
6 19 (4.42%) MuleSoft
7 15 (3.49%) Workday
8 14 (3.26%) ServiceNow
9 13 (3.02%) Splunk
10 12 (2.79%) Software AG
11 10 (2.33%) Axway
11 10 (2.33%) TIBCO
12 9 (2.09%) Blue Prism
12 9 (2.09%) Cisco
13 8 (1.86%) Pega
14 7 (1.63%) Red Hat
14 7 (1.63%) Salesforce
14 7 (1.63%) Veracode
15 5 (1.16%) Ariba
15 5 (1.16%) BEA