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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 257 182
Rank change year-on-year -37 -75 +18
Contract jobs citing XML 389 297 571
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.02% 1.29%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.13% 4.53% 6.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 209 354
10th Percentile £350 £350 £381
25th Percentile £389 £402 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -13.64% -
75th Percentile £588 £586 £626
90th Percentile £688 £650 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £510
% change year-on-year -1.11% -11.76% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 38
10th Percentile £40.75 £22.73 -
25th Percentile £46.25 £25.54 £43.75
Median hourly rate £47.50 £60.13 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.00% +26.59% -33.33%
75th Percentile £54.13 £93.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 - £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £24.83 £47.50
% change year-on-year +91.30% -47.73% -33.33%

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 9,412 6,563 8,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.07% 22.60% 20.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,272 4,482 6,282
10th Percentile £358 £363 £331
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £493 £500
% change year-on-year +1.42% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 98 184
10th Percentile £35.05 £26.25 £20.58
25th Percentile £52.50 £40.19 £36.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +31.58% -26.92%
75th Percentile £70.75 £68.56 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £83.27 £74.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.97
% change year-on-year - +35.52% -23.26%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -10 357 £475 - 111
UK excluding London -46 176 £445 -1.11% 104
London -27 170 £525 +2.44% 32
Work from Home -44 104 £455 - 58
North of England -39 68 £397 -11.31% 24
South East -30 60 £500 +8.99% 27
North West -17 57 £391 -12.47% 15
Midlands -49 30 £450 -20.00% 17
West Midlands -42 23 £450 -21.74% 6
East of England -19 12 £700 - 10
Yorkshire -49 11 £456 -22.34% 7
East Midlands -26 7 £525 +46.65% 11
South West -22 6 £475 +26.67% 11
Scotland -9 4 £500 +5.26% 10

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 (4.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 17 (4.37%) WebLogic
3 16 (4.11%) Confluence
4 10 (2.57%) WebSphere
5 7 (1.80%) Apache
5 7 (1.80%) Oracle Workflow
6 6 (1.54%) Anypoint
7 4 (1.03%) JBoss
7 4 (1.03%) Mule
7 4 (1.03%) Oracle Service Bus
8 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.77%) CMS
8 3 (0.77%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.51%) Appian
9 2 (0.51%) Documentum
9 2 (0.51%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.51%) Mule ESB
9 2 (0.51%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.26%) BizTalk Server
10 1 (0.26%) SAS
Applications
1 33 (8.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.03%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.51%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.26%) 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
3 8 (2.06%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (2.06%) Oracle Receivables
3 8 (2.06%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.80%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.80%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (1.80%) SAP HCM
5 5 (1.29%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (1.29%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 5 (1.29%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (1.29%) Summit
6 4 (1.03%) Maximo
6 4 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
6 4 (1.03%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (1.03%) Oracle Cash Management
7 3 (0.77%) Findur
7 3 (0.77%) Workday HCM
8 2 (0.51%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 84 (21.59%) Azure
2 56 (14.40%) AWS
3 29 (7.46%) OCI
4 27 (6.94%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (5.91%) Power Platform
5 23 (5.91%) SaaS
6 22 (5.66%) GCP
7 21 (5.40%) GitHub
8 17 (4.37%) PaaS
9 16 (4.11%) Serverless
10 15 (3.86%) Boomi
10 15 (3.86%) IaaS
11 13 (3.34%) Apigee
11 13 (3.34%) Azure Data Factory
11 13 (3.34%) Cloud Computing
11 13 (3.34%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.57%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (2.31%) Kong
14 8 (2.06%) Azure API Management
14 8 (2.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 27 (6.94%) HTTP
2 13 (3.34%) HTTPS
3 8 (2.06%) Firewall
4 6 (1.54%) 3GPP
4 6 (1.54%) FTP
5 4 (1.03%) RTCP
5 4 (1.03%) RTP
5 4 (1.03%) XCAP
6 2 (0.51%) 5G
6 2 (0.51%) BGP
6 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 2 (0.51%) FIX Connectivity
6 2 (0.51%) MPLS
6 2 (0.51%) VPN
7 1 (0.26%) DNS
7 1 (0.26%) PPP
7 1 (0.26%) SMS
7 1 (0.26%) SSL
7 1 (0.26%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (11.57%) Relational Database
2 42 (10.80%) SQL Server
3 24 (6.17%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (5.66%) MongoDB
4 22 (5.66%) PostgreSQL
5 21 (5.40%) RDBMS
6 20 (5.14%) NoSQL
7 18 (4.63%) Power BI
8 17 (4.37%) Oracle Reports
9 14 (3.60%) Metadata
10 13 (3.34%) Oracle Database
11 11 (2.83%) Data Lake
12 10 (2.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 9 (2.31%) DataStage
13 9 (2.31%) MySQL
14 8 (2.06%) DB2
15 6 (1.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 6 (1.54%) Tableau
16 5 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (1.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 48 (12.34%) Postman
2 47 (12.08%) JIRA
3 43 (11.05%) Git
4 23 (5.91%) Jenkins
5 16 (4.11%) JUnit
6 15 (3.86%) Selenium
6 15 (3.86%) SoapUI
7 12 (3.08%) Cucumber
7 12 (3.08%) Maven
8 9 (2.31%) Eclipse
8 9 (2.31%) SpecFlow
8 9 (2.31%) TestRail
8 9 (2.31%) Zephyr
9 7 (1.80%) Toad
10 6 (1.54%) GitLab
10 6 (1.54%) Subversion
11 5 (1.29%) MSTest
12 4 (1.03%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.77%) JMeter
13 3 (0.77%) Oracle Forms
General
1 120 (30.85%) Social Skills
2 82 (21.08%) Finance
3 77 (19.79%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (9.77%) Public Sector
5 37 (9.51%) Banking
6 19 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (3.34%) Investment Banking
7 13 (3.34%) Legal
8 11 (2.83%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.54%) Military
10 5 (1.29%) General Ledger
10 5 (1.29%) Retail
11 4 (1.03%) Advertising
11 4 (1.03%) Aerospace
11 4 (1.03%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.03%) Publishing
12 3 (0.77%) Back Office
12 3 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.77%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 97 (24.94%) Developer
2 61 (15.68%) Consultant
3 59 (15.17%) Analyst
4 33 (8.48%) Implementation Consultant
5 28 (7.20%) Business Analyst
6 23 (5.91%) Architect
6 23 (5.91%) Lead
6 23 (5.91%) Senior
7 17 (4.37%) Data Engineer
8 16 (4.11%) Software Engineer
9 15 (3.86%) DBA
10 13 (3.34%) Payroll Consultant
11 12 (3.08%) Integration Developer
12 10 (2.57%) Integration Specialist
12 10 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.57%) Technical Analyst
12 10 (2.57%) Tester
13 9 (2.31%) Java Developer
13 9 (2.31%) Oracle Specialist
13 9 (2.31%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (49.10%) JSON
2 118 (30.33%) SOAP
3 117 (30.08%) REST
4 53 (13.62%) Web Services
5 41 (10.54%) OAuth
6 40 (10.28%) XSLT
7 33 (8.48%) JWT
8 31 (7.97%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (7.71%) .NET
10 28 (7.20%) HTML
11 25 (6.43%) Middleware
12 24 (6.17%) RESTful
13 22 (5.66%) Kafka
13 22 (5.66%) Swagger
14 21 (5.40%) XSD
15 20 (5.14%) JMS
16 18 (4.63%) CSS
17 17 (4.37%) EDI
18 16 (4.11%) OAuth2
19 15 (3.86%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.37%) Data Structures
2 13 (3.34%) Public Cloud
3 12 (3.08%) Management Information System
4 11 (2.83%) Product Ownership
5 10 (2.57%) Replication
6 9 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (2.06%) Fixed Income
7 8 (2.06%) Onboarding
8 7 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.80%) Derivative
9 6 (1.54%) CMDB
9 6 (1.54%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 5 (1.29%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.29%) Credit Risk
10 5 (1.29%) Digital Wallet
10 5 (1.29%) Market Risk
11 4 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.03%) Cloud Native
11 4 (1.03%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.00%) Linux
2 27 (6.94%) Unix
3 16 (4.11%) Windows
4 5 (1.29%) AIX
5 3 (0.77%) Android
5 3 (0.77%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.51%) VMS
7 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (32.65%) Agile
2 104 (26.74%) DevOps
3 99 (25.45%) Problem-Solving
4 67 (17.22%) CI/CD
5 61 (15.68%) Validation
6 49 (12.60%) ERP
7 48 (12.34%) Data Modelling
8 45 (11.57%) Migration
9 44 (11.31%) Integration Patterns
10 41 (10.54%) ETL
11 40 (10.28%) Requirements Gathering
12 37 (9.51%) SDLC
13 34 (8.74%) Scrum
14 33 (8.48%) Stakeholder Management
14 33 (8.48%) Workflow
15 32 (8.23%) Microservices
15 32 (8.23%) Test Automation
16 31 (7.97%) Computer Science
17 30 (7.71%) Mentoring
18 29 (7.46%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 158 (40.62%) SQL
2 85 (21.85%) Java
3 56 (14.40%) C#
4 53 (13.62%) Python
5 39 (10.03%) T-SQL
6 38 (9.77%) JavaScript
7 18 (4.63%) PL/SQL
8 16 (4.11%) XPath
9 15 (3.86%) PowerShell
10 9 (2.31%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.06%) ABAP
11 8 (2.06%) Groovy
12 7 (1.80%) Korn
13 5 (1.29%) C++
13 5 (1.29%) Kotlin
13 5 (1.29%) Perl
14 4 (1.03%) Bicep
14 4 (1.03%) Scala
15 3 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.51%) R
Qualifications
1 98 (25.19%) Security Cleared
2 70 (17.99%) SC Cleared
3 39 (10.03%) Degree
4 22 (5.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.34%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.57%) ISTQB
7 8 (2.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 7 (1.80%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.54%) ISEB
10 5 (1.29%) CCNP
10 5 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.29%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.29%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.29%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.29%) PMP
11 4 (1.03%) Azure Certification
11 4 (1.03%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.51%) CCNA
12 2 (0.51%) OCP
12 2 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.17%) QA
2 14 (3.60%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.31%) GDPR
4 6 (1.54%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.29%) PSD2
6 4 (1.03%) GAAP
7 3 (0.77%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.77%) FATCA
7 3 (0.77%) HL7
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
9 1 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 1 (0.26%) GxP
9 1 (0.26%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 21 (5.40%) Docker
2 3 (0.77%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.26%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 13 (3.34%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.80%) TIBCO Hawk
3 6 (1.54%) Ansible
4 5 (1.29%) Control-M
4 5 (1.29%) Puppet
5 3 (0.77%) Grafana
5 3 (0.77%) logstash
6 2 (0.51%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.51%) Fluentd
6 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.51%) Kibana
6 2 (0.51%) QRadar
6 2 (0.51%) Terraform
7 1 (0.26%) CEMLI
7 1 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.26%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.26%) Podman
7 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.26%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 109 (28.02%) Oracle
2 43 (11.05%) Microsoft
3 39 (10.03%) SAP
4 29 (7.46%) IBM
5 18 (4.63%) MuleSoft
6 15 (3.86%) webMethods
7 14 (3.60%) Workday
8 13 (3.34%) ServiceNow
9 11 (2.83%) Informatica
9 11 (2.83%) Splunk
10 9 (2.31%) Google
10 9 (2.31%) Pega
11 8 (2.06%) TIBCO
12 7 (1.80%) BEA
12 7 (1.80%) Talend
13 6 (1.54%) Bloomberg
13 6 (1.54%) Databricks
13 6 (1.54%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.54%) Software AG
14 5 (1.29%) Dell