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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 263 173
Rank change year-on-year -31 -90 +36
Contract jobs citing XML 381 293 621
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 0.99% 1.42%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.04% 4.38% 6.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 205 347
10th Percentile £350 £353 £407
25th Percentile £400 £415 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £650 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £525
% change year-on-year -1.11% -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 65
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 £83.40
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 9,420 6,684 8,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.20% 22.65% 20.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,262 4,580 6,229
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £780 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 110 213
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.09 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £50.27 £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 £83.06 £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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -8 345 £495 +4.21% 98
UK excluding London -43 175 £445 -1.11% 91
London -31 162 £533 +1.43% 25
Work from Home -23 99 £453 -4.49% 68
North of England -40 67 £393 -12.64% 17
South East -43 60 £513 +28.13% 31
North West -13 58 £391 -12.67% 8
Midlands -40 28 £450 -18.18% 12
West Midlands -46 20 £450 -18.18% 3
East of England -32 11 £675 +38.46% 9
Yorkshire -56 9 £431 -21.59% 7
East Midlands -26 8 £525 +46.65% 9
South West -37 7 £548 +46.00% 13
Scotland -6 5 £500 +1.21% 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 18 (4.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 17 (4.46%) WebLogic
3 13 (3.41%) Confluence
4 11 (2.89%) WebSphere
5 10 (2.62%) Anypoint
6 7 (1.84%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (1.31%) Apache
7 5 (1.31%) CMS
7 5 (1.31%) Mule
8 4 (1.05%) Oracle Service Bus
9 3 (0.79%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.79%) JBoss
9 3 (0.79%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.79%) Mule ESB
9 3 (0.79%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 3 (0.79%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.52%) Appian
10 2 (0.52%) Documentum
10 2 (0.52%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.26%) SAS
Applications
1 33 (8.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.31%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.52%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.52%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.52%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.26%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 12 (3.15%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (2.10%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (2.10%) Oracle Receivables
3 8 (2.10%) SAP Payroll
4 7 (1.84%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.84%) Maximo
4 7 (1.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 6 (1.57%) SAP HCM
5 6 (1.57%) Summit
6 5 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (1.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 5 (1.31%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (1.05%) Oracle 11i
7 4 (1.05%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (1.05%) Oracle Cash Management
7 4 (1.05%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.79%) Findur
8 3 (0.79%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 84 (22.05%) Azure
2 51 (13.39%) AWS
3 28 (7.35%) OCI
4 25 (6.56%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (6.04%) GCP
6 22 (5.77%) Power Platform
7 19 (4.99%) GitHub
8 17 (4.46%) SaaS
9 16 (4.20%) PaaS
9 16 (4.20%) Serverless
10 14 (3.67%) IaaS
11 13 (3.41%) Apigee
11 13 (3.41%) Boomi
12 12 (3.15%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (2.89%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (2.89%) Cloud Computing
14 10 (2.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 10 (2.62%) Dynamics 365
15 9 (2.36%) Kong
15 9 (2.36%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 30 (7.87%) HTTP
2 9 (2.36%) FTP
2 9 (2.36%) HTTPS
3 6 (1.57%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.57%) Firewall
4 4 (1.05%) RTCP
4 4 (1.05%) RTP
4 4 (1.05%) XCAP
5 3 (0.79%) DNS
5 3 (0.79%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.52%) FIX Connectivity
6 2 (0.52%) VPN
7 1 (0.26%) 5G
7 1 (0.26%) BGP
7 1 (0.26%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 1 (0.26%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.26%) MPLS
7 1 (0.26%) Network Security
7 1 (0.26%) SAN
7 1 (0.26%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.55%) Relational Database
2 41 (10.76%) SQL Server
3 26 (6.82%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (5.77%) RDBMS
5 21 (5.51%) Data Warehouse
6 20 (5.25%) MongoDB
6 20 (5.25%) NoSQL
7 18 (4.72%) Power BI
8 16 (4.20%) Oracle Reports
9 15 (3.94%) Metadata
10 14 (3.67%) Oracle Database
11 11 (2.89%) Data Lake
11 11 (2.89%) MySQL
12 10 (2.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (2.10%) DB2
14 7 (1.84%) DataStage
15 6 (1.57%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (1.31%) Big Data
16 5 (1.31%) Oracle BI Publisher
16 5 (1.31%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 44 (11.55%) Git
1 44 (11.55%) Postman
2 40 (10.50%) JIRA
3 18 (4.72%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.67%) SoapUI
5 11 (2.89%) Cucumber
5 11 (2.89%) Selenium
6 10 (2.62%) JUnit
6 10 (2.62%) Maven
7 9 (2.36%) SpecFlow
7 9 (2.36%) TestRail
7 9 (2.36%) Zephyr
8 8 (2.10%) GitLab
9 7 (1.84%) Eclipse
10 6 (1.57%) Subversion
10 6 (1.57%) Toad
11 3 (0.79%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.79%) Hudson
11 3 (0.79%) JMeter
11 3 (0.79%) MSTest
General
1 123 (32.28%) Social Skills
2 76 (19.95%) Finance
3 71 (18.64%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.92%) Banking
4 34 (8.92%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (3.41%) Investment Banking
7 11 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (2.62%) Legal
9 8 (2.10%) Publishing
10 6 (1.57%) Military
10 6 (1.57%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.31%) General Ledger
12 4 (1.05%) Advertising
12 4 (1.05%) Billing
12 4 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.05%) Retail
13 3 (0.79%) Back Office
13 3 (0.79%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.79%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 89 (23.36%) Developer
2 68 (17.85%) Consultant
3 49 (12.86%) Analyst
4 33 (8.66%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.09%) Business Analyst
6 23 (6.04%) Senior
7 22 (5.77%) Architect
7 22 (5.77%) Lead
8 16 (4.20%) Software Engineer
9 15 (3.94%) Data Engineer
9 15 (3.94%) DBA
10 13 (3.41%) Payroll Consultant
11 10 (2.62%) Integration Specialist
12 9 (2.36%) Applications Developer
12 9 (2.36%) Cloud Specialist
12 9 (2.36%) Oracle Specialist
12 9 (2.36%) SAP Consultant
12 9 (2.36%) Senior Developer
12 9 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.36%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (48.29%) JSON
2 111 (29.13%) REST
3 110 (28.87%) SOAP
4 57 (14.96%) Web Services
5 44 (11.55%) XSLT
6 39 (10.24%) OAuth
7 33 (8.66%) Middleware
8 32 (8.40%) JWT
9 31 (8.14%) .NET
10 30 (7.87%) Oracle Fusion
11 26 (6.82%) HTML
12 24 (6.30%) Kafka
12 24 (6.30%) Swagger
13 23 (6.04%) RESTful
14 22 (5.77%) XSD
15 18 (4.72%) CSS
15 18 (4.72%) EDI
16 17 (4.46%) OpenAPI
17 16 (4.20%) JMS
17 16 (4.20%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.20%) Data Structures
2 14 (3.67%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.15%) Management Information System
3 12 (3.15%) Public Cloud
4 11 (2.89%) Replication
5 8 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.10%) Fixed Income
6 7 (1.84%) Derivative
6 7 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.57%) Credit Risk
7 6 (1.57%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.57%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.31%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.31%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.31%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.31%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.31%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 4 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 4 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 32 (8.40%) Linux
2 25 (6.56%) Unix
3 17 (4.46%) Windows
4 5 (1.31%) AIX
5 2 (0.52%) Android
5 2 (0.52%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.52%) VMS
6 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (30.45%) Agile
2 92 (24.15%) Problem-Solving
3 87 (22.83%) DevOps
4 59 (15.49%) CI/CD
5 51 (13.39%) Validation
6 49 (12.86%) Data Modelling
7 48 (12.60%) ERP
8 44 (11.55%) Integration Patterns
9 43 (11.29%) Migration
10 37 (9.71%) Workflow
11 36 (9.45%) ETL
12 35 (9.19%) Requirements Gathering
13 34 (8.92%) SDLC
14 33 (8.66%) Stakeholder Management
15 30 (7.87%) Computer Science
15 30 (7.87%) Microservices
15 30 (7.87%) Scrum
16 28 (7.35%) API Management
16 28 (7.35%) Software Engineering
16 28 (7.35%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 151 (39.63%) SQL
2 74 (19.42%) Java
3 50 (13.12%) Python
4 49 (12.86%) C#
5 38 (9.97%) JavaScript
6 32 (8.40%) T-SQL
7 18 (4.72%) PL/SQL
8 17 (4.46%) XPath
9 10 (2.62%) PowerShell
10 9 (2.36%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.10%) ABAP
12 7 (1.84%) Korn
13 6 (1.57%) DataWeave
14 5 (1.31%) Perl
15 4 (1.05%) Bicep
15 4 (1.05%) C++
15 4 (1.05%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.79%) Groovy
17 2 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 95 (24.93%) Security Cleared
2 67 (17.59%) SC Cleared
3 38 (9.97%) Degree
4 22 (5.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.57%) ISTQB
7 5 (1.31%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.31%) DBS Check
7 5 (1.31%) ISEB
7 5 (1.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (1.05%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.05%) CCNP
8 4 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.05%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.52%) HNC
9 2 (0.52%) HND
9 2 (0.52%) OCP
9 2 (0.52%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (0.52%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.52%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.25%) QA
2 13 (3.41%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.36%) GDPR
4 5 (1.31%) PCI DSS
4 5 (1.31%) PSD2
5 4 (1.05%) GAAP
5 4 (1.05%) HL7
6 3 (0.79%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (0.79%) FATCA
6 3 (0.79%) ISO 8583
6 3 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.52%) Basel III
7 2 (0.52%) IFRS
7 2 (0.52%) IFRS 17
7 2 (0.52%) IFRS 9
7 2 (0.52%) SEPA
7 2 (0.52%) SLA
8 1 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 1 (0.26%) GxP
8 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 20 (5.25%) Docker
2 4 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.79%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.26%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 17 (4.46%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.84%) Ansible
2 7 (1.84%) TIBCO Hawk
3 4 (1.05%) Control-M
4 3 (0.79%) Grafana
4 3 (0.79%) logstash
4 3 (0.79%) Puppet
4 3 (0.79%) vRealize Orchestrator
5 2 (0.52%) CloudHub
5 2 (0.52%) Fluentd
5 2 (0.52%) QRadar
5 2 (0.52%) Terraform
6 1 (0.26%) CEMLI
6 1 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.26%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.26%) Podman
6 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.26%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 111 (29.13%) Oracle
2 46 (12.07%) Microsoft
3 39 (10.24%) SAP
4 27 (7.09%) IBM
5 22 (5.77%) MuleSoft
6 19 (4.99%) Workday
7 18 (4.72%) ServiceNow
8 13 (3.41%) webMethods
9 11 (2.89%) Informatica
10 9 (2.36%) Red Hat
10 9 (2.36%) Splunk
11 8 (2.10%) Google
11 8 (2.10%) Pega
11 8 (2.10%) TIBCO
12 7 (1.84%) BEA
12 7 (1.84%) Databricks
12 7 (1.84%) Dell
13 6 (1.57%) Salesforce
13 6 (1.57%) Talend
14 5 (1.31%) OpenText