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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 323 240 165
Rank change year-on-year -83 -75 +31
Contract jobs citing XML 355 316 628
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.09% 1.46%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.69% 4.77% 6.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 210 218 334
10th Percentile £358 £361 £402
25th Percentile £413 £424 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £534
Median % change year-on-year +5.32% -11.05% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £621
90th Percentile £682 £638 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £452 £510
% change year-on-year -0.33% -11.47% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 5 70
10th Percentile £29.37 £23.31 -
25th Percentile £33.63 - -
Median hourly rate £46.80 £27.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.33% -37.21% -39.65%
75th Percentile £48.75 £28.42 £51.25
90th Percentile £55.20 £67.62 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.80 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.48% -42.26% -40.69%

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 9,629 6,626 9,038
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.61% 22.90% 21.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,325 4,526 6,261
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £536
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -2.94% -2.59%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 117 254
10th Percentile £31.18 £29.18 £21.81
25th Percentile £52.50 £39.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +31.58% -26.92%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £65.95
90th Percentile £81.00 £81.15 £74.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.43
% change year-on-year - +34.21% -25.49%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -46 314 £525 +10.53% 120
UK excluding London -84 163 £450 -0.33% 87
London -54 147 £550 +4.76% 51
Work from Home -56 93 £460 -2.90% 70
South East -48 59 £525 +10.53% 35
North of England -69 50 £397 -11.81% 14
North West -28 43 £393 -12.78% 6
Midlands -35 26 £425 -15.00% 11
West Midlands -44 18 £425 -22.73% 6
South West -23 13 £600 +60.00% 10
East of England -24 9 £450 -18.18% 5
East Midlands -19 8 £471 +50.08% 5
Yorkshire -49 7 £463 -9.76% 7
Scotland -17 5 £469 -5.30% 8
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 3

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 (5.07%) Confluence
2 12 (3.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 10 (2.82%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.54%) WebSphere
5 8 (2.25%) Anypoint
5 8 (2.25%) IIS
5 8 (2.25%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (1.97%) WebLogic
7 5 (1.41%) CMS
8 4 (1.13%) Mule
8 4 (1.13%) Oracle Service Bus
9 3 (0.85%) Mule ESB
9 3 (0.85%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.56%) Appian
10 2 (0.56%) CICS
10 2 (0.56%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.56%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.28%) Apache
11 1 (0.28%) JBoss
Applications
1 31 (8.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.69%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.56%) EngageOne
4 2 (0.56%) FrameMaker
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (3.38%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.54%) Oracle Payables
2 9 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.97%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.97%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 6 (1.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (1.69%) Summit
5 5 (1.41%) Maximo
5 5 (1.41%) Oracle Cash Management
5 5 (1.41%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.41%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (1.13%) Oracle EBS
6 4 (1.13%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.85%) Findur
7 3 (0.85%) Oracle Assets
8 2 (0.56%) BusinessWorks
8 2 (0.56%) Elite 3E
8 2 (0.56%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 67 (18.87%) Azure
2 37 (10.42%) AWS
3 23 (6.48%) OCI
4 21 (5.92%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (5.07%) Boomi
6 17 (4.79%) Power Platform
7 15 (4.23%) GitHub
7 15 (4.23%) PaaS
8 13 (3.66%) IaaS
8 13 (3.66%) SaaS
8 13 (3.66%) Serverless
9 12 (3.38%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (3.10%) GCP
11 9 (2.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 8 (2.25%) Azure Functions
12 8 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (1.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 7 (1.97%) Azure Service Bus
13 7 (1.97%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.23%) HTTP
2 7 (1.97%) FTP
3 6 (1.69%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.13%) RTCP
4 4 (1.13%) RTP
4 4 (1.13%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.13%) 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%) SMS
6 1 (0.28%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.14%) SQL Server
2 33 (9.30%) Relational Database
3 22 (6.20%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (5.35%) RDBMS
5 17 (4.79%) Oracle Database
5 17 (4.79%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (4.23%) NoSQL
7 13 (3.66%) Power BI
8 12 (3.38%) MongoDB
8 12 (3.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 11 (3.10%) Data Lake
10 10 (2.82%) Metadata
10 10 (2.82%) MySQL
10 10 (2.82%) Oracle Reports
11 9 (2.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (1.41%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.41%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 3 (0.85%) SAP HANA
14 3 (0.85%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 35 (9.86%) Postman
2 30 (8.45%) Git
3 27 (7.61%) JIRA
4 13 (3.66%) SoapUI
5 10 (2.82%) GitLab
6 8 (2.25%) Maven
6 8 (2.25%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (2.25%) Visual Studio
7 6 (1.69%) Jenkins
8 5 (1.41%) Eclipse
9 4 (1.13%) JMeter
9 4 (1.13%) JUnit
9 4 (1.13%) Subversion
10 3 (0.85%) ClearCase
10 3 (0.85%) MSTest
10 3 (0.85%) Newman
10 3 (0.85%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.56%) ER Studio
11 2 (0.56%) Gatling
General
1 115 (32.39%) Social Skills
2 73 (20.56%) Finance
3 66 (18.59%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (11.27%) Banking
5 24 (6.76%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.66%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.10%) Legal
7 11 (3.10%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.25%) Military
8 8 (2.25%) Publishing
8 8 (2.25%) Telecoms
9 7 (1.97%) General Ledger
10 5 (1.41%) Front Office
10 5 (1.41%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.13%) Advertising
11 4 (1.13%) Billing
11 4 (1.13%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.13%) Marketing
12 3 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 82 (23.10%) Developer
2 59 (16.62%) Consultant
3 45 (12.68%) Analyst
4 30 (8.45%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.61%) Business Analyst
6 24 (6.76%) Senior
7 21 (5.92%) Architect
8 19 (5.35%) Data Engineer
8 19 (5.35%) Lead
9 15 (4.23%) Software Engineer
10 14 (3.94%) C# Developer
10 14 (3.94%) Integration Specialist
11 13 (3.66%) Payroll Consultant
12 9 (2.54%) Cloud Specialist
12 9 (2.54%) DBA
12 9 (2.54%) Integration Engineer
12 9 (2.54%) Oracle Specialist
12 9 (2.54%) Technical Consultant
13 8 (2.25%) Applications Developer
13 8 (2.25%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (45.07%) JSON
2 102 (28.73%) REST
3 101 (28.45%) SOAP
4 50 (14.08%) Web Services
5 42 (11.83%) Middleware
6 39 (10.99%) .NET
7 37 (10.42%) XSLT
8 30 (8.45%) OAuth
9 29 (8.17%) Oracle Fusion
10 26 (7.32%) HTML
11 23 (6.48%) JWT
12 21 (5.92%) Swagger
13 20 (5.63%) RESTful
14 18 (5.07%) CSS
14 18 (5.07%) Kafka
14 18 (5.07%) XSD
15 15 (4.23%) EDI
16 14 (3.94%) .NET Framework
16 14 (3.94%) OpenAPI
17 13 (3.66%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.23%) Product Ownership
2 10 (2.82%) Public Cloud
3 9 (2.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 8 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
4 8 (2.25%) Data Structures
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
6 6 (1.69%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.69%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.69%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 5 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.41%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.41%) Digital Wallet
7 5 (1.41%) Replication
8 4 (1.13%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.13%) Cloud Native
8 4 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.32%) Linux
2 18 (5.07%) 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 91 (25.63%) Agile
2 85 (23.94%) Problem-Solving
3 68 (19.15%) DevOps
4 52 (14.65%) CI/CD
5 49 (13.80%) Validation
6 47 (13.24%) Integration Patterns
7 46 (12.96%) ERP
8 41 (11.55%) Workflow
9 40 (11.27%) Migration
10 38 (10.70%) Data Modelling
11 35 (9.86%) ETL
12 32 (9.01%) Stakeholder Management
13 29 (8.17%) User Acceptance Testing
14 28 (7.89%) Unit Testing
15 27 (7.61%) Software Engineering
16 26 (7.32%) Data Mapping
16 26 (7.32%) Requirements Gathering
16 26 (7.32%) SDLC
17 25 (7.04%) Scrum
18 23 (6.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 146 (41.13%) SQL
2 53 (14.93%) Java
3 51 (14.37%) C#
4 47 (13.24%) Python
5 41 (11.55%) JavaScript
6 36 (10.14%) T-SQL
7 20 (5.63%) PL/SQL
8 10 (2.82%) PowerShell
8 10 (2.82%) VB
9 9 (2.54%) C++
9 9 (2.54%) VB6
10 8 (2.25%) VBA
11 6 (1.69%) Groovy
11 6 (1.69%) XPath
12 5 (1.41%) DataWeave
12 5 (1.41%) VB.NET
13 4 (1.13%) Bicep
14 3 (0.85%) ABAP
14 3 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 3 (0.85%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 85 (23.94%) Security Cleared
2 61 (17.18%) SC Cleared
3 32 (9.01%) Degree
4 13 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.25%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.41%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.41%) Master's Degree
7 4 (1.13%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.13%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.13%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.85%) CCNP
8 3 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.85%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.56%) HNC
9 2 (0.56%) HND
9 2 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.56%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.92%) QA
2 13 (3.66%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.82%) GDPR
4 6 (1.69%) HL7
5 5 (1.41%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.41%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.41%) PSD2
6 4 (1.13%) GAAP
7 3 (0.85%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.85%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.85%) FATCA
7 3 (0.85%) ISO 8583
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%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.56%) SLA
8 2 (0.56%) WCAG
9 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 12 (3.38%) Docker
2 4 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.85%) 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 (2.82%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.69%) Terraform
3 5 (1.41%) Ansible
3 5 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.13%) Control-M
5 3 (0.85%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.56%) Grafana
6 2 (0.56%) TIBCO Hawk
7 1 (0.28%) CloudHub
7 1 (0.28%) QRadar
7 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 96 (27.04%) Oracle
2 53 (14.93%) Microsoft
3 29 (8.17%) SAP
4 24 (6.76%) Workday
5 22 (6.20%) MuleSoft
6 21 (5.92%) ServiceNow
7 13 (3.66%) IBM
8 9 (2.54%) Databricks
9 8 (2.25%) Informatica
9 8 (2.25%) Pega
9 8 (2.25%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.97%) Dell
10 7 (1.97%) Google
10 7 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 6 (1.69%) webMethods
12 5 (1.41%) InterSystems
13 4 (1.13%) Bloomberg
13 4 (1.13%) Charles River
13 4 (1.13%) Citrix
13 4 (1.13%) VMware