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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 307 234 183
Rank change year-on-year -73 -51 -1
Contract jobs citing XML 459 380 528
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.15% 1.39%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.86% 4.40% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 320 251 282
10th Percentile £325 £335 £318
25th Percentile £405 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £601 £576 £584
90th Percentile £700 £688 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £484
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.81% -7.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 26 44
10th Percentile - £30.63 -
25th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £29.54 £42.75 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.91% -0.58% -20.90%
75th Percentile £42.06 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £46.42 £91.88 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.54 £42.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -30.51% -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 11,905 8,636 9,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.69% 26.08% 24.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,825 5,740 6,160
10th Percentile £375 £355 £356
25th Percentile £440 £413 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -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% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 286 188 188
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 £25.60
25th Percentile £50.19 £41.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £54.00 £62.93
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% -14.19% +4.88%
75th Percentile £77.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £70.60 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.47 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +17.34% -11.54% +11.03%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -85 360 £486 -2.75% 362
London -54 191 £538 +2.38% 199
UK excluding London -89 178 £450 -5.26% 184
Work from Home -60 154 £525 +9.38% 144
South East -56 49 £460 -3.16% 55
Midlands -32 42 £418 -2.68% 24
West Midlands -22 35 £415 -3.38% 19
North of England -79 28 £381 -23.80% 36
South West -28 21 £550 +46.67% 23
Scotland -17 20 £450 -5.26% 20
North West -62 17 £416 -12.46% 20
East of England -43 13 £517 +6.05% 19
Yorkshire -27 11 £380 -41.54% 15
East Midlands -12 6 £494 +82.96% 5
Wales -25 3 £600 +60.00% 5
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 (7.41%) SharePoint
2 21 (4.58%) Confluence
3 16 (3.49%) Anypoint
3 16 (3.49%) IIS
3 16 (3.49%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (2.83%) Mule
5 10 (2.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 7 (1.53%) WebSphere
7 6 (1.31%) Apache
8 5 (1.09%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.65%) MQSeries
9 3 (0.65%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.44%) CICS
10 2 (0.44%) CMS
11 1 (0.22%) JBoss
11 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
11 1 (0.22%) Mule ESB
11 1 (0.22%) ThingWorx
11 1 (0.22%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.18%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.74%) Windchill
5 3 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.22%) LaTeX
Business Applications
1 23 (5.01%) Oracle EBS
2 18 (3.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (3.92%) NetSuite
3 15 (3.27%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (2.61%) Oracle Receivables
5 11 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
6 8 (1.74%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (1.74%) Workday HCM
7 7 (1.53%) Oracle FAH
8 6 (1.31%) Maximo
8 6 (1.31%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (1.31%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (1.31%) SAP FI
9 5 (1.09%) Elite 3E
9 5 (1.09%) FLEXCUBE
10 4 (0.87%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 4 (0.87%) Oracle Internet Expenses
10 4 (0.87%) Oracle iProcurement
10 4 (0.87%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.87%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 129 (28.10%) Azure
2 69 (15.03%) AWS
3 55 (11.98%) Azure DevOps
4 48 (10.46%) Boomi
5 34 (7.41%) GCP
6 26 (5.66%) Power Platform
7 23 (5.01%) AtomSphere
8 21 (4.58%) Azure Service Bus
8 21 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (4.36%) GitHub
10 19 (4.14%) Azure Functions
10 19 (4.14%) Entra ID
10 19 (4.14%) Power Automate
10 19 (4.14%) Serverless
11 18 (3.92%) Azure Logic Apps
11 18 (3.92%) SaaS
12 15 (3.27%) iPaaS
13 12 (2.61%) PowerApps
14 9 (1.96%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (1.74%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 35 (7.63%) HTTP
2 11 (2.40%) FTP
3 7 (1.53%) SSL
4 6 (1.31%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.09%) Network Security
6 3 (0.65%) Wireless
7 2 (0.44%) DNS
7 2 (0.44%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.44%) Internet
7 2 (0.44%) Intranet
7 2 (0.44%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.44%) WAN
7 2 (0.44%) 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 (14.16%) SQL Server
2 39 (8.50%) Relational Database
3 26 (5.66%) Oracle Database
3 26 (5.66%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (3.70%) Oracle Reports
4 17 (3.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 14 (3.05%) MySQL
6 13 (2.83%) MS Access
7 12 (2.61%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 11 (2.40%) Metadata
8 11 (2.40%) RDBMS
8 11 (2.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (2.18%) MongoDB
10 7 (1.53%) Data Lake
10 7 (1.53%) NoSQL
10 7 (1.53%) Power BI
10 7 (1.53%) Tableau
11 6 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
11 6 (1.31%) Parquet
12 5 (1.09%) GIS
Development Applications
1 72 (15.69%) Git
2 49 (10.68%) JIRA
3 28 (6.10%) Jenkins
4 26 (5.66%) Team Foundation Server
5 24 (5.23%) Postman
6 23 (5.01%) Visual Studio
7 18 (3.92%) Oracle Forms
7 18 (3.92%) Selenium
8 12 (2.61%) Gradle
9 11 (2.40%) Maven
10 10 (2.18%) JMeter
10 10 (2.18%) SonarQube
11 9 (1.96%) eggPlant
12 8 (1.74%) GitLab
12 8 (1.74%) SoapUI
12 8 (1.74%) WebDriver
13 7 (1.53%) Cucumber
14 6 (1.31%) JDeveloper
14 6 (1.31%) JUnit
14 6 (1.31%) LoadRunner
General
1 152 (33.12%) Social Skills
2 109 (23.75%) Finance
3 102 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (12.20%) Public Sector
5 44 (9.59%) Banking
6 17 (3.70%) Manufacturing
7 15 (3.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (2.61%) Telecoms
9 11 (2.40%) Law
10 9 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.96%) Publishing
11 8 (1.74%) General Ledger
11 8 (1.74%) Legal
11 8 (1.74%) Retail
12 7 (1.53%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (1.31%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.31%) Investment Banking
13 6 (1.31%) Police
14 5 (1.09%) Billing
Job Titles
1 166 (36.17%) Developer
2 58 (12.64%) Senior
3 44 (9.59%) Architect
4 40 (8.71%) Consultant
5 37 (8.06%) Analyst
6 35 (7.63%) Lead
7 27 (5.88%) Senior Developer
8 23 (5.01%) Data Engineer
8 23 (5.01%) Software Developer
9 20 (4.36%) Integration Developer
10 16 (3.49%) Business Analyst
10 16 (3.49%) Lead Developer
10 16 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
11 14 (3.05%) C# Developer
12 13 (2.83%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 13 (2.83%) Software Engineer
12 13 (2.83%) Technical Consultant
13 12 (2.61%) .NET Developer
13 12 (2.61%) Support Engineer
13 12 (2.61%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (52.72%) JSON
2 190 (41.39%) REST
3 167 (36.38%) SOAP
4 90 (19.61%) Web Services
5 89 (19.39%) .NET
6 85 (18.52%) Middleware
7 63 (13.73%) XSLT
8 49 (10.68%) HTML
9 43 (9.37%) Kafka
9 43 (9.37%) OAuth
10 32 (6.97%) RESTful
11 28 (6.10%) .NET Framework
11 28 (6.10%) CSS
12 27 (5.88%) OAuth2
13 24 (5.23%) EDI
13 24 (5.23%) Swagger
14 22 (4.79%) JWT
15 19 (4.14%) OpenAPI
16 18 (3.92%) XSD
17 16 (3.49%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 26 (5.66%) Enterprise Software
2 20 (4.36%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (4.14%) Product Ownership
4 18 (3.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 17 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 16 (3.49%) Data Structures
6 16 (3.49%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (3.49%) Management Information System
6 16 (3.49%) Onboarding
7 13 (2.83%) Taxonomies
8 11 (2.40%) Replication
9 10 (2.18%) CMDB
9 10 (2.18%) Legacy Applications
10 9 (1.96%) LIMS
11 8 (1.74%) PKI
11 8 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 7 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (1.53%) Virtual Team
13 6 (1.31%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 41 (8.93%) Linux
2 32 (6.97%) Windows
3 26 (5.66%) Unix
4 10 (2.18%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.65%) zOS
7 2 (0.44%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.22%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (31.15%) Problem-Solving
2 115 (25.05%) Agile
3 108 (23.53%) DevOps
4 102 (22.22%) CI/CD
5 84 (18.30%) Validation
6 64 (13.94%) Integration Patterns
7 62 (13.51%) Test Automation
8 61 (13.29%) Workflow
9 60 (13.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 59 (12.85%) Data Modelling
11 57 (12.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 52 (11.33%) Event-Driven
12 52 (11.33%) Migration
13 51 (11.11%) ERP
14 47 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 43 (9.37%) Data Mapping
15 43 (9.37%) Scrum
16 42 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
17 41 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
18 40 (8.71%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 182 (39.65%) SQL
2 106 (23.09%) Java
3 103 (22.44%) JavaScript
4 86 (18.74%) C#
5 84 (18.30%) Python
6 37 (8.06%) PL/SQL
7 28 (6.10%) PowerShell
8 24 (5.23%) VB.NET
9 23 (5.01%) VBA
10 22 (4.79%) Groovy
11 20 (4.36%) C++
11 20 (4.36%) T-SQL
12 19 (4.14%) VB
13 18 (3.92%) VB6
14 16 (3.49%) XPath
15 14 (3.05%) TypeScript
16 12 (2.61%) Shell Script
17 7 (1.53%) ABAP
17 7 (1.53%) Bicep
17 7 (1.53%) C
Qualifications
1 138 (30.07%) Security Cleared
2 113 (24.62%) SC Cleared
3 49 (10.68%) Degree
4 25 (5.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 16 (3.49%) ISTQB
7 14 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (2.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 11 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.74%) ISEB
10 6 (1.31%) Azure Certification
11 5 (1.09%) TOGAF Certification
12 4 (0.87%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.65%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.44%) CISSP
14 2 (0.44%) DBS Check
14 2 (0.44%) GIAC
14 2 (0.44%) SSCP
15 1 (0.22%) CISM
15 1 (0.22%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (8.50%) QA
2 27 (5.88%) Data Quality
3 20 (4.36%) ISO 20022
4 17 (3.70%) Accessibility
5 14 (3.05%) GDPR
5 14 (3.05%) WCAG
6 9 (1.96%) GMP
7 8 (1.74%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 8 (1.74%) GxP
7 8 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 6 (1.31%) SLA
9 5 (1.09%) GRC
9 5 (1.09%) HL7
10 4 (0.87%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.65%) SEPA
12 2 (0.44%) 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 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 16 (3.49%) Docker
3 5 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.44%) RACF
5 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (3.92%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.70%) Ansible
3 16 (3.49%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (1.09%) Control-M
4 5 (1.09%) HP Fortify
5 3 (0.65%) QRadar
5 3 (0.65%) vRealize Orchestrator
5 3 (0.65%) WMI
6 2 (0.44%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.44%) Netcool
6 2 (0.44%) Netcool/OMNIbus
6 2 (0.44%) Tivoli
6 2 (0.44%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 1 (0.22%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.22%) Grafana
7 1 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.22%) Kibana
7 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 136 (29.63%) Oracle
2 117 (25.49%) Microsoft
3 49 (10.68%) SAP
4 47 (10.24%) IBM
5 39 (8.50%) MuleSoft
6 38 (8.28%) ServiceNow
7 32 (6.97%) Salesforce
8 29 (6.32%) Google
9 27 (5.88%) Workday
10 13 (2.83%) Informatica
10 13 (2.83%) Okta
11 11 (2.40%) Databricks
12 10 (2.18%) webMethods
13 9 (1.96%) TIBCO
13 9 (1.96%) WSO2
14 8 (1.74%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (1.74%) PTC
15 5 (1.09%) Intapp
15 5 (1.09%) Kronos
15 5 (1.09%) VMware