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 31 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 314 228 165
Rank change year-on-year -86 -63 +23
Contract jobs citing XML 419 386 595
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.79% 1.18% 1.50%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.10% 5.22% 6.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 266 309
10th Percentile £326 £359 £363
25th Percentile £407 £415 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -12.05%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £600
90th Percentile £700 £625 £699
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £453 £500
% change year-on-year -6.18% -9.40% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 18 67
10th Percentile £28.60 £27.00 -
25th Percentile £29.30 £30.31 -
Median hourly rate £39.50 £37.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.33% -12.79% -38.57%
75th Percentile £45.85 £43.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £49.75 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £37.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +5.33% -12.79% -38.57%

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 10,209 7,401 8,634
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.23% 22.57% 21.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,659 5,007 5,884
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £427
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £503 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.48% -8.64% -
75th Percentile £638 £636 £665
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 163 248
10th Percentile £28.30 £30.05 £23.49
25th Percentile £42.31 £40.75 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £73.75 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.47 £79.74 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £58.60
% change year-on-year +13.04% -1.88% +0.10%

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 31 July 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 31 July 2026.

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 31 July 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 -94 345 £500 +3.09% 104
UK excluding London -81 184 £425 -6.18% 61
London -56 171 £550 +4.76% 57
Work from Home -46 136 £519 +10.60% 45
South East -54 58 £460 -3.16% 17
North of England -80 42 £390 -13.33% 10
Midlands -29 41 £418 -10.22% 13
North West -63 34 £390 -13.33% 4
West Midlands -44 32 £415 -17.00% 8
Scotland -4 16 £438 -16.67% 3
South West -38 14 £550 +46.67% 10
East Midlands -6 9 £438 +39.49% 5
East of England -30 9 £450 -18.18% 4
Yorkshire -50 8 £399 -24.05% 6
Northern Ireland -4 3 £650 +36.84% 2
Wales -29 3 £600 +60.00%

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 24 (5.73%) Confluence
2 18 (4.30%) Anypoint
2 18 (4.30%) SharePoint
3 16 (3.82%) IIS
4 15 (3.58%) Oracle Workflow
5 14 (3.34%) Mule
6 5 (1.19%) CMS
6 5 (1.19%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.19%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.48%) Apache
8 2 (0.48%) CICS
8 2 (0.48%) MQSeries
8 2 (0.48%) Mule ESB
8 2 (0.48%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.24%) JBoss
9 1 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 37 (8.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.43%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.24%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 22 (5.25%) Oracle EBS
2 15 (3.58%) NetSuite
2 15 (3.58%) Oracle Payables
3 13 (3.10%) Oracle Receivables
4 8 (1.91%) Oracle General Ledger
5 7 (1.67%) Oracle Assets
6 6 (1.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 6 (1.43%) Maximo
6 6 (1.43%) Oracle FAH
6 6 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
7 5 (1.19%) Elite 3E
7 5 (1.19%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle Cash Management
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle Internet Expenses
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle iProcurement
8 4 (0.95%) Summit
9 3 (0.72%) Findur
9 3 (0.72%) Infor LN
9 3 (0.72%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 97 (23.15%) Azure
2 51 (12.17%) AWS
3 38 (9.07%) Azure DevOps
4 37 (8.83%) Boomi
5 23 (5.49%) GCP
6 20 (4.77%) AtomSphere
6 20 (4.77%) GitHub
7 17 (4.06%) SaaS
8 15 (3.58%) Power Platform
9 14 (3.34%) Serverless
10 12 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
10 12 (2.86%) Azure Service Bus
10 12 (2.86%) Entra ID
11 10 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
11 10 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (2.15%) Azure Functions
12 9 (2.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 8 (1.91%) Amazon S3
13 8 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (1.91%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.68%) HTTP
2 7 (1.67%) FTP
2 7 (1.67%) SSL
3 6 (1.43%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.43%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.95%) Network Security
4 4 (0.95%) RTCP
4 4 (0.95%) RTP
4 4 (0.95%) XCAP
5 2 (0.48%) DNS
5 2 (0.48%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.48%) Internet
5 2 (0.48%) Intranet
5 2 (0.48%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.48%) WAN
5 2 (0.48%) Wireless
6 1 (0.24%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.24%) NFC
6 1 (0.24%) SAN
6 1 (0.24%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (12.89%) SQL Server
2 38 (9.07%) Relational Database
3 19 (4.53%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (4.53%) RDBMS
4 18 (4.30%) Oracle Database
4 18 (4.30%) Oracle Reports
4 18 (4.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 14 (3.34%) MongoDB
6 13 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (3.10%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 12 (2.86%) Metadata
7 12 (2.86%) Power BI
8 11 (2.63%) NoSQL
8 11 (2.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (2.39%) MS Access
9 10 (2.39%) MySQL
10 9 (2.15%) Data Lake
11 6 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
11 6 (1.43%) DataStage
12 4 (0.95%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 46 (10.98%) Git
2 40 (9.55%) JIRA
3 26 (6.21%) Postman
4 21 (5.01%) Team Foundation Server
5 20 (4.77%) Visual Studio
6 15 (3.58%) Jenkins
6 15 (3.58%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (2.15%) GitLab
8 7 (1.67%) JMeter
8 7 (1.67%) Maven
8 7 (1.67%) Selenium
8 7 (1.67%) SoapUI
9 6 (1.43%) JDeveloper
9 6 (1.43%) REST Assured
10 5 (1.19%) Cypress.io
10 5 (1.19%) Eclipse
10 5 (1.19%) Gradle
10 5 (1.19%) JUnit
10 5 (1.19%) Subversion
11 4 (0.95%) TeamCity
General
1 134 (31.98%) Social Skills
2 88 (21.00%) Finance
3 85 (20.29%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (9.79%) Public Sector
5 30 (7.16%) Banking
6 13 (3.10%) Telecoms
7 12 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (2.63%) Manufacturing
9 10 (2.39%) Legal
10 9 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.91%) General Ledger
11 8 (1.91%) Investment Banking
11 8 (1.91%) Publishing
11 8 (1.91%) Retail
12 6 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.19%) Financial Institution
13 5 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 4 (0.95%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.95%) Front Office
14 4 (0.95%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 133 (31.74%) Developer
2 59 (14.08%) Consultant
3 44 (10.50%) Analyst
4 40 (9.55%) Senior
5 33 (7.88%) Architect
6 30 (7.16%) Implementation Consultant
7 22 (5.25%) Lead
8 21 (5.01%) Business Analyst
9 20 (4.77%) Data Engineer
10 19 (4.53%) Senior Developer
11 18 (4.30%) Software Developer
12 15 (3.58%) C# Developer
13 13 (3.10%) Payroll Consultant
14 12 (2.86%) Oracle Developer
14 12 (2.86%) Software Engineer
14 12 (2.86%) Technical Consultant
15 11 (2.63%) MuleSoft Developer
16 10 (2.39%) DBA
16 10 (2.39%) Integration Developer
16 10 (2.39%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (49.64%) JSON
2 147 (35.08%) REST
3 129 (30.79%) SOAP
4 69 (16.47%) .NET
5 61 (14.56%) Middleware
6 58 (13.84%) Web Services
7 42 (10.02%) XSLT
8 36 (8.59%) OAuth
9 30 (7.16%) HTML
10 29 (6.92%) .NET Framework
11 26 (6.21%) OAuth2
12 24 (5.73%) Kafka
13 23 (5.49%) JWT
13 23 (5.49%) RESTful
14 21 (5.01%) ASP.NET
15 20 (4.77%) EDI
15 20 (4.77%) Swagger
16 19 (4.53%) CSS
17 16 (3.82%) OpenAPI
18 14 (3.34%) ASP.NET Web API
Miscellaneous
1 19 (4.53%) Legacy Systems
1 19 (4.53%) Product Ownership
2 16 (3.82%) Data Structures
3 12 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
4 11 (2.63%) Cloud Native
4 11 (2.63%) Replication
5 10 (2.39%) Onboarding
6 8 (1.91%) CMDB
6 8 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.91%) Legacy Applications
6 8 (1.91%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 7 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 7 (1.67%) PKI
8 6 (1.43%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (1.43%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.43%) Taxonomies
9 5 (1.19%) Credit Risk
9 5 (1.19%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.19%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 28 (6.68%) Windows
2 24 (5.73%) Linux
3 22 (5.25%) Unix
4 7 (1.67%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.48%) Android
6 2 (0.48%) VMS
6 2 (0.48%) zOS
7 1 (0.24%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
2 94 (22.43%) Agile
3 87 (20.76%) DevOps
4 85 (20.29%) CI/CD
5 65 (15.51%) Workflow
6 62 (14.80%) Validation
7 53 (12.65%) Integration Patterns
8 50 (11.93%) Data Modelling
9 49 (11.69%) Migration
10 40 (9.55%) ERP
11 39 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 39 (9.31%) Stakeholder Management
12 37 (8.83%) Data Mapping
13 36 (8.59%) Event-Driven
13 36 (8.59%) Scrum
14 35 (8.35%) User Acceptance Testing
15 34 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
15 34 (8.11%) Software Engineering
15 34 (8.11%) Test Automation
16 33 (7.88%) API Management
Programming Languages
1 184 (43.91%) SQL
2 70 (16.71%) C#
2 70 (16.71%) Java
3 62 (14.80%) JavaScript
4 60 (14.32%) Python
5 49 (11.69%) T-SQL
6 36 (8.59%) PL/SQL
7 26 (6.21%) PowerShell
8 22 (5.25%) VBA
9 21 (5.01%) Groovy
10 18 (4.30%) VB.NET
11 17 (4.06%) C++
11 17 (4.06%) VB
12 16 (3.82%) VB6
13 14 (3.34%) XPath
14 7 (1.67%) Bicep
14 7 (1.67%) DataWeave
14 7 (1.67%) Shell Script
15 6 (1.43%) R
15 6 (1.43%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 103 (24.58%) Security Cleared
2 80 (19.09%) SC Cleared
3 27 (6.44%) Degree
4 17 (4.06%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.63%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.15%) ISTQB
6 9 (2.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 8 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.43%) DBS Check
9 5 (1.19%) ISEB
10 4 (0.95%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.48%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.48%) CISSP
11 2 (0.48%) GIAC
11 2 (0.48%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.48%) SSCP
12 1 (0.24%) CEH
12 1 (0.24%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (7.88%) QA
2 19 (4.53%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.91%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.91%) GDPR
3 8 (1.91%) ISO 20022
4 6 (1.43%) GMP
4 6 (1.43%) SLA
5 5 (1.19%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 5 (1.19%) GxP
5 5 (1.19%) HL7
5 5 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 5 (1.19%) WCAG
6 4 (0.95%) GRC
7 2 (0.48%) FATCA
7 2 (0.48%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.24%) COREP
8 1 (0.24%) DICOM
8 1 (0.24%) FINREP
8 1 (0.24%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.24%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 12 (2.86%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.63%) Docker
3 4 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.48%) RACF
4 2 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.24%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 14 (3.34%) Ansible
2 12 (2.86%) Single Sign-On
3 11 (2.63%) Kubernetes
4 8 (1.91%) Terraform
5 3 (0.72%) QRadar
5 3 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
5 3 (0.72%) WMI
6 2 (0.48%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.48%) Grafana
7 1 (0.24%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.24%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 119 (28.40%) Oracle
2 93 (22.20%) Microsoft
3 32 (7.64%) MuleSoft
3 32 (7.64%) ServiceNow
4 30 (7.16%) SAP
5 28 (6.68%) Salesforce
6 24 (5.73%) IBM
7 17 (4.06%) Workday
8 16 (3.82%) Google
9 10 (2.39%) Okta
10 9 (2.15%) Databricks
10 9 (2.15%) webMethods
11 6 (1.43%) Informatica
12 5 (1.19%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (1.19%) Dell
12 5 (1.19%) Intapp
12 5 (1.19%) Kronos
13 4 (0.95%) Atlassian
13 4 (0.95%) Pega
13 4 (0.95%) Splunk