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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 316 234 183
Rank change year-on-year -82 -51 +6
Contract jobs citing XML 463 383 521
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.16% 1.37%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.90% 4.44% 5.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 254 278
10th Percentile £325 £337 £322
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £577 £584
90th Percentile £698 £693 £652
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 26 44
10th Percentile - £30.63 -
25th Percentile - £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £29.07 £42.75 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.00% -0.58% -18.10%
75th Percentile £41.75 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £46.04 £91.88 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £42.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -31.60% -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 11,884 8,631 9,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.66% 26.04% 24.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,808 5,738 6,150
10th Percentile £375 £355 £356
25th Percentile £440 £413 £430
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% -4.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 289 187 188
10th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 £25.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £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 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.47 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +17.34% -11.54% +11.11%

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 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 3 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 3 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 -89 364 £488 -2.50% 368
London -48 192 £538 +2.38% 199
UK excluding London -102 181 £450 -5.26% 202
Work from Home -58 155 £525 +9.38% 167
South East -53 50 £460 -3.16% 59
Midlands -25 45 £418 -2.68% 25
West Midlands -19 38 £415 -3.38% 19
North of England -84 27 £381 -23.80% 35
South West -32 21 £550 +46.67% 23
Scotland -14 20 £450 -5.26% 30
North West -63 17 £416 -12.46% 21
East of England -42 13 £517 +6.05% 17
Yorkshire -33 10 £380 -43.70% 12
East Midlands -15 6 £494 +82.96% 6
Wales -25 3 £600 +60.00% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £650 - 6
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 (7.34%) SharePoint
2 21 (4.54%) Confluence
3 16 (3.46%) Anypoint
3 16 (3.46%) IIS
3 16 (3.46%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (2.81%) Mule
5 10 (2.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 6 (1.30%) Apache
6 6 (1.30%) WebSphere
7 5 (1.08%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.65%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.65%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.43%) CICS
9 2 (0.43%) CMS
10 1 (0.22%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.22%) JBoss
10 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.22%) Mule ESB
10 1 (0.22%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 13 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.59%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.16%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.73%) Windchill
5 3 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.22%) LaTeX
Business Applications
1 24 (5.18%) Oracle EBS
2 19 (4.10%) NetSuite
3 18 (3.89%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (3.24%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (2.59%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
7 8 (1.73%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (1.73%) Workday HCM
8 7 (1.51%) Oracle FAH
8 7 (1.51%) SAP FI
9 6 (1.30%) Maximo
9 6 (1.30%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (1.30%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (1.08%) Elite 3E
10 5 (1.08%) FLEXCUBE
11 4 (0.86%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 4 (0.86%) Oracle Internet Expenses
11 4 (0.86%) Oracle iProcurement
11 4 (0.86%) SAP CO
11 4 (0.86%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 129 (27.86%) Azure
2 69 (14.90%) AWS
3 55 (11.88%) Azure DevOps
4 49 (10.58%) Boomi
5 34 (7.34%) GCP
6 26 (5.62%) Power Platform
7 24 (5.18%) AtomSphere
8 21 (4.54%) Azure Service Bus
8 21 (4.54%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (4.32%) GitHub
10 19 (4.10%) Azure Functions
10 19 (4.10%) Entra ID
10 19 (4.10%) Power Automate
10 19 (4.10%) Serverless
11 18 (3.89%) Azure Logic Apps
11 18 (3.89%) SaaS
12 15 (3.24%) iPaaS
13 12 (2.59%) PowerApps
14 9 (1.94%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (1.73%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 35 (7.56%) HTTP
2 11 (2.38%) FTP
3 7 (1.51%) SSL
4 6 (1.30%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.08%) Network Security
6 3 (0.65%) Wireless
7 2 (0.43%) DNS
7 2 (0.43%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.43%) Internet
7 2 (0.43%) Intranet
7 2 (0.43%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.43%) WAN
7 2 (0.43%) 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 (14.04%) SQL Server
2 39 (8.42%) Relational Database
3 26 (5.62%) Oracle Database
3 26 (5.62%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (3.67%) Oracle Reports
4 17 (3.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 14 (3.02%) MS Access
5 14 (3.02%) MySQL
6 12 (2.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 11 (2.38%) Metadata
7 11 (2.38%) RDBMS
7 11 (2.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 10 (2.16%) MongoDB
9 7 (1.51%) Data Lake
9 7 (1.51%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.51%) Power BI
9 7 (1.51%) Tableau
10 6 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
10 6 (1.30%) Parquet
11 5 (1.08%) GIS
Development Applications
1 72 (15.55%) Git
2 51 (11.02%) JIRA
3 28 (6.05%) Jenkins
4 27 (5.83%) Team Foundation Server
5 24 (5.18%) Postman
5 24 (5.18%) Visual Studio
6 18 (3.89%) Oracle Forms
6 18 (3.89%) Selenium
7 12 (2.59%) Gradle
8 11 (2.38%) Maven
9 10 (2.16%) JMeter
9 10 (2.16%) SonarQube
10 9 (1.94%) eggPlant
11 8 (1.73%) GitLab
11 8 (1.73%) SoapUI
11 8 (1.73%) WebDriver
12 7 (1.51%) Cucumber
13 6 (1.30%) JDeveloper
13 6 (1.30%) JUnit
13 6 (1.30%) LoadRunner
General
1 153 (33.05%) Social Skills
2 110 (23.76%) Finance
3 103 (22.25%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (12.53%) Public Sector
5 44 (9.50%) Banking
6 17 (3.67%) Manufacturing
7 15 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (2.59%) Telecoms
9 11 (2.38%) Law
10 9 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.94%) Publishing
11 8 (1.73%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.73%) General Ledger
11 8 (1.73%) Legal
11 8 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
11 8 (1.73%) Retail
12 6 (1.30%) Aviation
12 6 (1.30%) Financial Institution
12 6 (1.30%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.30%) Police
Job Titles
1 168 (36.29%) Developer
2 59 (12.74%) Senior
3 44 (9.50%) Architect
4 39 (8.42%) Analyst
4 39 (8.42%) Consultant
5 35 (7.56%) Lead
6 27 (5.83%) Senior Developer
7 23 (4.97%) Data Engineer
7 23 (4.97%) Software Developer
8 20 (4.32%) Integration Developer
9 16 (3.46%) Business Analyst
9 16 (3.46%) Lead Developer
9 16 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (3.02%) C# Developer
10 14 (3.02%) Test Analyst
11 13 (2.81%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 13 (2.81%) Software Engineer
11 13 (2.81%) Technical Consultant
12 12 (2.59%) .NET Developer
12 12 (2.59%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (52.48%) JSON
2 190 (41.04%) REST
3 169 (36.50%) SOAP
4 91 (19.65%) Web Services
5 89 (19.22%) .NET
6 85 (18.36%) Middleware
7 63 (13.61%) XSLT
8 49 (10.58%) HTML
9 43 (9.29%) Kafka
9 43 (9.29%) OAuth
10 32 (6.91%) RESTful
11 28 (6.05%) .NET Framework
11 28 (6.05%) CSS
12 27 (5.83%) OAuth2
13 24 (5.18%) EDI
13 24 (5.18%) Swagger
14 22 (4.75%) JWT
15 19 (4.10%) OpenAPI
16 18 (3.89%) XSD
17 16 (3.46%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 27 (5.83%) Enterprise Software
2 20 (4.32%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (4.10%) Product Ownership
4 18 (3.89%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 17 (3.67%) Cloud Native
6 16 (3.46%) Data Structures
6 16 (3.46%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (3.46%) Management Information System
6 16 (3.46%) Onboarding
7 13 (2.81%) Taxonomies
8 11 (2.38%) Replication
9 10 (2.16%) CMDB
9 10 (2.16%) Legacy Applications
10 9 (1.94%) LIMS
11 8 (1.73%) PKI
11 8 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (1.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 7 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (1.51%) Virtual Team
13 6 (1.30%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 41 (8.86%) Linux
2 34 (7.34%) Windows
3 26 (5.62%) Unix
4 10 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.65%) zOS
7 2 (0.43%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.22%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (30.89%) Problem-Solving
2 115 (24.84%) Agile
3 108 (23.33%) DevOps
4 102 (22.03%) CI/CD
5 85 (18.36%) Validation
6 64 (13.82%) Integration Patterns
6 64 (13.82%) Test Automation
7 61 (13.17%) Workflow
8 60 (12.96%) Stakeholder Management
9 59 (12.74%) Data Modelling
10 57 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
11 52 (11.23%) Event-Driven
11 52 (11.23%) Migration
12 51 (11.02%) ERP
13 47 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 43 (9.29%) Data Mapping
14 43 (9.29%) Scrum
15 42 (9.07%) User Acceptance Testing
16 41 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
17 40 (8.64%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 184 (39.74%) SQL
2 108 (23.33%) Java
3 103 (22.25%) JavaScript
4 86 (18.57%) C#
5 84 (18.14%) Python
6 37 (7.99%) PL/SQL
7 28 (6.05%) PowerShell
8 24 (5.18%) VB.NET
8 24 (5.18%) VBA
9 23 (4.97%) Groovy
10 20 (4.32%) C++
10 20 (4.32%) T-SQL
10 20 (4.32%) VB
11 19 (4.10%) VB6
12 16 (3.46%) XPath
13 14 (3.02%) TypeScript
14 12 (2.59%) Shell Script
15 7 (1.51%) ABAP
15 7 (1.51%) Bicep
15 7 (1.51%) C
Qualifications
1 140 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 115 (24.84%) SC Cleared
3 49 (10.58%) Degree
4 25 (5.40%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (3.89%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.67%) ISTQB
7 14 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (2.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 11 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (1.94%) ISEB
11 6 (1.30%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.86%) Master's Degree
14 3 (0.65%) AWS Certification
15 2 (0.43%) CISSP
15 2 (0.43%) DBS Check
15 2 (0.43%) GIAC
15 2 (0.43%) SSCP
16 1 (0.22%) CISM
16 1 (0.22%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (8.42%) QA
2 27 (5.83%) Data Quality
3 20 (4.32%) ISO 20022
4 17 (3.67%) Accessibility
5 14 (3.02%) GDPR
5 14 (3.02%) WCAG
6 9 (1.94%) GMP
7 8 (1.73%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 8 (1.73%) GxP
7 8 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 6 (1.30%) SLA
9 5 (1.08%) GRC
9 5 (1.08%) HL7
10 4 (0.86%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.65%) SEPA
12 2 (0.43%) NCSC
13 1 (0.22%) COREP
13 1 (0.22%) IFRS
13 1 (0.22%) PMO
13 1 (0.22%) PSD2
System Software
1 16 (3.46%) Active Directory
1 16 (3.46%) Docker
2 5 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.43%) RACF
4 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (3.89%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.67%) Ansible
2 17 (3.67%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (1.08%) Control-M
3 5 (1.08%) HP Fortify
4 3 (0.65%) QRadar
4 3 (0.65%) vRealize Orchestrator
4 3 (0.65%) WMI
5 2 (0.43%) CloudHub
5 2 (0.43%) Netcool
5 2 (0.43%) Netcool/OMNIbus
5 2 (0.43%) Tivoli
5 2 (0.43%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 1 (0.22%) Apache Ranger
6 1 (0.22%) Grafana
6 1 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.22%) Kibana
6 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 139 (30.02%) Oracle
2 119 (25.70%) Microsoft
3 51 (11.02%) SAP
4 47 (10.15%) IBM
5 39 (8.42%) MuleSoft
6 37 (7.99%) ServiceNow
7 33 (7.13%) Salesforce
8 30 (6.48%) Google
9 27 (5.83%) Workday
10 13 (2.81%) Informatica
11 12 (2.59%) Okta
12 11 (2.38%) Databricks
12 11 (2.38%) webMethods
13 9 (1.94%) TIBCO
13 9 (1.94%) WSO2
14 8 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (1.73%) PTC
15 5 (1.08%) Ariba
15 5 (1.08%) Kronos
15 5 (1.08%) VMware