XML Contract Job Trends

XML
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring XML skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 243 178 196
Rank change year-on-year -65 +18 -6
Contract jobs citing XML 378 544 655
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.15% 1.41% 1.33%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 5.04% 6.30% 5.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 297 402
10th Percentile £340 £325 £406
25th Percentile £413 £430 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% -7.27% -1.35%
75th Percentile £575 £606 £650
90th Percentile £688 £675 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £528
% change year-on-year -5.00% -5.21% +0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 44 23
10th Percentile £30.63 - £39.21
25th Percentile £31.25 - £50.44
Median hourly rate £42.75 £43.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.58% -38.57% +59.16%
75th Percentile £43.75 - £75.00
90th Percentile £91.88 £85.00 £77.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £43.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -1.16% -38.57% +48.97%

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 7,498 8,630 10,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.76% 22.41% 22.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,987 5,626 7,855
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £794 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.24% - -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 187 176
10th Percentile £31.25 £25.60 £35.94
25th Percentile £41.42 £43.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £54.00 £61.60 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.34% +2.67% -4.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £73.67
90th Percentile £72.40 £74.65 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.25 £65.00 £59.03
% change year-on-year -13.46% +10.11% -6.24%

XML
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing XML as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for XML 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 18 September 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 18 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 16 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 18 September 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 -73 312 £500 -2.44% 192
UK excluding London -42 172 £475 -5.00% 163
London -63 151 £525 - 67
Work from Home -24 148 £480 -5.88% 160
South East +5 42 £475 +49.61% 49
North of England -5 42 £475 -16.23% 30
North West +8 34 £453 -2.05% 16
East of England -27 30 £488 -2.50% 13
Midlands -39 23 £430 -23.42% 29
West Midlands -29 19 £430 -24.16% 15
Wales +17 16 £375 +102.07% 5
South West +20 13 £375 -27.71% 19
Scotland +3 8 £500 - 16
Yorkshire -30 7 £550 -8.10% 11
East Midlands -5 4 £270 -33.54% 13
North East - 1 £200 - 3

XML
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 17 (4.50%) WebLogic
2 16 (4.23%) Apache
3 15 (3.97%) Anypoint
3 15 (3.97%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 14 (3.70%) Mule
5 13 (3.44%) Confluence
6 11 (2.91%) IIS
6 11 (2.91%) MQSeries
7 10 (2.65%) Oracle Service Bus
8 9 (2.38%) WebSphere
9 7 (1.85%) JBoss
9 7 (1.85%) nginx
10 5 (1.32%) Mule ESB
11 4 (1.06%) Alfresco
11 4 (1.06%) Appian
11 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (1.06%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (1.06%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.79%) Camunda
12 3 (0.79%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 16 (4.23%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (3.44%) Siemens NX
3 11 (2.91%) FrameMaker
4 6 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
5 5 (1.32%) MS Visio
6 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.26%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 13 (3.44%) Teamcenter
2 11 (2.91%) Oracle BPM
3 7 (1.85%) Maximo
4 4 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.79%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.79%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.79%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.79%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.53%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.53%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.26%) Endur
7 1 (0.26%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.26%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.26%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.26%) SAP MRS
Cloud Services
1 93 (24.60%) Azure
2 53 (14.02%) AWS
3 29 (7.67%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (7.14%) GitHub
5 18 (4.76%) Serverless
6 14 (3.70%) Power Automate
6 14 (3.70%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.17%) GCP
8 11 (2.91%) Cloud Computing
8 11 (2.91%) SaaS
9 10 (2.65%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (2.65%) Azure Logic Apps
10 9 (2.38%) Azure Service Bus
10 9 (2.38%) Entra ID
10 9 (2.38%) Nutanix
11 8 (2.12%) PowerApps
12 7 (1.85%) Amazon EventBridge
12 7 (1.85%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.85%) Amazon SQS
13 6 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 26 (6.88%) HTTP
2 21 (5.56%) HTTPS
3 9 (2.38%) SSL
4 7 (1.85%) AMQP
4 7 (1.85%) DSL
4 7 (1.85%) Firewall
4 7 (1.85%) NFC
4 7 (1.85%) PPP
5 5 (1.32%) LAN
6 4 (1.06%) VPN
7 3 (0.79%) BGP
7 3 (0.79%) DNS
7 3 (0.79%) WAN
8 2 (0.53%) 3G
8 2 (0.53%) Ethernet VPN
8 2 (0.53%) GPRS
8 2 (0.53%) Internet
8 2 (0.53%) MPLS
8 2 (0.53%) SMS
8 2 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (13.76%) SQL Server
2 44 (11.64%) Relational Database
3 19 (5.03%) Oracle Database
4 18 (4.76%) MongoDB
5 16 (4.23%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (3.70%) MySQL
7 12 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (2.91%) DB2
9 9 (2.38%) Redis
10 8 (2.12%) Amazon RDS
10 8 (2.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (1.85%) Apache Cassandra
11 7 (1.85%) NoSQL
11 7 (1.85%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.59%) Big Data
12 6 (1.59%) MariaDB
12 6 (1.59%) Power BI
13 5 (1.32%) Amazon QuickSight
13 5 (1.32%) Data Lake
13 5 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 52 (13.76%) Git
2 47 (12.43%) JIRA
3 33 (8.73%) Jenkins
4 22 (5.82%) Postman
5 19 (5.03%) GitLab
5 19 (5.03%) SoapUI
6 18 (4.76%) JUnit
7 14 (3.70%) Eclipse
7 14 (3.70%) Selenium
8 9 (2.38%) Browser DevTools
9 8 (2.12%) Cucumber
10 7 (1.85%) Ant
10 7 (1.85%) Firebug
10 7 (1.85%) IntelliJ
10 7 (1.85%) Maven
10 7 (1.85%) PVCS
10 7 (1.85%) Valgrind
11 6 (1.59%) Gradle
12 5 (1.32%) SonarQube
12 5 (1.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 115 (30.42%) Social Skills
2 72 (19.05%) Finance
3 53 (14.02%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (11.38%) Banking
5 33 (8.73%) Public Sector
6 14 (3.70%) Publishing
7 11 (2.91%) Back Office
7 11 (2.91%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.12%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.85%) Aerospace
10 7 (1.85%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.85%) Investment Banking
11 6 (1.59%) Digital Healthcare
11 6 (1.59%) Front Office
12 5 (1.32%) Automotive
12 5 (1.32%) General Ledger
12 5 (1.32%) Private Banking
13 3 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.53%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 133 (35.19%) Developer
2 52 (13.76%) Analyst
3 45 (11.90%) Senior
4 34 (8.99%) Consultant
5 25 (6.61%) Business Analyst
6 23 (6.08%) Architect
7 21 (5.56%) Software Engineer
8 19 (5.03%) Senior Developer
9 18 (4.76%) Applications Engineer
9 18 (4.76%) Integration Developer
10 16 (4.23%) Lead
11 14 (3.70%) Author
11 14 (3.70%) Support Engineer
11 14 (3.70%) Technical Author
12 12 (3.17%) Configuration Engineer
12 12 (3.17%) Java Developer
13 11 (2.91%) Data Engineer
13 11 (2.91%) Tester
14 10 (2.65%) Oracle Consultant
14 10 (2.65%) webMethods Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (50.00%) JSON
2 128 (33.86%) SOAP
3 115 (30.42%) REST
4 56 (14.81%) HTML
5 55 (14.55%) Web Services
6 42 (11.11%) OAuth
7 36 (9.52%) RESTful
8 29 (7.67%) Spring
9 28 (7.41%) OAuth2
10 25 (6.61%) Kafka
11 24 (6.35%) CSS
11 24 (6.35%) JMS
12 23 (6.08%) .NET
13 22 (5.82%) XSLT
14 21 (5.56%) Swagger
14 21 (5.56%) XSD
15 20 (5.29%) React
16 19 (5.03%) Middleware
17 18 (4.76%) Hibernate
18 17 (4.50%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.56%) Virtual Team
2 20 (5.29%) Cloud Native
3 15 (3.97%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
5 12 (3.17%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (2.91%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 10 (2.65%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.12%) Data Structures
8 8 (2.12%) Replication
9 7 (1.85%) Onboarding
9 7 (1.85%) Smartcard
10 6 (1.59%) DTCC
11 5 (1.32%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.32%) AS400
11 5 (1.32%) Clustering
11 5 (1.32%) Derivative
11 5 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (1.32%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.32%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.32%) PACS
Operating Systems
1 33 (8.73%) Linux
2 31 (8.20%) Windows
3 23 (6.08%) Unix
4 9 (2.38%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.85%) Ubuntu
6 5 (1.32%) AIX
6 5 (1.32%) Android
6 5 (1.32%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.53%) CentOS
9 1 (0.26%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (38.89%) Agile
2 112 (29.63%) DevOps
3 82 (21.69%) CI/CD
4 73 (19.31%) Problem-Solving
5 69 (18.25%) Test Automation
6 51 (13.49%) Scrum
7 43 (11.38%) Migration
8 40 (10.58%) ETL
9 38 (10.05%) Microservices
10 35 (9.26%) API Management
11 34 (8.99%) SDLC
12 31 (8.20%) Deployment Automation
12 31 (8.20%) Mentoring
13 30 (7.94%) Workflow
14 28 (7.41%) Software Engineering
14 28 (7.41%) User Acceptance Testing
14 28 (7.41%) Validation
15 27 (7.14%) Computer Science
16 26 (6.88%) API Design
17 25 (6.61%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 144 (38.10%) SQL
2 108 (28.57%) Java
3 75 (19.84%) JavaScript
4 71 (18.78%) Python
5 45 (11.90%) C#
6 30 (7.94%) PL/SQL
7 20 (5.29%) PowerShell
8 16 (4.23%) C++
9 10 (2.65%) DataWeave
10 9 (2.38%) C
10 9 (2.38%) T-SQL
11 8 (2.12%) ABAP
11 8 (2.12%) RPG
11 8 (2.12%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.12%) TypeScript
12 7 (1.85%) VBA
13 5 (1.32%) Scala
14 4 (1.06%) Apex Code
14 4 (1.06%) Perl
14 4 (1.06%) PHP
Qualifications
1 97 (25.66%) Security Cleared
2 80 (21.16%) SC Cleared
3 48 (12.70%) Degree
4 23 (6.08%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.17%) HNC
5 12 (3.17%) HND
6 10 (2.65%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.59%) ISEB
7 6 (1.59%) ISTQB
8 5 (1.32%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.79%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.53%) CEH
10 2 (0.53%) GIAC
10 2 (0.53%) GWAPT
10 2 (0.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.53%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.53%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.26%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (8.99%) Data Quality
2 28 (7.41%) QA
3 11 (2.91%) SEPA
4 8 (2.12%) EMIR
5 6 (1.59%) HL7
5 6 (1.59%) MiFID
6 3 (0.79%) Accessibility
6 3 (0.79%) DICOM
6 3 (0.79%) GAAP
6 3 (0.79%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.79%) SLA
6 3 (0.79%) WCAG
7 2 (0.53%) GxP
8 1 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 1 (0.26%) AIFMD
8 1 (0.26%) GDPR
8 1 (0.26%) GMP
8 1 (0.26%) IFRS
8 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 48 (12.70%) Docker
2 6 (1.59%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.26%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 1 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 27 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.50%) Ansible
3 10 (2.65%) Control-M
4 9 (2.38%) Terraform
5 6 (1.59%) Kibana
6 5 (1.32%) Puppet
7 4 (1.06%) CloudHub
7 4 (1.06%) logstash
7 4 (1.06%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.26%) Podman
9 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 67 (17.72%) Oracle
2 57 (15.08%) Microsoft
3 35 (9.26%) SAP
4 28 (7.41%) IBM
5 19 (5.03%) ServiceNow
6 16 (4.23%) MuleSoft
6 16 (4.23%) webMethods
7 13 (3.44%) Salesforce
8 11 (2.91%) Dynatrace
8 11 (2.91%) Workday
9 9 (2.38%) Axway
10 8 (2.12%) Blue Prism
10 8 (2.12%) Cisco
10 8 (2.12%) Pega
11 7 (1.85%) Splunk
12 6 (1.59%) Informatica
13 5 (1.32%) Databricks
13 5 (1.32%) EMC
13 5 (1.32%) Software AG
13 5 (1.32%) VMware