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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 306 230 169
Rank change year-on-year -76 -61 +24
Contract jobs citing XML 434 383 547
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 1.17% 1.41%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.70% 4.62% 5.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 253 297
10th Percentile £325 £351 £353
25th Percentile £403 £413 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £575 £606
90th Percentile £688 £675 £680
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £453 £500
% change year-on-year -6.18% -9.40% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 26 44
10th Percentile £27.66 £28.50 -
25th Percentile £29.07 £31.25 -
Median hourly rate £34.75 £42.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.24% -1.16% -38.57%
75th Percentile £42.06 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £44.14 £76.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.75 £42.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -18.24% -1.16% -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 11,719 8,295 9,480
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.80% 25.36% 24.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,711 5,600 6,428
10th Percentile £375 £354 £356
25th Percentile £431 £413 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £635 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £504 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +6.00% -5.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 183 200
10th Percentile £29.07 £30.35 £25.27
25th Percentile £45.00 £41.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £52.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +23.81% -14.77% -1.83%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £87.80 £77.96 £74.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +22.73% -15.38% +8.33%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -87 348 £500 +1.52% 277
London -51 189 £539 +2.62% 169
UK excluding London -100 172 £425 -6.18% 147
Work from Home -55 144 £523 +15.09% 122
South East -52 50 £402 -15.37% 32
Midlands -31 36 £415 -3.49% 27
North of England -78 36 £375 -16.67% 26
North West -58 28 £375 -16.67% 15
West Midlands -42 27 £410 -11.83% 16
Scotland -1 18 £450 -10.00% 19
South West -27 17 £550 +46.67% 20
East of England -38 10 £480 -12.82% 13
East Midlands -13 8 £494 +82.96% 11
Yorkshire -43 8 £355 -33.95% 8
Northern Ireland +2 3 £650 +36.84% 7
Wales -31 3 £600 +60.00% 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 28 (6.45%) SharePoint
2 20 (4.61%) Confluence
3 18 (4.15%) Anypoint
4 16 (3.69%) IIS
5 15 (3.46%) Oracle Workflow
6 13 (3.00%) Mule
7 9 (2.07%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 7 (1.61%) WebSphere
9 5 (1.15%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.92%) Apache
10 4 (0.92%) CMS
11 3 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
11 3 (0.69%) MQSeries
12 2 (0.46%) CICS
12 2 (0.46%) Oracle Service Bus
13 1 (0.23%) JBoss
13 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
13 1 (0.23%) Mule ESB
13 1 (0.23%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (7.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.76%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.38%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.46%) Windchill
7 1 (0.23%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.23%) LaTeX
Business Applications
1 22 (5.07%) Oracle EBS
2 16 (3.69%) NetSuite
3 15 (3.46%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (2.76%) Oracle Receivables
5 10 (2.30%) Dynamics CRM
6 8 (1.84%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (1.84%) SAP S/4HANA
7 6 (1.38%) Maximo
7 6 (1.38%) Oracle Assets
7 6 (1.38%) Oracle FAH
8 5 (1.15%) Elite 3E
8 5 (1.15%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (1.15%) SAP FI
9 4 (0.92%) FLEXCUBE
9 4 (0.92%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 4 (0.92%) Oracle Internet Expenses
9 4 (0.92%) Oracle iProcurement
9 4 (0.92%) Summit
10 3 (0.69%) Findur
10 3 (0.69%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 108 (24.88%) Azure
2 56 (12.90%) AWS
3 51 (11.75%) Azure DevOps
4 40 (9.22%) Boomi
5 27 (6.22%) GCP
6 21 (4.84%) GitHub
7 20 (4.61%) AtomSphere
8 18 (4.15%) Azure Service Bus
9 17 (3.92%) Power Platform
10 16 (3.69%) Azure Logic Apps
10 16 (3.69%) Entra ID
10 16 (3.69%) SaaS
11 12 (2.76%) Azure Functions
11 12 (2.76%) Serverless
12 11 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
13 10 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (2.30%) Power Automate
14 9 (2.07%) Amazon S3
14 9 (2.07%) iPaaS
14 9 (2.07%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.45%) HTTP
2 8 (1.84%) FTP
3 7 (1.61%) SSL
4 6 (1.38%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.15%) Network Security
6 3 (0.69%) Wireless
7 2 (0.46%) DNS
7 2 (0.46%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.46%) Internet
7 2 (0.46%) Intranet
7 2 (0.46%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.46%) WAN
8 1 (0.23%) AMQP
8 1 (0.23%) Bluetooth
8 1 (0.23%) Firewall
8 1 (0.23%) NAS
8 1 (0.23%) NFC
8 1 (0.23%) SAN
8 1 (0.23%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (12.44%) SQL Server
2 38 (8.76%) Relational Database
3 23 (5.30%) Oracle Database
4 19 (4.38%) PostgreSQL
5 15 (3.46%) RDBMS
6 14 (3.23%) Oracle Reports
7 13 (3.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (2.76%) Metadata
8 12 (2.76%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 10 (2.30%) MS Access
9 10 (2.30%) MySQL
10 9 (2.07%) MongoDB
10 9 (2.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 8 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (1.84%) NoSQL
11 8 (1.84%) Power BI
12 7 (1.61%) DataStage
12 7 (1.61%) Tableau
13 5 (1.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.92%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 57 (13.13%) Git
2 44 (10.14%) JIRA
3 25 (5.76%) Postman
4 24 (5.53%) Jenkins
5 21 (4.84%) Team Foundation Server
5 21 (4.84%) Visual Studio
6 19 (4.38%) Selenium
7 16 (3.69%) Oracle Forms
8 11 (2.53%) JMeter
9 10 (2.30%) GitLab
9 10 (2.30%) Gradle
9 10 (2.30%) Maven
10 9 (2.07%) SoapUI
11 8 (1.84%) eggPlant
11 8 (1.84%) SonarQube
11 8 (1.84%) WebDriver
12 6 (1.38%) JDeveloper
12 6 (1.38%) LoadRunner
13 5 (1.15%) Cucumber
13 5 (1.15%) Cypress.io
General
1 144 (33.18%) Social Skills
2 101 (23.27%) Finance
3 99 (22.81%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (10.83%) Public Sector
5 41 (9.45%) Banking
6 12 (2.76%) Legal
6 12 (2.76%) Manufacturing
6 12 (2.76%) Telecoms
7 10 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.84%) General Ledger
8 8 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (1.84%) Investment Banking
8 8 (1.84%) Law
8 8 (1.84%) Publishing
8 8 (1.84%) Retail
9 5 (1.15%) Marketing
9 5 (1.15%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (1.15%) Police
10 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 136 (31.34%) Developer
2 55 (12.67%) Senior
3 51 (11.75%) Consultant
4 44 (10.14%) Analyst
5 41 (9.45%) Architect
6 28 (6.45%) Lead
7 25 (5.76%) Senior Developer
8 23 (5.30%) Data Engineer
9 22 (5.07%) Implementation Consultant
10 19 (4.38%) Business Analyst
10 19 (4.38%) Software Developer
11 14 (3.23%) Solutions Architect
12 13 (3.00%) C# Developer
12 13 (3.00%) Integration Developer
12 13 (3.00%) Software Engineer
13 12 (2.76%) Oracle Developer
13 12 (2.76%) Technical Consultant
13 12 (2.76%) Test Analyst
14 11 (2.53%) MuleSoft Developer
15 10 (2.30%) Integration Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 215 (49.54%) JSON
2 158 (36.41%) REST
3 139 (32.03%) SOAP
4 78 (17.97%) .NET
5 71 (16.36%) Middleware
6 68 (15.67%) Web Services
7 50 (11.52%) XSLT
8 40 (9.22%) HTML
9 39 (8.99%) OAuth
10 37 (8.53%) Kafka
11 26 (5.99%) OAuth2
12 25 (5.76%) RESTful
13 24 (5.53%) EDI
14 23 (5.30%) .NET Framework
14 23 (5.30%) JWT
15 22 (5.07%) CSS
16 18 (4.15%) Swagger
17 16 (3.69%) XSD
18 15 (3.46%) OpenAPI
19 14 (3.23%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 20 (4.61%) Legacy Systems
1 20 (4.61%) Product Ownership
2 19 (4.38%) Enterprise Software
3 17 (3.92%) Data Structures
3 17 (3.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 14 (3.23%) Cloud Native
5 12 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (2.53%) Replication
7 10 (2.30%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.07%) Legacy Applications
9 8 (1.84%) CMDB
9 8 (1.84%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.84%) PKI
9 8 (1.84%) Taxonomies
10 7 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 7 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (1.38%) Algorithms
11 6 (1.38%) LIMS
11 6 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.15%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 35 (8.06%) Linux
2 29 (6.68%) Windows
3 26 (5.99%) Unix
4 8 (1.84%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.46%) zOS
7 1 (0.23%) Android
7 1 (0.23%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (29.95%) Problem-Solving
2 101 (23.27%) Agile
3 97 (22.35%) CI/CD
3 97 (22.35%) DevOps
4 81 (18.66%) Validation
5 64 (14.75%) Workflow
6 59 (13.59%) Integration Patterns
7 58 (13.36%) Test Automation
8 53 (12.21%) Migration
9 52 (11.98%) Stakeholder Management
10 49 (11.29%) Data Modelling
11 46 (10.60%) Event-Driven
12 45 (10.37%) Continuous Improvement
13 42 (9.68%) ERP
13 42 (9.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 41 (9.45%) Scrum
15 40 (9.22%) User Acceptance Testing
16 39 (8.99%) Data Mapping
17 36 (8.29%) API Management
18 35 (8.06%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 189 (43.55%) SQL
2 99 (22.81%) Java
3 81 (18.66%) JavaScript
4 77 (17.74%) Python
5 68 (15.67%) C#
6 36 (8.29%) PL/SQL
6 36 (8.29%) T-SQL
7 23 (5.30%) VB.NET
8 22 (5.07%) VBA
9 21 (4.84%) PowerShell
10 20 (4.61%) Groovy
11 19 (4.38%) C++
12 17 (3.92%) VB
13 16 (3.69%) VB6
14 14 (3.23%) XPath
15 7 (1.61%) Bicep
15 7 (1.61%) DataWeave
15 7 (1.61%) Shell Script
15 7 (1.61%) TypeScript
16 6 (1.38%) R
Qualifications
1 121 (27.88%) Security Cleared
2 99 (22.81%) SC Cleared
3 35 (8.06%) Degree
4 18 (4.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (3.69%) ISTQB
6 12 (2.76%) DV Cleared
7 11 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (2.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (1.84%) ISEB
9 6 (1.38%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.92%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.69%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.69%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.46%) CISSP
13 2 (0.46%) GIAC
13 2 (0.46%) Master's Degree
13 2 (0.46%) SSCP
14 1 (0.23%) CEH
14 1 (0.23%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (7.37%) QA
2 23 (5.30%) Data Quality
3 19 (4.38%) ISO 20022
4 11 (2.53%) Accessibility
5 9 (2.07%) GDPR
6 8 (1.84%) WCAG
7 7 (1.61%) GMP
8 6 (1.38%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 6 (1.38%) GxP
8 6 (1.38%) HL7
8 6 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 6 (1.38%) SLA
9 4 (0.92%) GRC
9 4 (0.92%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.46%) SEPA
11 1 (0.23%) COREP
11 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.23%) FINREP
11 1 (0.23%) IFRS
11 1 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (3.23%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.53%) Docker
3 5 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.46%) RACF
5 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 15 (3.46%) Ansible
2 13 (3.00%) Single Sign-On
3 12 (2.76%) Kubernetes
4 5 (1.15%) HP Fortify
5 4 (0.92%) Control-M
6 3 (0.69%) QRadar
6 3 (0.69%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 3 (0.69%) WMI
7 2 (0.46%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
8 1 (0.23%) Grafana
8 1 (0.23%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.23%) Kibana
8 1 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 130 (29.95%) Oracle
2 101 (23.27%) Microsoft
3 45 (10.37%) SAP
4 39 (8.99%) IBM
5 36 (8.29%) MuleSoft
6 33 (7.60%) ServiceNow
7 30 (6.91%) Salesforce
8 21 (4.84%) Google
8 21 (4.84%) Workday
9 11 (2.53%) Databricks
9 11 (2.53%) Okta
10 10 (2.30%) webMethods
11 9 (2.07%) Informatica
12 7 (1.61%) TIBCO
13 6 (1.38%) BeyondTrust
13 6 (1.38%) WSO2
14 5 (1.15%) Intapp
14 5 (1.15%) Kronos
14 5 (1.15%) VMware
15 4 (0.92%) InterSystems