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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 311 249 164
Rank change year-on-year -62 -85 +41
Contract jobs citing XML 347 307 644
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 1.06% 1.51%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.74% 4.67% 7.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 204 207 349
10th Percentile £352 £359 £406
25th Percentile £402 £415 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -11.63% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £588 £625
90th Percentile £681 £659 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £513
% change year-on-year - -12.20% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 72
10th Percentile £32.18 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £38.13 £27.00 -
Median hourly rate £47.50 £27.38 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.48% -36.33% -40.69%
75th Percentile £48.75 £77.42 £51.25
90th Percentile £56.28 £93.75 £84.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £24.83 £43.00
% change year-on-year +91.30% -42.26% -40.69%

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 9,267 6,568 8,880
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.63% 22.66% 20.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,115 4,502 6,154
10th Percentile £359 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.78% -2.82%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £727 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £482 £500
% change year-on-year +3.84% -3.70% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 109 242
10th Percentile £33.75 £30.05 £21.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £51.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year - +36.84% -26.92%
75th Percentile £71.13 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.50 £82.27 £74.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year - +36.84% -25.78%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -46 308 £500 +5.26% 73
UK excluding London -61 163 £450 - 54
London -49 144 £550 +4.76% 23
Work from Home -60 88 £460 -2.90% 36
North of England -53 61 £397 -11.81% 13
South East -37 58 £513 +12.64% 23
North West -15 54 £393 -12.64% 8
Midlands -41 22 £461 -16.14% 6
West Midlands -50 14 £455 -17.27% 4
South West -25 9 £600 +60.00% 7
East Midlands -22 8 £525 +46.65% 2
Scotland -6 7 £500 +1.21% 2
Yorkshire -50 7 £431 -19.77% 4
East of England -28 5 £438 -10.26% 3
Northern Ireland -9 1 - -

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 15 (4.32%) Confluence
2 12 (3.46%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 8 (2.31%) Anypoint
4 7 (2.02%) Oracle Workflow
4 7 (2.02%) WebLogic
4 7 (2.02%) WebSphere
5 6 (1.73%) IIS
5 6 (1.73%) SharePoint
6 5 (1.44%) CMS
7 4 (1.15%) Mule
7 4 (1.15%) Oracle Service Bus
8 3 (0.86%) Mule ESB
8 3 (0.86%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.58%) Apache
9 2 (0.58%) Appian
9 2 (0.58%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.58%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.29%) BizTalk Server
10 1 (0.29%) CICS
10 1 (0.29%) JBoss
Applications
1 32 (9.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (1.15%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.58%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.58%) EngageOne
3 2 (0.58%) FrameMaker
3 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (3.46%) Oracle ERP
2 8 (2.31%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (2.02%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.73%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (1.73%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 6 (1.73%) Summit
5 5 (1.44%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.44%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (1.15%) Maximo
6 4 (1.15%) Oracle Cash Management
6 4 (1.15%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.86%) Findur
7 3 (0.86%) Oracle Assets
7 3 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.58%) Fidessa
8 2 (0.58%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.58%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 67 (19.31%) Azure
2 42 (12.10%) AWS
3 28 (8.07%) OCI
4 20 (5.76%) Azure DevOps
5 17 (4.90%) GCP
5 17 (4.90%) PaaS
5 17 (4.90%) Power Platform
5 17 (4.90%) SaaS
5 17 (4.90%) Serverless
6 15 (4.32%) IaaS
7 12 (3.46%) Boomi
7 12 (3.46%) GitHub
8 10 (2.88%) Apigee
8 10 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
9 9 (2.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 9 (2.59%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (2.31%) Dynamics 365
10 8 (2.31%) Kong
11 7 (2.02%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 7 (2.02%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 20 (5.76%) HTTP
2 7 (2.02%) FTP
3 6 (1.73%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.15%) Firewall
4 4 (1.15%) HTTPS
4 4 (1.15%) RTCP
4 4 (1.15%) RTP
4 4 (1.15%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.15%) XCAP
5 3 (0.86%) DNS
6 2 (0.58%) FIX Connectivity
6 2 (0.58%) Network Security
6 2 (0.58%) SSL
6 2 (0.58%) VPN
7 1 (0.29%) AMQP
7 1 (0.29%) BGP
7 1 (0.29%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.29%) MPLS
7 1 (0.29%) NAS
7 1 (0.29%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (10.95%) Relational Database
2 31 (8.93%) SQL Server
3 24 (6.92%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (6.63%) RDBMS
5 20 (5.76%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (5.76%) NoSQL
6 18 (5.19%) MongoDB
7 16 (4.61%) Oracle Reports
8 14 (4.03%) Power BI
9 13 (3.75%) Oracle Database
10 11 (3.17%) Data Lake
10 11 (3.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 9 (2.59%) Metadata
11 9 (2.59%) MySQL
12 6 (1.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (1.44%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (1.44%) Oracle BI Publisher
14 4 (1.15%) DataStage
14 4 (1.15%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 3 (0.86%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 35 (10.09%) Postman
2 31 (8.93%) Git
3 27 (7.78%) JIRA
4 12 (3.46%) SoapUI
5 10 (2.88%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.59%) Maven
7 8 (2.31%) GitLab
8 6 (1.73%) JUnit
9 5 (1.44%) Eclipse
10 4 (1.15%) Cucumber
10 4 (1.15%) Selenium
10 4 (1.15%) Subversion
11 3 (0.86%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.86%) ClearCase
11 3 (0.86%) Firebug
11 3 (0.86%) Hudson
11 3 (0.86%) JMeter
11 3 (0.86%) MSTest
11 3 (0.86%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.58%) Gatling
General
1 109 (31.41%) Social Skills
2 75 (21.61%) Finance
3 65 (18.73%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (10.66%) Banking
5 26 (7.49%) Public Sector
6 14 (4.03%) Investment Banking
7 12 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.88%) Legal
10 7 (2.02%) Military
10 7 (2.02%) Publishing
10 7 (2.02%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.73%) General Ledger
12 4 (1.15%) Advertising
12 4 (1.15%) Billing
12 4 (1.15%) Front Office
13 3 (0.86%) Back Office
13 3 (0.86%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.86%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 79 (22.77%) Developer
2 62 (17.87%) Consultant
3 43 (12.39%) Analyst
4 32 (9.22%) Implementation Consultant
5 26 (7.49%) Business Analyst
6 21 (6.05%) Senior
7 20 (5.76%) Architect
8 18 (5.19%) Lead
9 16 (4.61%) Software Engineer
10 15 (4.32%) DBA
11 13 (3.75%) Payroll Consultant
12 12 (3.46%) Data Engineer
13 10 (2.88%) C# Developer
13 10 (2.88%) Integration Engineer
13 10 (2.88%) Integration Specialist
14 9 (2.59%) Cloud Specialist
14 9 (2.59%) Oracle Specialist
14 9 (2.59%) PostgreSQL DBA
14 9 (2.59%) Senior Developer
15 8 (2.31%) Integration Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (46.69%) JSON
2 101 (29.11%) REST
3 93 (26.80%) SOAP
4 44 (12.68%) Web Services
5 36 (10.37%) OAuth
6 35 (10.09%) XSLT
7 34 (9.80%) Middleware
8 32 (9.22%) .NET
8 32 (9.22%) Oracle Fusion
9 29 (8.36%) JWT
10 27 (7.78%) HTML
11 23 (6.63%) Swagger
12 21 (6.05%) Kafka
13 20 (5.76%) RESTful
14 19 (5.48%) CSS
15 17 (4.90%) XSD
16 16 (4.61%) OpenAPI
17 14 (4.03%) EDI
17 14 (4.03%) OAuth2
17 14 (4.03%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.32%) Data Structures
2 14 (4.03%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.46%) Public Cloud
4 9 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 8 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.31%) Fixed Income
5 8 (2.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 7 (2.02%) Derivative
7 6 (1.73%) Credit Risk
7 6 (1.73%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.73%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.44%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.44%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.44%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.44%) Replication
8 5 (1.44%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 4 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.15%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 28 (8.07%) Linux
2 17 (4.90%) Unix
3 10 (2.88%) Windows
4 2 (0.58%) AIX
4 2 (0.58%) Android
4 2 (0.58%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.58%) VMS
5 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (29.39%) Agile
2 88 (25.36%) Problem-Solving
3 76 (21.90%) DevOps
4 50 (14.41%) CI/CD
5 45 (12.97%) ERP
5 45 (12.97%) Integration Patterns
6 40 (11.53%) Validation
7 38 (10.95%) Migration
8 37 (10.66%) Workflow
9 34 (9.80%) Data Modelling
10 32 (9.22%) Stakeholder Management
11 30 (8.65%) ETL
11 30 (8.65%) Unit Testing
12 28 (8.07%) Requirements Gathering
13 26 (7.49%) Scrum
13 26 (7.49%) SDLC
14 25 (7.20%) Mentoring
14 25 (7.20%) Software Engineering
14 25 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
15 24 (6.92%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 136 (39.19%) SQL
2 54 (15.56%) Java
3 48 (13.83%) C#
3 48 (13.83%) Python
4 38 (10.95%) JavaScript
5 33 (9.51%) T-SQL
6 15 (4.32%) PL/SQL
7 11 (3.17%) PowerShell
8 8 (2.31%) C++
9 5 (1.44%) DataWeave
9 5 (1.44%) Groovy
9 5 (1.44%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.44%) XPath
10 4 (1.15%) Bicep
10 4 (1.15%) Korn
10 4 (1.15%) Kotlin
10 4 (1.15%) VB
11 3 (0.86%) ABAP
11 3 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.86%) VB6
Qualifications
1 84 (24.21%) Security Cleared
2 59 (17.00%) SC Cleared
3 35 (10.09%) Degree
4 18 (5.19%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.73%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.44%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.15%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.15%) CCNP
8 4 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.15%) DBS Check
8 4 (1.15%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.86%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.58%) HNC
10 2 (0.58%) HND
10 2 (0.58%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.58%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.58%) PMP
11 1 (0.29%) CCNA
11 1 (0.29%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.90%) QA
2 9 (2.59%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.31%) GDPR
4 5 (1.44%) HL7
4 5 (1.44%) PCI DSS
4 5 (1.44%) PSD2
5 4 (1.15%) GAAP
6 3 (0.86%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (0.86%) FATCA
6 3 (0.86%) ISO 8583
7 2 (0.58%) Basel III
7 2 (0.58%) IFRS
7 2 (0.58%) IFRS 17
7 2 (0.58%) IFRS 9
7 2 (0.58%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.58%) SLA
8 1 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.29%) GxP
System Software
1 16 (4.61%) Docker
2 4 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.86%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.29%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.29%) RACF
Systems Management
1 14 (4.03%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.02%) Ansible
3 4 (1.15%) Control-M
3 4 (1.15%) Terraform
4 3 (0.86%) Grafana
4 3 (0.86%) vRealize Orchestrator
5 2 (0.58%) logstash
5 2 (0.58%) QRadar
5 2 (0.58%) TIBCO Hawk
6 1 (0.29%) CloudHub
6 1 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.29%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.29%) Kibana
6 1 (0.29%) Podman
6 1 (0.29%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.29%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.29%) Puppet
6 1 (0.29%) vRealize
Vendors
1 99 (28.53%) Oracle
2 42 (12.10%) Microsoft
3 24 (6.92%) SAP
4 21 (6.05%) Workday
5 20 (5.76%) ServiceNow
6 19 (5.48%) MuleSoft
7 13 (3.75%) IBM
8 9 (2.59%) Informatica
8 9 (2.59%) Red Hat
9 8 (2.31%) Google
9 8 (2.31%) Pega
10 7 (2.02%) Dell
10 7 (2.02%) Splunk
11 6 (1.73%) Databricks
11 6 (1.73%) webMethods
12 5 (1.44%) Bloomberg
12 5 (1.44%) Salesforce
12 5 (1.44%) Talend
13 4 (1.15%) Charles River
13 4 (1.15%) InterSystems