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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 311 241 162
Rank change year-on-year -70 -79 +33
Contract jobs citing XML 367 324 642
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 1.10% 1.47%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.75% 4.82% 6.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 226 343
10th Percentile £350 £363 £401
25th Percentile £413 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £534
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -11.05% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £583 £619
90th Percentile £688 £634 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £442 £455 £523
% change year-on-year -2.80% -13.04% +4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 6 70
10th Percentile £29.37 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £33.63 £27.00 -
Median hourly rate £42.00 £27.38 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.40% -36.33% -38.57%
75th Percentile £48.75 £73.67 £51.25
90th Percentile £55.20 £91.25 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.15 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.81% -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 9,780 6,720 9,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.60% 22.88% 21.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,419 4,600 6,346
10th Percentile £363 £358 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -2.27%
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 279 122 263
10th Percentile £30.93 £29.35 £22.10
25th Percentile £51.25 £42.14 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +21.21% -23.85%
75th Percentile £73.23 £68.00 £68.38
90th Percentile £81.25 £81.32 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.77% +15.00% -15.38%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -50 324 £525 +8.25% 80
UK excluding London -72 167 £442 -2.80% 65
London -60 154 £550 +0.92% 29
Work from Home -58 100 £465 -2.11% 55
South East -40 60 £525 +10.53% 24
North of England -68 50 £397 -11.81% 12
North West -35 43 £393 -12.78% 6
Midlands -48 27 £425 -15.00% 7
West Midlands -47 19 £425 -22.73% 1
South West -17 13 £600 +26.32% 9
East of England -20 9 £450 -18.18% 4
East Midlands -22 8 £471 +50.08% 6
Scotland -23 7 £431 -13.05% 5
Yorkshire -50 7 £463 -9.76% 3
Northern Ireland -7 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 19 (5.18%) Confluence
2 12 (3.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 10 (2.72%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.45%) Anypoint
4 9 (2.45%) WebSphere
5 8 (2.18%) IIS
5 8 (2.18%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (1.91%) WebLogic
7 5 (1.36%) CMS
7 5 (1.36%) Mule
8 4 (1.09%) Oracle Service Bus
9 3 (0.82%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 2 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.54%) Appian
10 2 (0.54%) CICS
10 2 (0.54%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.54%) Mule ESB
10 2 (0.54%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.27%) Apache
11 1 (0.27%) JBoss
Applications
1 31 (8.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.63%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.54%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.54%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.54%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 12 (3.27%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.45%) Oracle Payables
2 9 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.91%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.91%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 6 (1.63%) Maximo
4 6 (1.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (1.63%) Summit
5 5 (1.36%) Oracle Cash Management
5 5 (1.36%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.36%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (1.09%) Oracle EBS
6 4 (1.09%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.82%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.82%) Findur
7 3 (0.82%) Oracle Assets
8 2 (0.54%) BusinessWorks
8 2 (0.54%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.54%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 70 (19.07%) Azure
2 41 (11.17%) AWS
3 23 (6.27%) OCI
4 22 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (5.45%) Boomi
6 17 (4.63%) Power Platform
7 15 (4.09%) GitHub
7 15 (4.09%) PaaS
7 15 (4.09%) SaaS
8 14 (3.81%) GCP
9 13 (3.54%) IaaS
9 13 (3.54%) Serverless
10 12 (3.27%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (2.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 8 (2.18%) Azure Functions
12 8 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (2.18%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (1.91%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 7 (1.91%) Azure Service Bus
13 7 (1.91%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.09%) HTTP
2 8 (2.18%) FTP
3 6 (1.63%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.09%) RTCP
4 4 (1.09%) RTP
4 4 (1.09%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.09%) XCAP
5 2 (0.54%) DNS
5 2 (0.54%) FIX Connectivity
5 2 (0.54%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.54%) SSL
6 1 (0.27%) AMQP
6 1 (0.27%) Firewall
6 1 (0.27%) Internet
6 1 (0.27%) Intranet
6 1 (0.27%) NAS
6 1 (0.27%) Network Security
6 1 (0.27%) SAN
6 1 (0.27%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (10.35%) SQL Server
2 32 (8.72%) Relational Database
3 22 (5.99%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (4.90%) PostgreSQL
4 18 (4.90%) RDBMS
5 17 (4.63%) Oracle Database
6 15 (4.09%) NoSQL
7 14 (3.81%) MongoDB
8 13 (3.54%) Power BI
8 13 (3.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 12 (3.27%) Data Lake
10 11 (3.00%) Metadata
11 10 (2.72%) MySQL
11 10 (2.72%) Oracle Reports
11 10 (2.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (1.36%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 4 (1.09%) DataStage
13 4 (1.09%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 3 (0.82%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 36 (9.81%) Postman
2 33 (8.99%) Git
3 30 (8.17%) JIRA
4 13 (3.54%) SoapUI
5 10 (2.72%) GitLab
6 9 (2.45%) Maven
7 8 (2.18%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (2.18%) Visual Studio
8 7 (1.91%) Jenkins
9 5 (1.36%) Eclipse
9 5 (1.36%) Subversion
10 4 (1.09%) Gradle
10 4 (1.09%) JMeter
10 4 (1.09%) JUnit
11 3 (0.82%) ClearCase
11 3 (0.82%) MSTest
11 3 (0.82%) Newman
11 3 (0.82%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.54%) JDeveloper
12 2 (0.54%) Selenium
General
1 122 (33.24%) Social Skills
2 76 (20.71%) Finance
3 70 (19.07%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (10.90%) Banking
5 25 (6.81%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.54%) Investment Banking
7 12 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (3.27%) Legal
8 11 (3.00%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (2.18%) Military
9 8 (2.18%) Publishing
9 8 (2.18%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.91%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.36%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.36%) Front Office
11 5 (1.36%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.36%) Marketing
12 4 (1.09%) Advertising
12 4 (1.09%) Billing
13 3 (0.82%) Retail
Job Titles
1 89 (24.25%) Developer
2 59 (16.08%) Consultant
3 46 (12.53%) Analyst
4 30 (8.17%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.36%) Business Analyst
6 26 (7.08%) Senior
7 23 (6.27%) Architect
8 21 (5.72%) Data Engineer
9 18 (4.90%) Lead
10 14 (3.81%) C# Developer
10 14 (3.81%) Integration Specialist
10 14 (3.81%) Software Engineer
11 13 (3.54%) Payroll Consultant
12 10 (2.72%) DBA
13 9 (2.45%) Cloud Specialist
13 9 (2.45%) Integration Engineer
13 9 (2.45%) Oracle Specialist
13 9 (2.45%) Senior Developer
13 9 (2.45%) Technical Consultant
14 8 (2.18%) Workflow Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (46.32%) JSON
2 113 (30.79%) REST
3 107 (29.16%) SOAP
4 52 (14.17%) Web Services
5 44 (11.99%) Middleware
6 43 (11.72%) XSLT
7 41 (11.17%) .NET
8 31 (8.45%) OAuth
9 29 (7.90%) Oracle Fusion
10 26 (7.08%) HTML
11 24 (6.54%) JWT
12 21 (5.72%) Swagger
13 20 (5.45%) RESTful
14 18 (4.90%) CSS
14 18 (4.90%) Kafka
14 18 (4.90%) XSD
15 17 (4.63%) EDI
16 14 (3.81%) .NET Framework
16 14 (3.81%) OpenAPI
17 13 (3.54%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.09%) Product Ownership
2 11 (3.00%) Data Structures
3 10 (2.72%) Public Cloud
4 9 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (2.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 8 (2.18%) Fixed Income
6 7 (1.91%) Credit Risk
6 7 (1.91%) Derivative
6 7 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (1.91%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.63%) CMDB
7 6 (1.63%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.63%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.63%) Replication
7 6 (1.63%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 5 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.36%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.36%) Digital Wallet
9 4 (1.09%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.81%) Linux
2 18 (4.90%) Unix
3 8 (2.18%) Windows
4 2 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.54%) VMS
4 2 (0.54%) zOS
5 1 (0.27%) Android
5 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (26.43%) Agile
2 91 (24.80%) Problem-Solving
3 71 (19.35%) DevOps
4 59 (16.08%) CI/CD
5 52 (14.17%) Integration Patterns
6 51 (13.90%) Validation
7 50 (13.62%) ERP
8 45 (12.26%) Workflow
9 43 (11.72%) Migration
10 40 (10.90%) Data Modelling
11 39 (10.63%) ETL
12 36 (9.81%) Stakeholder Management
13 32 (8.72%) Scrum
14 30 (8.17%) Data Mapping
15 28 (7.63%) Unit Testing
15 28 (7.63%) User Acceptance Testing
16 27 (7.36%) Software Engineering
16 27 (7.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 26 (7.08%) Microservices
17 26 (7.08%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 149 (40.60%) SQL
2 55 (14.99%) Java
3 51 (13.90%) C#
4 47 (12.81%) Python
5 44 (11.99%) JavaScript
6 38 (10.35%) T-SQL
7 20 (5.45%) PL/SQL
8 11 (3.00%) PowerShell
9 10 (2.72%) VB
10 9 (2.45%) C++
10 9 (2.45%) VB6
11 8 (2.18%) VBA
12 7 (1.91%) VB.NET
12 7 (1.91%) XPath
13 6 (1.63%) Groovy
14 5 (1.36%) DataWeave
15 4 (1.09%) Bicep
16 3 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.82%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.82%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 84 (22.89%) Security Cleared
2 60 (16.35%) SC Cleared
3 32 (8.72%) Degree
4 13 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.18%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.36%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.36%) Master's Degree
7 4 (1.09%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.09%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.09%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.82%) CCNP
8 3 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.82%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.54%) HNC
9 2 (0.54%) HND
9 2 (0.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.54%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.99%) QA
2 17 (4.63%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.72%) GDPR
4 6 (1.63%) HL7
5 5 (1.36%) ISO 20022
5 5 (1.36%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.36%) PSD2
6 4 (1.09%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.09%) GAAP
7 3 (0.82%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.82%) FATCA
7 3 (0.82%) GRC
7 3 (0.82%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.54%) Basel III
8 2 (0.54%) IFRS
8 2 (0.54%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.54%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.54%) SLA
8 2 (0.54%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (3.27%) Docker
2 4 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.82%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.54%) RACF
4 2 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.27%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (2.72%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.18%) Ansible
3 6 (1.63%) Terraform
4 5 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.82%) Control-M
5 3 (0.82%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.54%) Grafana
6 2 (0.54%) TIBCO Hawk
7 1 (0.27%) QRadar
7 1 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 100 (27.25%) Oracle
2 56 (15.26%) Microsoft
3 31 (8.45%) SAP
4 26 (7.08%) Workday
5 24 (6.54%) ServiceNow
6 23 (6.27%) MuleSoft
7 14 (3.81%) IBM
8 10 (2.72%) Google
9 9 (2.45%) Databricks
9 9 (2.45%) Pega
9 9 (2.45%) Salesforce
10 8 (2.18%) Informatica
11 7 (1.91%) Dell
11 7 (1.91%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.91%) webMethods
12 5 (1.36%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.36%) Talend
13 4 (1.09%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.09%) Kronos
13 4 (1.09%) VMware