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 6 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 303 240 179
Rank change year-on-year -63 -61 +11
Contract jobs citing XML 462 381 518
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 1.16% 1.37%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.91% 4.47% 5.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 252 280
10th Percentile £325 £336 £323
25th Percentile £405 £413 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £576 £576
90th Percentile £698 £694 £646
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 26 42
10th Percentile - £30.63 -
25th Percentile - £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £29.07 £42.75 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.00% -0.58% -18.10%
75th Percentile £42.06 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £46.42 £91.88 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £42.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -31.60% -1.16% -11.74%

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 11,828 8,514 9,322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.64% 25.95% 24.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,768 5,649 6,037
10th Percentile £375 £354 £356
25th Percentile £440 £413 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £526 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £725 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 289 188 188
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.10 £25.60
25th Percentile £51.25 £41.13 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% -13.60% +4.17%
75th Percentile £77.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £70.00 £74.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.47 £56.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year +19.95% -13.46% +10.53%

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 6 October 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 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 17 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 6 October 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 -89 363 £488 -2.50% 350
London -59 194 £538 +2.38% 194
UK excluding London -92 178 £450 -5.26% 168
Work from Home -57 155 £525 +9.38% 139
South East -48 50 £460 -3.16% 54
Midlands -18 44 £418 -2.68% 23
West Midlands -25 38 £415 -3.38% 20
North of England -81 27 £381 -23.80% 30
Scotland -12 20 £450 -5.26% 17
South West -31 20 £575 +53.33% 22
North West -59 17 £416 -12.46% 17
East of England -44 12 £525 +7.69% 14
Yorkshire -32 10 £380 -43.70% 10
East Midlands -7 5 £494 +82.96% 3
Wales -27 3 £600 +60.00% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £650 - 3
Channel Islands - 1 £450 -

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 34 (7.36%) SharePoint
2 21 (4.55%) Confluence
3 16 (3.46%) Anypoint
3 16 (3.46%) IIS
3 16 (3.46%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (2.81%) Mule
5 10 (2.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 6 (1.30%) Apache
6 6 (1.30%) WebSphere
7 5 (1.08%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.65%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.65%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.43%) CICS
10 1 (0.22%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.22%) CMS
10 1 (0.22%) JBoss
10 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.22%) Mule ESB
10 1 (0.22%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 13 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.16%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.73%) Windchill
5 3 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) LaTeX
Business Applications
1 24 (5.19%) Oracle EBS
2 19 (4.11%) NetSuite
3 18 (3.90%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (3.25%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (2.60%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
7 8 (1.73%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (1.73%) Workday HCM
8 7 (1.52%) Oracle FAH
8 7 (1.52%) SAP FI
9 6 (1.30%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (1.30%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (1.08%) Elite 3E
10 5 (1.08%) FLEXCUBE
11 4 (0.87%) Maximo
11 4 (0.87%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 4 (0.87%) Oracle Internet Expenses
11 4 (0.87%) Oracle iProcurement
11 4 (0.87%) SAP CO
11 4 (0.87%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 130 (28.14%) Azure
2 70 (15.15%) AWS
3 55 (11.90%) Azure DevOps
4 49 (10.61%) Boomi
5 35 (7.58%) GCP
6 26 (5.63%) Power Platform
7 24 (5.19%) AtomSphere
8 21 (4.55%) Azure Service Bus
8 21 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (4.33%) GitHub
10 19 (4.11%) Azure Functions
10 19 (4.11%) Entra ID
10 19 (4.11%) Power Automate
10 19 (4.11%) Serverless
11 18 (3.90%) Azure Logic Apps
11 18 (3.90%) SaaS
12 15 (3.25%) iPaaS
13 12 (2.60%) PowerApps
14 9 (1.95%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (1.73%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 35 (7.58%) HTTP
2 11 (2.38%) FTP
3 7 (1.52%) SSL
4 6 (1.30%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.08%) Network Security
6 3 (0.65%) Wireless
7 2 (0.43%) DNS
7 2 (0.43%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.43%) Internet
7 2 (0.43%) Intranet
7 2 (0.43%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.43%) WAN
7 2 (0.43%) X.509
8 1 (0.22%) Bluetooth
8 1 (0.22%) Firewall
8 1 (0.22%) MQTT
8 1 (0.22%) NAS
8 1 (0.22%) NFC
8 1 (0.22%) SAN
8 1 (0.22%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (14.07%) SQL Server
2 40 (8.66%) Relational Database
3 27 (5.84%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.63%) Oracle Database
5 17 (3.68%) Oracle Reports
5 17 (3.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 15 (3.25%) MySQL
7 14 (3.03%) MS Access
8 12 (2.60%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 11 (2.38%) Metadata
9 11 (2.38%) MongoDB
9 11 (2.38%) RDBMS
9 11 (2.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (1.52%) Data Lake
10 7 (1.52%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.52%) Power BI
10 7 (1.52%) Tableau
11 6 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
11 6 (1.30%) Parquet
12 5 (1.08%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 73 (15.80%) Git
2 51 (11.04%) JIRA
3 29 (6.28%) Jenkins
4 27 (5.84%) Team Foundation Server
5 24 (5.19%) Postman
5 24 (5.19%) Visual Studio
6 18 (3.90%) Oracle Forms
6 18 (3.90%) Selenium
7 13 (2.81%) Gradle
8 12 (2.60%) Maven
9 11 (2.38%) SonarQube
10 10 (2.16%) JMeter
11 9 (1.95%) eggPlant
12 8 (1.73%) Cucumber
12 8 (1.73%) GitLab
12 8 (1.73%) SoapUI
12 8 (1.73%) WebDriver
13 7 (1.52%) JUnit
14 6 (1.30%) JDeveloper
14 6 (1.30%) Toad
General
1 152 (32.90%) Social Skills
2 111 (24.03%) Finance
3 103 (22.29%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (12.55%) Public Sector
5 44 (9.52%) Banking
6 16 (3.46%) Manufacturing
7 15 (3.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (2.60%) Telecoms
9 11 (2.38%) Law
10 10 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.95%) Publishing
12 8 (1.73%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.73%) General Ledger
12 8 (1.73%) Legal
12 8 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (1.73%) Retail
13 6 (1.30%) Aviation
13 6 (1.30%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.30%) Investment Banking
13 6 (1.30%) Police
Job Titles
1 168 (36.36%) Developer
2 59 (12.77%) Senior
3 44 (9.52%) Architect
4 40 (8.66%) Analyst
5 39 (8.44%) Consultant
6 35 (7.58%) Lead
7 27 (5.84%) Senior Developer
8 23 (4.98%) Data Engineer
8 23 (4.98%) Software Developer
9 20 (4.33%) Integration Developer
10 16 (3.46%) Business Analyst
10 16 (3.46%) Lead Developer
10 16 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
11 14 (3.03%) C# Developer
11 14 (3.03%) Test Analyst
12 13 (2.81%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 13 (2.81%) Software Engineer
12 13 (2.81%) Technical Consultant
13 12 (2.60%) .NET Developer
13 12 (2.60%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (52.38%) JSON
2 188 (40.69%) REST
3 168 (36.36%) SOAP
4 91 (19.70%) Web Services
5 89 (19.26%) .NET
6 83 (17.97%) Middleware
7 63 (13.64%) XSLT
8 51 (11.04%) HTML
9 44 (9.52%) Kafka
10 43 (9.31%) OAuth
11 32 (6.93%) RESTful
12 29 (6.28%) CSS
13 28 (6.06%) .NET Framework
14 27 (5.84%) OAuth2
15 24 (5.19%) EDI
15 24 (5.19%) Swagger
16 22 (4.76%) JWT
17 19 (4.11%) OpenAPI
18 18 (3.90%) XSD
19 17 (3.68%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 27 (5.84%) Enterprise Software
2 20 (4.33%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (4.11%) Product Ownership
4 18 (3.90%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 17 (3.68%) Cloud Native
5 17 (3.68%) Onboarding
6 16 (3.46%) Data Structures
6 16 (3.46%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (3.46%) Management Information System
7 13 (2.81%) Taxonomies
8 11 (2.38%) Replication
9 10 (2.16%) CMDB
9 10 (2.16%) Legacy Applications
10 9 (1.95%) LIMS
11 8 (1.73%) PKI
12 7 (1.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 7 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (1.52%) Virtual Team
13 6 (1.30%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 42 (9.09%) Linux
2 34 (7.36%) Windows
3 27 (5.84%) Unix
4 10 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.65%) Mac OS X
6 3 (0.65%) zOS
7 1 (0.22%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (30.95%) Problem-Solving
2 116 (25.11%) Agile
3 109 (23.59%) DevOps
4 103 (22.29%) CI/CD
5 86 (18.61%) Validation
6 65 (14.07%) Test Automation
7 64 (13.85%) Integration Patterns
8 60 (12.99%) Stakeholder Management
9 59 (12.77%) Workflow
10 58 (12.55%) Data Modelling
11 57 (12.34%) Continuous Improvement
12 52 (11.26%) Event-Driven
12 52 (11.26%) Migration
13 51 (11.04%) ERP
14 47 (10.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 43 (9.31%) Scrum
16 42 (9.09%) Data Mapping
16 42 (9.09%) User Acceptance Testing
17 41 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
18 40 (8.66%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 183 (39.61%) SQL
2 108 (23.38%) Java
3 105 (22.73%) JavaScript
4 86 (18.61%) C#
5 85 (18.40%) Python
6 37 (8.01%) PL/SQL
7 28 (6.06%) PowerShell
8 24 (5.19%) VB.NET
8 24 (5.19%) VBA
9 23 (4.98%) Groovy
10 20 (4.33%) C++
10 20 (4.33%) T-SQL
10 20 (4.33%) VB
11 19 (4.11%) VB6
12 16 (3.46%) XPath
13 14 (3.03%) TypeScript
14 12 (2.60%) Shell Script
15 7 (1.52%) ABAP
15 7 (1.52%) Bicep
15 7 (1.52%) C
Qualifications
1 139 (30.09%) Security Cleared
2 114 (24.68%) SC Cleared
3 49 (10.61%) Degree
4 25 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (4.11%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.68%) ISTQB
7 15 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (2.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 11 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (1.95%) ISEB
11 6 (1.30%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.87%) Master's Degree
14 3 (0.65%) AWS Certification
15 2 (0.43%) CISSP
15 2 (0.43%) DBS Check
15 2 (0.43%) GIAC
15 2 (0.43%) SSCP
16 1 (0.22%) CEH
16 1 (0.22%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (8.44%) QA
2 26 (5.63%) Data Quality
3 20 (4.33%) ISO 20022
4 17 (3.68%) Accessibility
5 14 (3.03%) GDPR
5 14 (3.03%) WCAG
6 9 (1.95%) GMP
7 8 (1.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 8 (1.73%) GxP
7 8 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 6 (1.30%) SLA
9 5 (1.08%) GRC
9 5 (1.08%) HL7
10 4 (0.87%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.65%) SEPA
12 2 (0.43%) NCSC
13 1 (0.22%) COREP
13 1 (0.22%) IFRS
13 1 (0.22%) PMO
13 1 (0.22%) PSD2
System Software
1 17 (3.68%) Docker
2 16 (3.46%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.43%) RACF
5 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 19 (4.11%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.68%) Ansible
2 17 (3.68%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (1.08%) Control-M
3 5 (1.08%) HP Fortify
4 3 (0.65%) QRadar
4 3 (0.65%) vRealize Orchestrator
4 3 (0.65%) WMI
5 2 (0.43%) CloudHub
5 2 (0.43%) Netcool
5 2 (0.43%) Netcool/OMNIbus
5 2 (0.43%) Tivoli
5 2 (0.43%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 1 (0.22%) Apache Ranger
6 1 (0.22%) Grafana
6 1 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.22%) Kibana
6 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 137 (29.65%) Oracle
2 118 (25.54%) Microsoft
3 50 (10.82%) SAP
4 46 (9.96%) IBM
5 39 (8.44%) MuleSoft
6 37 (8.01%) ServiceNow
7 33 (7.14%) Salesforce
8 31 (6.71%) Google
9 27 (5.84%) Workday
10 13 (2.81%) Informatica
11 12 (2.60%) Okta
12 11 (2.38%) Databricks
13 9 (1.95%) TIBCO
13 9 (1.95%) webMethods
13 9 (1.95%) WSO2
14 8 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (1.73%) PTC
15 5 (1.08%) Intapp
15 5 (1.08%) Kronos
15 5 (1.08%) VMware