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 13 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 230 213
Rank change year-on-year -45 -17 -7
Contract jobs citing XML 402 340 492
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.10% 1.10%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.52% 4.86% 5.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 218 324
10th Percentile £350 £322 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £638 £595 £627
90th Percentile £713 £650 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £524
% change year-on-year +0.56% -14.08% +4.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 26
10th Percentile £40.90 - £42.50
25th Percentile £43.81 £91.25 -
Median hourly rate £47.50 £92.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year -48.65% +89.86% -32.80%
75th Percentile £56.81 £93.75 £51.93
90th Percentile £90.95 - £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 - £48.72
% change year-on-year - - -27.82%

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 8,900 6,991 9,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.25% 22.57% 20.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,938 4,502 6,513
10th Percentile £358 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £535 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% +0.19% -7.13%
75th Percentile £621 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 85 189
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.65 £23.75
25th Percentile £51.44 £39.25 £45.00
Median hourly rate £64.75 £62.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.60% +13.64% -15.38%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.15 £77.96 £76.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -15.38%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 -11 359 £481 -8.38% 106
London -24 188 £525 -1.87% 32
UK excluding London -28 152 £453 +0.56% 92
Work from Home +5 137 £480 +1.05% 53
North of England -31 55 £402 -23.43% 18
North West -7 44 £401 -10.00% 12
South East -34 41 £475 +25.25% 33
Midlands -39 30 £445 -21.52% 18
West Midlands -35 26 £440 -22.40% 16
East of England -8 17 £675 - 10
Yorkshire -61 11 £531 -6.31% 4
South West -10 8 £438 -5.41% 10
Scotland -5 5 £500 +8.70% 6
East Midlands -27 4 £525 +16.67% 2

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 23 (5.72%) WebLogic
2 18 (4.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 17 (4.23%) Confluence
4 12 (2.99%) Apache
5 10 (2.49%) WebSphere
6 9 (2.24%) Appian
6 9 (2.24%) JBoss
7 7 (1.74%) MQSeries
7 7 (1.74%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (1.24%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.24%) Mule
9 4 (1.00%) Oracle Service Bus
10 3 (0.75%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.75%) Documentum
11 2 (0.50%) BizTalk Server
11 2 (0.50%) Mule ESB
11 2 (0.50%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 2 (0.50%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
12 1 (0.25%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.00%) FrameMaker
2 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.75%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.50%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.50%) EngageOne
4 2 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 9 (2.24%) Oracle ERP
1 9 (2.24%) SAP Payroll
2 7 (1.74%) BusinessWorks
2 7 (1.74%) Oracle Payables
2 7 (1.74%) Oracle Receivables
2 7 (1.74%) SAP HCM
2 7 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (1.49%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 5 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (1.24%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 5 (1.24%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (1.00%) Maximo
5 4 (1.00%) Oracle 11i
5 4 (1.00%) Oracle General Ledger
5 4 (1.00%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.75%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.75%) Oracle Cash Management
6 3 (0.75%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.50%) NEC Housing
7 2 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 89 (22.14%) Azure
2 66 (16.42%) AWS
3 27 (6.72%) OCI
4 26 (6.47%) Power Platform
5 22 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (5.22%) SaaS
7 20 (4.98%) GCP
8 19 (4.73%) GitHub
9 18 (4.48%) Cloud Computing
10 15 (3.73%) PaaS
11 14 (3.48%) Dynamics 365
11 14 (3.48%) Serverless
11 14 (3.48%) Tricentis Tosca
12 13 (3.23%) Apigee
12 13 (3.23%) Boomi
12 13 (3.23%) IaaS
13 11 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (2.74%) Azure Logic Apps
14 10 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (1.99%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 35 (8.71%) HTTPS
2 28 (6.97%) HTTP
3 10 (2.49%) Firewall
3 10 (2.49%) SSL
4 5 (1.24%) 3GPP
5 4 (1.00%) FTP
5 4 (1.00%) RTCP
5 4 (1.00%) RTP
5 4 (1.00%) XCAP
6 3 (0.75%) NFC
6 3 (0.75%) PPP
7 2 (0.50%) 5G
7 2 (0.50%) BGP
7 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (0.50%) FIX Connectivity
7 2 (0.50%) MPLS
7 2 (0.50%) VPN
8 1 (0.25%) Network Security
8 1 (0.25%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (10.70%) SQL Server
2 40 (9.95%) Relational Database
3 25 (6.22%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (5.72%) MongoDB
5 21 (5.22%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (4.23%) Power BI
7 15 (3.73%) Oracle Database
7 15 (3.73%) RDBMS
8 14 (3.48%) NoSQL
8 14 (3.48%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (3.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 12 (2.99%) Data Lake
10 12 (2.99%) Metadata
11 10 (2.49%) MySQL
12 9 (2.24%) DataStage
13 8 (1.99%) Apache Cassandra
14 7 (1.74%) DB2
15 6 (1.49%) Elasticsearch
15 6 (1.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 6 (1.49%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 49 (12.19%) JIRA
1 49 (12.19%) Postman
2 48 (11.94%) Git
3 33 (8.21%) Jenkins
4 28 (6.97%) Selenium
5 22 (5.47%) Cucumber
5 22 (5.47%) JUnit
6 14 (3.48%) Eclipse
7 12 (2.99%) SoapUI
8 10 (2.49%) GitLab
8 10 (2.49%) Maven
9 9 (2.24%) IntelliJ
9 9 (2.24%) SpecFlow
9 9 (2.24%) TestRail
9 9 (2.24%) Zephyr
10 8 (1.99%) SonarQube
11 7 (1.74%) Robot Framework
11 7 (1.74%) Toad
12 6 (1.49%) MSTest
13 5 (1.24%) Bitbucket
General
1 133 (33.08%) Social Skills
2 90 (22.39%) Finance
3 73 (18.16%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (10.45%) Public Sector
5 39 (9.70%) Banking
6 22 (5.47%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (2.74%) Investment Banking
8 10 (2.49%) Telecoms
9 9 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.99%) Legal
10 8 (1.99%) Private Banking
11 7 (1.74%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.74%) Publishing
11 7 (1.74%) Retail
12 6 (1.49%) Military
13 5 (1.24%) Aerospace
13 5 (1.24%) Manufacturing
14 4 (1.00%) Back Office
14 4 (1.00%) General Ledger
15 3 (0.75%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 133 (33.08%) Developer
2 60 (14.93%) Analyst
3 33 (8.21%) Consultant
4 29 (7.21%) Senior
5 25 (6.22%) Business Analyst
6 20 (4.98%) Architect
6 20 (4.98%) Software Engineer
7 19 (4.73%) Lead
8 18 (4.48%) Data Engineer
9 17 (4.23%) Integration Developer
10 16 (3.98%) webMethods Developer
11 12 (2.99%) Tester
12 11 (2.74%) DBA
12 11 (2.74%) Java Developer
12 11 (2.74%) SAP Consultant
13 10 (2.49%) Administrator
13 10 (2.49%) Senior Developer
13 10 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.24%) Integration Specialist
14 9 (2.24%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 223 (55.47%) JSON
2 138 (34.33%) REST
2 138 (34.33%) SOAP
3 49 (12.19%) Web Services
3 49 (12.19%) XSLT
4 46 (11.44%) OAuth
5 33 (8.21%) HTML
6 32 (7.96%) .NET
7 30 (7.46%) JMS
8 28 (6.97%) Oracle Fusion
9 27 (6.72%) JWT
10 25 (6.22%) RESTful
11 24 (5.97%) Middleware
12 22 (5.47%) XSD
13 20 (4.98%) Spring
14 19 (4.73%) J2EE
14 19 (4.73%) Swagger
15 17 (4.23%) CSS
16 16 (3.98%) Hibernate
16 16 (3.98%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.48%) Data Structures
2 14 (3.48%) Replication
3 12 (2.99%) Management Information System
4 11 (2.74%) Public Cloud
5 9 (2.24%) Algorithms
5 9 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.24%) Onboarding
6 8 (1.99%) AS400
6 8 (1.99%) Product Ownership
6 8 (1.99%) Virtual Team
7 7 (1.74%) Cloud Native
7 7 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.74%) Fixed Income
8 6 (1.49%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.49%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 5 (1.24%) Derivative
9 5 (1.24%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 49 (12.19%) Linux
2 28 (6.97%) Unix
3 17 (4.23%) Windows
4 5 (1.24%) AIX
5 4 (1.00%) Android
5 4 (1.00%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (33.83%) Agile
2 128 (31.84%) DevOps
3 101 (25.12%) Problem-Solving
4 82 (20.40%) CI/CD
5 57 (14.18%) Validation
6 54 (13.43%) ERP
7 53 (13.18%) Test Automation
8 51 (12.69%) ETL
9 49 (12.19%) Scrum
10 47 (11.69%) Migration
11 46 (11.44%) Data Modelling
12 41 (10.20%) Deployment Automation
13 39 (9.70%) Microservices
14 37 (9.20%) Integration Patterns
14 37 (9.20%) Requirements Gathering
14 37 (9.20%) Software Engineering
15 35 (8.71%) Continuous Improvement
15 35 (8.71%) SDLC
16 32 (7.96%) API Management
16 32 (7.96%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 150 (37.31%) SQL
2 110 (27.36%) Java
3 68 (16.92%) C#
4 61 (15.17%) Python
5 52 (12.94%) JavaScript
6 24 (5.97%) PowerShell
7 20 (4.98%) PL/SQL
8 16 (3.98%) XPath
9 11 (2.74%) T-SQL
10 10 (2.49%) C++
10 10 (2.49%) Shell Script
11 9 (2.24%) Scala
12 8 (1.99%) ABAP
12 8 (1.99%) Groovy
12 8 (1.99%) RPG
13 7 (1.74%) Korn
14 6 (1.49%) Kotlin
15 5 (1.24%) Perl
16 4 (1.00%) Bicep
17 3 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 112 (27.86%) Security Cleared
2 89 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 43 (10.70%) Degree
4 23 (5.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.74%) ISTQB
7 9 (2.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 7 (1.74%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.49%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.24%) CCNP
10 5 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.24%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.24%) ISEB
10 5 (1.24%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.24%) PMP
11 4 (1.00%) Azure Certification
11 4 (1.00%) HNC
11 4 (1.00%) HND
12 3 (0.75%) GIAC
12 3 (0.75%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.22%) QA
2 16 (3.98%) Data Quality
3 7 (1.74%) GDPR
4 6 (1.49%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.24%) PSD2
6 4 (1.00%) GAAP
7 3 (0.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.75%) FATCA
7 3 (0.75%) HL7
7 3 (0.75%) ISO 8583
7 3 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.50%) Basel III
8 2 (0.50%) EMIR
8 2 (0.50%) GxP
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.50%) SEPA
9 1 (0.25%) DICOM
9 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 37 (9.20%) Docker
2 3 (0.75%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 13 (3.23%) Ansible
1 13 (3.23%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.49%) Control-M
2 10 (2.49%) Puppet
3 8 (1.99%) logstash
4 7 (1.74%) Kibana
4 7 (1.74%) TIBCO Hawk
5 5 (1.24%) ITRS Geneos
6 2 (0.50%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.50%) Fluentd
6 2 (0.50%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.50%) QRadar
6 2 (0.50%) Terraform
7 1 (0.25%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.25%) Grafana
7 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.25%) Podman
7 1 (0.25%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 110 (27.36%) Oracle
2 51 (12.69%) SAP
3 41 (10.20%) Microsoft
4 40 (9.95%) IBM
5 31 (7.71%) webMethods
6 16 (3.98%) MuleSoft
6 16 (3.98%) Workday
7 12 (2.99%) Software AG
7 12 (2.99%) TIBCO
8 11 (2.74%) Informatica
8 11 (2.74%) Splunk
9 10 (2.49%) Axway
10 9 (2.24%) Cisco
10 9 (2.24%) ServiceNow
11 8 (1.99%) Google
11 8 (1.99%) Red Hat
11 8 (1.99%) Talend
12 7 (1.74%) BEA
12 7 (1.74%) Veracode
13 6 (1.49%) Salesforce