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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 231 175
Rank change year-on-year -73 -56 +17
Contract jobs citing XML 403 373 609
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 1.15% 1.42%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.93% 5.10% 6.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 258 317
10th Percentile £328 £363 £375
25th Percentile £409 £429 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £508
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -4.43% -7.73%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £613
90th Percentile £713 £625 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £455 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -9.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 68
10th Percentile £29.07 £27.00 -
25th Percentile £31.81 £27.05 -
Median hourly rate £40.50 £37.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -12.79% -38.57%
75th Percentile £45.85 £53.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £88.75 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £34.75 £43.00
% change year-on-year +13.67% -19.19% -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 10,262 7,319 9,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.50% 22.55% 21.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,720 4,947 6,290
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.74% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £656
90th Percentile £738 £756 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 161 277
10th Percentile £30.00 £29.25 £22.65
25th Percentile £50.00 £39.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -12.35%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.01 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -1.24%

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 15 July 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 15 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 16 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 15 July 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 -80 331 £525 +6.60% 202
UK excluding London -106 172 £438 -3.85% 205
London -54 165 £553 +5.33% 33
Work from Home -60 124 £520 +9.47% 181
South East -56 55 £500 +5.26% 37
North of England -76 46 £390 -13.33% 39
North West -48 38 £390 -13.33% 19
Midlands -43 30 £425 -8.60% 39
West Midlands -57 22 £425 -15.00% 21
South West -29 14 £550 +46.67% 24
Scotland -10 13 £437 -19.77% 23
East of England -23 10 £450 -18.18% 33
East Midlands -7 8 £471 +50.08% 18
Yorkshire -52 8 £431 -17.86% 16
Northern Ireland -3 2 £650 +36.84% 6
Wales -23 2 £635 +69.33% 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 25 (6.20%) Confluence
2 19 (4.71%) SharePoint
3 16 (3.97%) IIS
4 15 (3.72%) Oracle Workflow
5 14 (3.47%) Anypoint
6 10 (2.48%) Mule
7 5 (1.24%) CMS
7 5 (1.24%) WebLogic
7 5 (1.24%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.50%) Apache
8 2 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.50%) CICS
8 2 (0.50%) MQSeries
8 2 (0.50%) Mule ESB
8 2 (0.50%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.25%) Appian
9 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.25%) JBoss
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 37 (9.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.50%) EngageOne
6 2 (0.50%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 16 (3.97%) Oracle EBS
2 14 (3.47%) Oracle Payables
3 12 (2.98%) Oracle Receivables
4 9 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 7 (1.74%) Dynamics CRM
5 7 (1.74%) NetSuite
5 7 (1.74%) Oracle General Ledger
6 6 (1.49%) Maximo
6 6 (1.49%) Oracle Assets
6 6 (1.49%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (1.49%) Oracle FAH
6 6 (1.49%) Summit
7 5 (1.24%) Elite 3E
7 5 (1.24%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (1.24%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.99%) Oracle Cash Management
8 4 (0.99%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 4 (0.99%) Oracle Internet Expenses
8 4 (0.99%) Oracle iProcurement
8 4 (0.99%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 90 (22.33%) Azure
2 48 (11.91%) AWS
3 37 (9.18%) Azure DevOps
4 30 (7.44%) Boomi
5 18 (4.47%) GitHub
5 18 (4.47%) Power Platform
6 17 (4.22%) GCP
7 16 (3.97%) SaaS
8 13 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
8 13 (3.23%) Serverless
9 12 (2.98%) AtomSphere
10 10 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.23%) Azure Logic Apps
11 9 (2.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 9 (2.23%) Entra ID
11 9 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (2.23%) OCI
12 8 (1.99%) Amazon S3
12 8 (1.99%) Azure Service Bus
12 8 (1.99%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (5.71%) HTTP
2 8 (1.99%) FTP
3 6 (1.49%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.49%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.99%) Network Security
4 4 (0.99%) RTCP
4 4 (0.99%) RTP
4 4 (0.99%) SSL
4 4 (0.99%) XCAP
5 2 (0.50%) DNS
5 2 (0.50%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.50%) Internet
5 2 (0.50%) Intranet
5 2 (0.50%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.50%) WAN
5 2 (0.50%) Wireless
6 1 (0.25%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.25%) NFC
6 1 (0.25%) SAN
6 1 (0.25%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (12.66%) SQL Server
2 39 (9.68%) Relational Database
3 20 (4.96%) RDBMS
4 19 (4.71%) Oracle Database
4 19 (4.71%) PostgreSQL
4 19 (4.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 16 (3.97%) Oracle Reports
6 14 (3.47%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (3.47%) Metadata
6 14 (3.47%) MongoDB
6 14 (3.47%) NoSQL
6 14 (3.47%) Power BI
7 11 (2.73%) Data Lake
7 11 (2.73%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 11 (2.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 10 (2.48%) MS Access
8 10 (2.48%) MySQL
9 6 (1.49%) DataStage
10 5 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.99%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 44 (10.92%) Git
2 36 (8.93%) JIRA
3 32 (7.94%) Postman
4 17 (4.22%) Jenkins
5 15 (3.72%) Oracle Forms
6 14 (3.47%) Team Foundation Server
7 13 (3.23%) Visual Studio
8 9 (2.23%) GitLab
8 9 (2.23%) SoapUI
9 8 (1.99%) Maven
10 7 (1.74%) Selenium
11 6 (1.49%) JDeveloper
11 6 (1.49%) JMeter
12 5 (1.24%) Cypress.io
12 5 (1.24%) Eclipse
12 5 (1.24%) Gradle
12 5 (1.24%) JUnit
12 5 (1.24%) Subversion
13 4 (0.99%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.99%) TeamCity
General
1 132 (32.75%) Social Skills
2 87 (21.59%) Analytical Skills
3 82 (20.35%) Finance
4 34 (8.44%) Banking
4 34 (8.44%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.48%) Investment Banking
7 10 (2.48%) Publishing
7 10 (2.48%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.23%) Legal
8 9 (2.23%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.23%) Retail
9 7 (1.74%) General Ledger
10 6 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.49%) Military
11 5 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.99%) Advertising
12 4 (0.99%) Billing
12 4 (0.99%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 121 (30.02%) Developer
2 60 (14.89%) Consultant
3 45 (11.17%) Analyst
4 34 (8.44%) Senior
5 30 (7.44%) Architect
5 30 (7.44%) Implementation Consultant
6 26 (6.45%) Business Analyst
7 21 (5.21%) Data Engineer
8 20 (4.96%) Lead
9 16 (3.97%) Senior Developer
9 16 (3.97%) Software Developer
10 15 (3.72%) C# Developer
11 13 (3.23%) Payroll Consultant
11 13 (3.23%) Software Engineer
12 12 (2.98%) Oracle Developer
12 12 (2.98%) Technical Consultant
13 11 (2.73%) .NET Developer
13 11 (2.73%) Integration Developer
14 10 (2.48%) DBA
14 10 (2.48%) Integration Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (49.13%) JSON
2 133 (33.00%) REST
3 116 (28.78%) SOAP
4 64 (15.88%) .NET
5 58 (14.39%) Web Services
6 55 (13.65%) Middleware
7 46 (11.41%) XSLT
8 28 (6.95%) HTML
9 27 (6.70%) OAuth
10 24 (5.96%) .NET Framework
10 24 (5.96%) Kafka
11 21 (5.21%) RESTful
11 21 (5.21%) Swagger
12 20 (4.96%) ASP.NET
13 18 (4.47%) EDI
13 18 (4.47%) JWT
14 16 (3.97%) CSS
14 16 (3.97%) OAuth2
15 14 (3.47%) OpenAPI
15 14 (3.47%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 16 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
2 15 (3.72%) Data Structures
2 15 (3.72%) Product Ownership
3 11 (2.73%) Replication
4 10 (2.48%) Onboarding
5 9 (2.23%) Management Information System
6 8 (1.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 8 (1.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 7 (1.74%) Cloud Native
7 7 (1.74%) Credit Risk
7 7 (1.74%) Derivative
7 7 (1.74%) Fixed Income
7 7 (1.74%) Legacy Applications
7 7 (1.74%) Market Risk
8 6 (1.49%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.49%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.49%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.20%) Unix
2 24 (5.96%) Linux
3 20 (4.96%) Windows
4 6 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.50%) Android
6 2 (0.50%) VMS
6 2 (0.50%) zOS
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (26.30%) Problem-Solving
2 97 (24.07%) Agile
3 81 (20.10%) DevOps
4 74 (18.36%) CI/CD
5 65 (16.13%) Workflow
6 56 (13.90%) Validation
7 52 (12.90%) Migration
8 50 (12.41%) Data Modelling
9 49 (12.16%) Integration Patterns
10 41 (10.17%) ERP
11 40 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
12 37 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 35 (8.68%) Data Mapping
13 35 (8.68%) User Acceptance Testing
14 34 (8.44%) Scrum
15 33 (8.19%) Software Engineering
16 31 (7.69%) ETL
16 31 (7.69%) Event-Driven
17 27 (6.70%) Business Intelligence
17 27 (6.70%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 184 (45.66%) SQL
2 67 (16.63%) C#
3 61 (15.14%) Java
4 56 (13.90%) Python
5 52 (12.90%) JavaScript
6 49 (12.16%) T-SQL
7 36 (8.93%) PL/SQL
8 22 (5.46%) PowerShell
9 18 (4.47%) VB.NET
10 15 (3.72%) C++
10 15 (3.72%) VBA
11 14 (3.47%) Groovy
12 13 (3.23%) XPath
13 10 (2.48%) VB
14 9 (2.23%) VB6
15 8 (1.99%) Shell Script
16 7 (1.74%) DataWeave
17 6 (1.49%) Bicep
17 6 (1.49%) VBScript
18 5 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 97 (24.07%) Security Cleared
2 74 (18.36%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.44%) Degree
4 15 (3.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (2.23%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.24%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.24%) DBS Check
6 5 (1.24%) ISTQB
6 5 (1.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 4 (0.99%) Azure Certification
7 4 (0.99%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.74%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.50%) CISSP
9 2 (0.50%) GIAC
9 2 (0.50%) HNC
9 2 (0.50%) HND
9 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.50%) SSCP
10 1 (0.25%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.95%) QA
2 18 (4.47%) Data Quality
3 12 (2.98%) GDPR
4 8 (1.99%) Accessibility
4 8 (1.99%) ISO 20022
5 7 (1.74%) SLA
6 6 (1.49%) HL7
7 5 (1.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 5 (1.24%) GMP
7 5 (1.24%) GxP
7 5 (1.24%) WCAG
8 4 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 3 (0.74%) FATCA
9 3 (0.74%) GRC
9 3 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.74%) PSD2
10 2 (0.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.50%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.50%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 11 (2.73%) Docker
2 8 (1.99%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.74%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.50%) RACF
5 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 13 (3.23%) Ansible
2 11 (2.73%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.99%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (1.74%) Terraform
5 3 (0.74%) QRadar
5 3 (0.74%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (0.50%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.50%) Grafana
6 2 (0.50%) WMI
7 1 (0.25%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 114 (28.29%) Oracle
2 79 (19.60%) Microsoft
3 28 (6.95%) MuleSoft
4 27 (6.70%) SAP
4 27 (6.70%) ServiceNow
5 22 (5.46%) IBM
6 17 (4.22%) Salesforce
6 17 (4.22%) Workday
7 13 (3.23%) Google
8 8 (1.99%) Databricks
8 8 (1.99%) Okta
9 7 (1.74%) Dell
10 6 (1.49%) webMethods
11 5 (1.24%) Guidewire
11 5 (1.24%) Intapp
11 5 (1.24%) InterSystems
11 5 (1.24%) Kronos
11 5 (1.24%) Talend
12 4 (0.99%) Pega
12 4 (0.99%) Splunk