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 3 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 233 196
Rank change year-on-year -44 -37 +3
Contract jobs citing XML 393 333 539
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.12% 1.21%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.29% 4.90% 5.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 218 327
10th Percentile £350 £325 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £613
90th Percentile £705 £652 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £513
% change year-on-year - -12.20% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 49
10th Percentile £40.75 £39.93 -
25th Percentile £46.25 £59.18 £43.75
Median hourly rate £47.50 £92.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.65% +94.74% -34.48%
75th Percentile £54.13 £93.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 - £59.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £27.76 £47.50
% change year-on-year +71.11% -41.56% -32.14%

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 9,163 6,796 9,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.97% 22.76% 20.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,122 4,449 6,365
10th Percentile £358 £363 £340
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -0.94% -7.75%
75th Percentile £621 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 87 224
10th Percentile £35.00 £26.25 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £38.88 £39.98
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +28.28% -25.05%
75th Percentile £72.73 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £81.45 £76.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.72
% change year-on-year - +33.42% -25.05%

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 3 March 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 3 March 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 3 March 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 -14 353 £475 -8.43% 182
London -32 178 £525 -1.87% 31
UK excluding London -46 161 £450 - 160
Work from Home -38 118 £450 -4.51% 84
North of England -34 59 £401 -15.15% 38
South East -17 50 £488 +24.05% 51
North West -12 48 £400 -10.91% 25
Midlands -37 32 £445 -21.52% 24
West Midlands -37 27 £440 -22.40% 16
East of England -15 13 £675 - 20
Yorkshire -60 11 £463 -18.43% 9
South West -14 6 £475 +2.70% 19
Scotland -5 5 £500 +6.38% 6
East Midlands -26 5 £525 +46.65% 8

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 (5.85%) WebLogic
2 21 (5.34%) Confluence
3 18 (4.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 12 (3.05%) Apache
5 10 (2.54%) WebSphere
6 9 (2.29%) JBoss
7 7 (1.78%) Appian
7 7 (1.78%) MQSeries
8 6 (1.53%) Anypoint
8 6 (1.53%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (1.27%) Mule
10 4 (1.02%) Oracle Service Bus
11 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.51%) BizTalk Server
12 2 (0.51%) Documentum
12 2 (0.51%) Mule ESB
12 2 (0.51%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 2 (0.51%) SharePoint
13 1 (0.25%) CMS
13 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 16 (4.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.02%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.51%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.25%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 11 (2.80%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.29%) SAP Payroll
3 8 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.78%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.78%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (1.78%) Oracle Receivables
4 7 (1.78%) SAP HCM
5 6 (1.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 5 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (1.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 5 (1.27%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (1.02%) Maximo
7 4 (1.02%) Oracle 11i
7 4 (1.02%) Oracle General Ledger
7 4 (1.02%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.76%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.76%) Oracle Cash Management
8 3 (0.76%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.51%) NEC Housing
9 2 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 84 (21.37%) Azure
2 65 (16.54%) AWS
3 28 (7.12%) OCI
4 23 (5.85%) GCP
4 23 (5.85%) Power Platform
4 23 (5.85%) SaaS
5 22 (5.60%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (4.83%) GitHub
7 18 (4.58%) Cloud Computing
8 16 (4.07%) PaaS
8 16 (4.07%) Serverless
9 15 (3.82%) Boomi
10 14 (3.56%) IaaS
11 12 (3.05%) Apigee
11 12 (3.05%) Azure Data Factory
11 12 (3.05%) Tricentis Tosca
12 10 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
12 10 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (2.04%) Kong
13 8 (2.04%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 30 (7.63%) HTTP
2 19 (4.83%) HTTPS
3 9 (2.29%) Firewall
4 6 (1.53%) 3GPP
4 6 (1.53%) FTP
5 4 (1.02%) RTCP
5 4 (1.02%) RTP
5 4 (1.02%) SSL
5 4 (1.02%) XCAP
6 3 (0.76%) NFC
6 3 (0.76%) PPP
7 2 (0.51%) 5G
7 2 (0.51%) BGP
7 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 2 (0.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (0.51%) FIX Connectivity
7 2 (0.51%) MPLS
7 2 (0.51%) VPN
8 1 (0.25%) DNS
8 1 (0.25%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.20%) Relational Database
2 41 (10.43%) SQL Server
3 26 (6.62%) MongoDB
4 25 (6.36%) Data Warehouse
4 25 (6.36%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (4.83%) RDBMS
6 18 (4.58%) NoSQL
7 17 (4.33%) Oracle Reports
7 17 (4.33%) Power BI
8 13 (3.31%) Oracle Database
9 11 (2.80%) Data Lake
9 11 (2.80%) Metadata
10 10 (2.54%) MySQL
10 10 (2.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 9 (2.29%) DataStage
12 7 (1.78%) DB2
13 6 (1.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (1.53%) Tableau
14 5 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.27%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 53 (13.49%) JIRA
2 51 (12.98%) Git
3 48 (12.21%) Postman
4 30 (7.63%) Jenkins
5 27 (6.87%) Selenium
6 23 (5.85%) JUnit
7 19 (4.83%) Cucumber
8 15 (3.82%) Eclipse
9 14 (3.56%) SoapUI
10 12 (3.05%) Maven
11 9 (2.29%) GitLab
11 9 (2.29%) IntelliJ
11 9 (2.29%) SpecFlow
11 9 (2.29%) TestRail
11 9 (2.29%) Zephyr
12 7 (1.78%) Toad
13 6 (1.53%) SonarQube
14 5 (1.27%) MSTest
14 5 (1.27%) Robot Framework
14 5 (1.27%) Subversion
General
1 127 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 86 (21.88%) Finance
3 76 (19.34%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (10.43%) Banking
5 37 (9.41%) Public Sector
6 21 (5.34%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (2.80%) Investment Banking
8 9 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.04%) Financial Institution
9 8 (2.04%) Legal
9 8 (2.04%) Private Banking
10 7 (1.78%) Retail
10 7 (1.78%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.27%) Military
11 5 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.02%) Aerospace
12 4 (1.02%) General Ledger
12 4 (1.02%) Publishing
13 3 (0.76%) Back Office
13 3 (0.76%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 117 (29.77%) Developer
2 57 (14.50%) Analyst
3 46 (11.70%) Consultant
4 25 (6.36%) Business Analyst
4 25 (6.36%) Senior
5 21 (5.34%) Architect
6 20 (5.09%) Lead
6 20 (5.09%) Software Engineer
7 16 (4.07%) Data Engineer
8 15 (3.82%) DBA
8 15 (3.82%) Implementation Consultant
9 12 (3.05%) Integration Developer
9 12 (3.05%) Tester
10 11 (2.80%) Java Developer
10 11 (2.80%) SAP Consultant
11 10 (2.54%) Integration Specialist
11 10 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.29%) Cloud Specialist
12 9 (2.29%) Oracle Specialist
12 9 (2.29%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (53.69%) JSON
2 133 (33.84%) REST
3 131 (33.33%) SOAP
4 52 (13.23%) Web Services
5 42 (10.69%) XSLT
6 41 (10.43%) OAuth
7 34 (8.65%) HTML
8 31 (7.89%) .NET
9 29 (7.38%) JWT
9 29 (7.38%) Oracle Fusion
10 27 (6.87%) Middleware
11 25 (6.36%) RESTful
12 22 (5.60%) JMS
12 22 (5.60%) XSD
13 20 (5.09%) Kafka
13 20 (5.09%) Spring
13 20 (5.09%) Swagger
14 19 (4.83%) J2EE
15 18 (4.58%) CSS
16 16 (4.07%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.58%) Data Structures
2 12 (3.05%) Management Information System
2 12 (3.05%) Public Cloud
2 12 (3.05%) Replication
3 11 (2.80%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.29%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.04%) AS400
6 8 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.04%) Virtual Team
7 7 (1.78%) Cloud Native
7 7 (1.78%) Fixed Income
8 6 (1.53%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.53%) CMDB
8 6 (1.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 5 (1.27%) Derivative
9 5 (1.27%) Digital Wallet
9 5 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 5 (1.27%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 43 (10.94%) Linux
2 30 (7.63%) Unix
3 16 (4.07%) Windows
4 5 (1.27%) AIX
4 5 (1.27%) Ubuntu
5 4 (1.02%) Android
6 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.25%) VMS
6 1 (0.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (36.90%) Agile
2 116 (29.52%) DevOps
3 104 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
4 79 (20.10%) CI/CD
5 56 (14.25%) Validation
6 50 (12.72%) ERP
6 50 (12.72%) Scrum
7 47 (11.96%) Data Modelling
8 43 (10.94%) ETL
9 42 (10.69%) Migration
10 41 (10.43%) Integration Patterns
11 38 (9.67%) Microservices
12 37 (9.41%) Requirements Gathering
12 37 (9.41%) Software Engineering
12 37 (9.41%) Test Automation
13 34 (8.65%) Mentoring
13 34 (8.65%) SDLC
14 33 (8.40%) Continuous Improvement
14 33 (8.40%) Stakeholder Management
15 31 (7.89%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 151 (38.42%) SQL
2 107 (27.23%) Java
3 62 (15.78%) C#
4 57 (14.50%) Python
5 50 (12.72%) JavaScript
6 22 (5.60%) T-SQL
7 18 (4.58%) PowerShell
8 17 (4.33%) PL/SQL
9 16 (4.07%) XPath
10 9 (2.29%) Scala
10 9 (2.29%) Shell Script
11 8 (2.04%) ABAP
11 8 (2.04%) C++
11 8 (2.04%) Groovy
11 8 (2.04%) RPG
12 7 (1.78%) Korn
13 6 (1.53%) Kotlin
14 5 (1.27%) Perl
15 4 (1.02%) Bicep
16 3 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 96 (24.43%) Security Cleared
2 70 (17.81%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.92%) Degree
4 22 (5.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (3.05%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 7 (1.78%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.53%) ISEB
10 5 (1.27%) CCNP
10 5 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.27%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.27%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.27%) PMP
11 4 (1.02%) Azure Certification
11 4 (1.02%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.51%) CCNA
12 2 (0.51%) CEH
12 2 (0.51%) GIAC
12 2 (0.51%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.12%) QA
2 15 (3.82%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.04%) GDPR
4 6 (1.53%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.27%) PSD2
6 4 (1.02%) GAAP
7 3 (0.76%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.76%) FATCA
7 3 (0.76%) ISO 8583
7 3 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.51%) Basel III
8 2 (0.51%) HL7
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.51%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.51%) SEPA
9 1 (0.25%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 1 (0.25%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.25%) EMIR
9 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 32 (8.14%) Docker
2 3 (0.76%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (3.56%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.80%) Ansible
3 10 (2.54%) Control-M
3 10 (2.54%) Puppet
4 7 (1.78%) TIBCO Hawk
5 6 (1.53%) logstash
6 5 (1.27%) Kibana
7 3 (0.76%) ITRS Geneos
8 2 (0.51%) CloudHub
8 2 (0.51%) Fluentd
8 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.51%) Grafana
8 2 (0.51%) QRadar
8 2 (0.51%) Terraform
9 1 (0.25%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.25%) Podman
9 1 (0.25%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 110 (27.99%) Oracle
2 42 (10.69%) SAP
3 40 (10.18%) Microsoft
4 35 (8.91%) IBM
5 22 (5.60%) webMethods
6 18 (4.58%) MuleSoft
7 16 (4.07%) Workday
8 13 (3.31%) ServiceNow
9 11 (2.80%) Informatica
9 11 (2.80%) Splunk
10 10 (2.54%) TIBCO
11 8 (2.04%) Google
11 8 (2.04%) Pega
11 8 (2.04%) Talend
12 7 (1.78%) BEA
12 7 (1.78%) Cisco
12 7 (1.78%) Red Hat
12 7 (1.78%) Software AG
13 6 (1.53%) Salesforce
14 5 (1.27%) Ariba