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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 249 163
Rank change year-on-year -72 -86 +25
Contract jobs citing XML 356 321 627
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 1.08% 1.44%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.63% 4.75% 6.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 217 330
10th Percentile £350 £375 £400
25th Percentile £409 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -7.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £586 £619
90th Percentile £688 £633 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £461 £513
% change year-on-year -7.71% -10.15% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 70
10th Percentile £29.22 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £30.00 £27.00 -
Median hourly rate £41.50 £27.38 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.57% -36.33% -38.57%
75th Percentile £48.75 £73.67 £51.25
90th Percentile £57.35 £91.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.50 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.11% -42.26% -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 9,799 6,764 9,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.47% 22.79% 21.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,435 4,614 6,310
10th Percentile £363 £356 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £535
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -3.74% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £767 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 126 272
10th Percentile £30.50 £29.16 £22.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £39.84 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.25 £51.75
Median % change year-on-year +15.56% +8.70% -20.38%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.18 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £55.63
% change year-on-year +4.00% +12.36% -14.42%

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 17 June 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 17 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 15 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 17 June 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 -64 312 £520 +6.67% 245
UK excluding London -77 162 £425 -7.71% 276
London -58 146 £550 +0.92% 44
Work from Home -61 97 £460 -3.16% 264
South East -44 55 £525 +10.53% 61
North of England -63 48 £391 -13.06% 49
North West -37 40 £390 -13.33% 21
Midlands -41 28 £425 -15.00% 34
West Midlands -43 20 £425 -22.73% 12
South West -21 13 £575 +21.05% 29
East of England -24 9 £450 -18.18% 37
Scotland -15 8 £425 -23.90% 36
East Midlands -15 8 £471 +50.08% 22
Yorkshire -53 8 £431 -15.85% 19
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 18

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 (5.06%) Confluence
2 11 (3.09%) SharePoint
3 9 (2.53%) Anypoint
3 9 (2.53%) WebSphere
4 8 (2.25%) IIS
4 8 (2.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 8 (2.25%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (1.97%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.40%) CMS
6 5 (1.40%) Mule
7 3 (0.84%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.56%) Appian
8 2 (0.56%) CICS
8 2 (0.56%) MQSeries
8 2 (0.56%) Mule ESB
8 2 (0.56%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.28%) Apache
9 1 (0.28%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.28%) JBoss
Applications
1 31 (8.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.69%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.56%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.56%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.53%) Oracle Payables
1 9 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.97%) Oracle Receivables
2 7 (1.97%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 6 (1.69%) Maximo
3 6 (1.69%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (1.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 6 (1.69%) Summit
4 5 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (1.40%) Oracle Cash Management
4 5 (1.40%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (1.40%) Oracle General Ledger
5 4 (1.12%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (1.12%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.84%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.84%) Findur
6 3 (0.84%) NetSuite
6 3 (0.84%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.84%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.56%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 72 (20.22%) Azure
2 43 (12.08%) AWS
3 23 (6.46%) Boomi
4 22 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (5.06%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.49%) GCP
6 16 (4.49%) GitHub
7 14 (3.93%) SaaS
8 13 (3.65%) OCI
8 13 (3.65%) Serverless
9 12 (3.37%) Azure Data Factory
10 9 (2.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 9 (2.53%) IaaS
10 9 (2.53%) PaaS
11 8 (2.25%) Azure Functions
11 8 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
11 8 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (1.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 7 (1.97%) Azure Logic Apps
12 7 (1.97%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.21%) HTTP
2 8 (2.25%) FTP
3 6 (1.69%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.12%) RTCP
4 4 (1.12%) RTP
4 4 (1.12%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.12%) XCAP
5 2 (0.56%) DNS
5 2 (0.56%) FIX Connectivity
5 2 (0.56%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.56%) SSL
6 1 (0.28%) AMQP
6 1 (0.28%) Firewall
6 1 (0.28%) Internet
6 1 (0.28%) Intranet
6 1 (0.28%) NAS
6 1 (0.28%) Network Security
6 1 (0.28%) SAN
6 1 (0.28%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (11.24%) SQL Server
2 32 (8.99%) Relational Database
3 22 (6.18%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (5.34%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (5.06%) RDBMS
6 17 (4.78%) Oracle Database
7 15 (4.21%) NoSQL
8 14 (3.93%) MongoDB
8 14 (3.93%) Power BI
8 14 (3.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (3.65%) Data Lake
10 11 (3.09%) Metadata
11 10 (2.81%) MySQL
11 10 (2.81%) Oracle Reports
11 10 (2.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.40%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 4 (1.12%) DataStage
13 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 3 (0.84%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (9.27%) Git
2 29 (8.15%) JIRA
3 28 (7.87%) Postman
4 10 (2.81%) GitLab
5 9 (2.53%) Maven
6 8 (2.25%) SoapUI
6 8 (2.25%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (2.25%) Visual Studio
7 7 (1.97%) Jenkins
8 5 (1.40%) Eclipse
8 5 (1.40%) Subversion
9 4 (1.12%) Gradle
9 4 (1.12%) JMeter
9 4 (1.12%) JUnit
9 4 (1.12%) Selenium
10 3 (0.84%) ClearCase
10 3 (0.84%) MSTest
10 3 (0.84%) Newman
10 3 (0.84%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.56%) JDeveloper
General
1 116 (32.58%) Social Skills
2 76 (21.35%) Finance
3 70 (19.66%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (10.96%) Banking
5 25 (7.02%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.65%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.09%) Legal
7 11 (3.09%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (2.53%) Publishing
9 8 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.97%) General Ledger
10 7 (1.97%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.97%) Military
11 5 (1.40%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.40%) Front Office
11 5 (1.40%) Marketing
12 4 (1.12%) Advertising
12 4 (1.12%) Billing
12 4 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 93 (26.12%) Developer
2 59 (16.57%) Consultant
3 46 (12.92%) Analyst
4 30 (8.43%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.58%) Business Analyst
6 26 (7.30%) Senior
7 22 (6.18%) Architect
8 21 (5.90%) Data Engineer
9 16 (4.49%) Lead
10 14 (3.93%) C# Developer
11 13 (3.65%) Payroll Consultant
12 12 (3.37%) Software Engineer
13 11 (3.09%) DBA
14 10 (2.81%) Integration Specialist
14 10 (2.81%) Senior Developer
15 9 (2.53%) Integration Engineer
15 9 (2.53%) Technical Consultant
16 8 (2.25%) Applications Developer
16 8 (2.25%) Technical Analyst
16 8 (2.25%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (44.94%) JSON
2 104 (29.21%) REST
3 98 (27.53%) SOAP
4 49 (13.76%) Web Services
5 48 (13.48%) Middleware
6 42 (11.80%) .NET
7 35 (9.83%) XSLT
8 25 (7.02%) HTML
9 21 (5.90%) OAuth
10 20 (5.62%) Oracle Fusion
11 19 (5.34%) EDI
11 19 (5.34%) RESTful
11 19 (5.34%) Swagger
12 18 (5.06%) Kafka
13 17 (4.78%) CSS
13 17 (4.78%) JWT
14 15 (4.21%) XSD
15 14 (3.93%) .NET Framework
15 14 (3.93%) OpenAPI
16 12 (3.37%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.93%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.37%) Data Structures
3 9 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
3 9 (2.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 8 (2.25%) Fixed Income
5 7 (1.97%) Credit Risk
5 7 (1.97%) Derivative
5 7 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (1.97%) Market Risk
5 7 (1.97%) Replication
6 6 (1.69%) CMDB
6 6 (1.69%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.69%) Public Cloud
6 6 (1.69%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 5 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.40%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.40%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.46%) Linux
2 18 (5.06%) Unix
3 8 (2.25%) Windows
4 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.56%) VMS
4 2 (0.56%) zOS
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.28%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (26.40%) Agile
2 89 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
3 65 (18.26%) DevOps
4 62 (17.42%) CI/CD
5 50 (14.04%) Validation
6 49 (13.76%) Integration Patterns
7 45 (12.64%) Workflow
8 42 (11.80%) ERP
8 42 (11.80%) Migration
9 41 (11.52%) ETL
10 39 (10.96%) Data Modelling
11 34 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
12 32 (8.99%) Data Mapping
13 31 (8.71%) Scrum
14 29 (8.15%) User Acceptance Testing
15 28 (7.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 26 (7.30%) SDLC
16 26 (7.30%) Software Engineering
17 25 (7.02%) Microservices
17 25 (7.02%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 152 (42.70%) SQL
2 55 (15.45%) Java
3 50 (14.04%) C#
4 47 (13.20%) Python
5 46 (12.92%) JavaScript
6 39 (10.96%) T-SQL
7 20 (5.62%) PL/SQL
8 11 (3.09%) PowerShell
9 10 (2.81%) C++
9 10 (2.81%) VB
10 9 (2.53%) VB6
11 8 (2.25%) Groovy
11 8 (2.25%) VBA
12 7 (1.97%) VB.NET
12 7 (1.97%) XPath
13 5 (1.40%) DataWeave
14 4 (1.12%) Bicep
15 3 (0.84%) ABAP
15 3 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 3 (0.84%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 78 (21.91%) Security Cleared
2 56 (15.73%) SC Cleared
3 30 (8.43%) Degree
4 12 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (2.25%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.40%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.40%) DBS Check
7 5 (1.40%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.12%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.12%) TOGAF Certification
9 3 (0.84%) ISTQB
9 3 (0.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.56%) CCNP
10 2 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.56%) HNC
10 2 (0.56%) HND
10 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.56%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.62%) QA
2 17 (4.78%) Data Quality
3 11 (3.09%) GDPR
4 6 (1.69%) HL7
5 5 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.40%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.12%) GAAP
7 3 (0.84%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.84%) FATCA
7 3 (0.84%) GRC
7 3 (0.84%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.84%) PSD2
7 3 (0.84%) WCAG
8 2 (0.56%) Basel III
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.56%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.56%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 12 (3.37%) Docker
2 4 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.84%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.56%) RACF
4 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.28%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (2.81%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.53%) Ansible
3 6 (1.69%) Terraform
4 5 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.84%) Control-M
5 3 (0.84%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.56%) Grafana
6 2 (0.56%) TIBCO Hawk
7 1 (0.28%) QRadar
7 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 91 (25.56%) Oracle
2 59 (16.57%) Microsoft
3 33 (9.27%) SAP
4 27 (7.58%) Workday
5 25 (7.02%) MuleSoft
5 25 (7.02%) ServiceNow
6 14 (3.93%) IBM
7 12 (3.37%) Google
8 10 (2.81%) Salesforce
9 9 (2.53%) Informatica
9 9 (2.53%) Pega
10 8 (2.25%) Databricks
10 8 (2.25%) Dell
11 6 (1.69%) Talend
11 6 (1.69%) webMethods
12 5 (1.40%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.40%) Kronos
12 5 (1.40%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.12%) Bloomberg
13 4 (1.12%) Charles River