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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 240 189
Rank change year-on-year -47 -51 +9
Contract jobs citing XML 403 330 552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.12% 1.24%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.32% 4.92% 6.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 223 331
10th Percentile £350 £326 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -10.19% -1.82%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £613
90th Percentile £688 £655 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £449 £510
% change year-on-year +0.22% -11.96% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 48
10th Percentile £40.75 £22.73 -
25th Percentile £46.25 £25.54 £43.75
Median hourly rate £47.50 £60.13 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.00% +26.59% -34.48%
75th Percentile £54.13 £93.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 - £60.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £24.83 £47.50
% change year-on-year +91.30% -47.73% -32.14%

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 9,339 6,714 8,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.66% 22.71% 20.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,228 4,524 6,266
10th Percentile £358 £363 £335
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £495
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 96 209
10th Percentile £35.00 £26.25 £20.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £40.75 £39.92
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +28.28% -25.05%
75th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £83.48 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.72
% change year-on-year - +33.42% -25.05%

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 16 March 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 16 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for XML in the UK

XML
Top 14 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 16 March 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 -8 367 £475 -5.00% 116
UK excluding London -35 182 £450 +0.22% 119
London -36 172 £525 - 37
Work from Home -26 116 £450 - 57
North of England -25 65 £400 -10.61% 21
South East -24 64 £500 +17.86% 28
North West -13 54 £400 -10.51% 19
Midlands -30 33 £445 -6.48% 19
West Midlands -40 26 £440 -20.00% 13
East of England -20 13 £675 - 11
Yorkshire -50 11 £456 -29.81% 1
East Midlands -23 7 £525 +46.65% 6
South West -25 6 £475 +26.67% 17
Scotland -9 5 £500 +6.38% 20

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 22 (5.46%) WebLogic
2 21 (5.21%) Confluence
3 18 (4.47%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 11 (2.73%) Apache
5 10 (2.48%) WebSphere
6 8 (1.99%) JBoss
7 7 (1.74%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (1.49%) Anypoint
9 5 (1.24%) Appian
9 5 (1.24%) Mule
10 4 (0.99%) MQSeries
10 4 (0.99%) Oracle Service Bus
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.74%) CMS
11 3 (0.74%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 2 (0.50%) BizTalk Server
12 2 (0.50%) Documentum
12 2 (0.50%) Mule ESB
12 2 (0.50%) SharePoint
13 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 33 (8.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.50%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.50%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.25%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 12 (2.98%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.23%) SAP Payroll
3 8 (1.99%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (1.99%) Oracle Receivables
3 8 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.74%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.74%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (1.74%) SAP HCM
5 5 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (1.24%) Oracle General Ledger
5 5 (1.24%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 5 (1.24%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.99%) Maximo
6 4 (0.99%) Oracle 11i
6 4 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.99%) Oracle Cash Management
7 3 (0.74%) Summit
7 3 (0.74%) Workday HCM
8 2 (0.50%) NEC Housing
8 2 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 82 (20.35%) Azure
2 63 (15.63%) AWS
3 29 (7.20%) OCI
4 24 (5.96%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (5.71%) GCP
5 23 (5.71%) Power Platform
5 23 (5.71%) SaaS
6 21 (5.21%) GitHub
7 17 (4.22%) Cloud Computing
7 17 (4.22%) PaaS
8 16 (3.97%) Serverless
9 15 (3.72%) Boomi
9 15 (3.72%) IaaS
10 12 (2.98%) Apigee
10 12 (2.98%) Azure Data Factory
11 11 (2.73%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
12 10 (2.48%) Tricentis Tosca
13 8 (1.99%) Kong
13 8 (1.99%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.95%) HTTP
2 18 (4.47%) HTTPS
3 8 (1.99%) Firewall
4 6 (1.49%) 3GPP
4 6 (1.49%) FTP
5 4 (0.99%) RTCP
5 4 (0.99%) RTP
5 4 (0.99%) SSL
5 4 (0.99%) XCAP
6 3 (0.74%) NFC
6 3 (0.74%) PPP
7 2 (0.50%) 5G
7 2 (0.50%) BGP
7 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (0.50%) FIX Connectivity
7 2 (0.50%) MPLS
7 2 (0.50%) VPN
8 1 (0.25%) DNS
8 1 (0.25%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (11.17%) Relational Database
2 44 (10.92%) SQL Server
3 25 (6.20%) Data Warehouse
3 25 (6.20%) MongoDB
4 24 (5.96%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (4.96%) RDBMS
6 18 (4.47%) NoSQL
6 18 (4.47%) Power BI
7 17 (4.22%) Oracle Reports
8 14 (3.47%) Oracle Database
9 12 (2.98%) Metadata
10 11 (2.73%) Data Lake
11 10 (2.48%) MySQL
11 10 (2.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 9 (2.23%) DataStage
13 7 (1.74%) DB2
14 6 (1.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (1.49%) Tableau
15 5 (1.24%) Big Data
15 5 (1.24%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 53 (13.15%) JIRA
2 50 (12.41%) Git
3 49 (12.16%) Postman
4 29 (7.20%) Jenkins
5 24 (5.96%) Selenium
6 22 (5.46%) JUnit
7 17 (4.22%) Cucumber
8 15 (3.72%) Eclipse
8 15 (3.72%) SoapUI
9 12 (2.98%) Maven
10 9 (2.23%) SpecFlow
10 9 (2.23%) TestRail
10 9 (2.23%) Zephyr
11 8 (1.99%) GitLab
11 8 (1.99%) IntelliJ
12 7 (1.74%) Toad
13 6 (1.49%) Subversion
14 5 (1.24%) MSTest
15 4 (0.99%) Bitbucket
15 4 (0.99%) SonarQube
General
1 125 (31.02%) Social Skills
2 86 (21.34%) Finance
3 76 (18.86%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (9.43%) Banking
4 38 (9.43%) Public Sector
5 20 (4.96%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (3.23%) Legal
7 11 (2.73%) Investment Banking
7 11 (2.73%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.74%) Retail
10 6 (1.49%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.49%) Military
11 5 (1.24%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.24%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.99%) Advertising
12 4 (0.99%) Aerospace
12 4 (0.99%) Private Banking
12 4 (0.99%) Publishing
13 3 (0.74%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 111 (27.54%) Developer
2 61 (15.14%) Consultant
3 57 (14.14%) Analyst
4 33 (8.19%) Implementation Consultant
5 28 (6.95%) Business Analyst
6 26 (6.45%) Senior
7 20 (4.96%) Architect
7 20 (4.96%) Lead
8 19 (4.71%) Software Engineer
9 17 (4.22%) Data Engineer
10 15 (3.72%) DBA
11 13 (3.23%) Integration Developer
11 13 (3.23%) Payroll Consultant
12 12 (2.98%) Tester
13 10 (2.48%) Integration Specialist
13 10 (2.48%) Java Developer
13 10 (2.48%) Technical Analyst
14 9 (2.23%) Oracle Specialist
14 9 (2.23%) SAP Consultant
14 9 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (50.87%) JSON
2 129 (32.01%) SOAP
3 128 (31.76%) REST
4 53 (13.15%) Web Services
5 42 (10.42%) OAuth
6 41 (10.17%) XSLT
7 34 (8.44%) HTML
8 31 (7.69%) Oracle Fusion
9 30 (7.44%) .NET
9 30 (7.44%) JWT
10 25 (6.20%) Middleware
10 25 (6.20%) RESTful
11 22 (5.46%) JMS
11 22 (5.46%) XSD
12 20 (4.96%) Kafka
12 20 (4.96%) Swagger
13 19 (4.71%) CSS
14 18 (4.47%) J2EE
14 18 (4.47%) Spring
15 14 (3.47%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.22%) Data Structures
2 13 (3.23%) Public Cloud
3 12 (2.98%) Management Information System
4 11 (2.73%) Product Ownership
4 11 (2.73%) Replication
5 10 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.99%) Fixed Income
7 8 (1.99%) Onboarding
8 7 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.49%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.49%) CMDB
9 6 (1.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 6 (1.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 5 (1.24%) Derivative
10 5 (1.24%) Digital Wallet
11 4 (0.99%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (0.99%) AS400
11 4 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 43 (10.67%) Linux
2 30 (7.44%) Unix
3 16 (3.97%) Windows
4 5 (1.24%) AIX
4 5 (1.24%) Ubuntu
5 4 (0.99%) Android
6 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.25%) VMS
6 1 (0.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (34.74%) Agile
2 114 (28.29%) DevOps
3 101 (25.06%) Problem-Solving
4 76 (18.86%) CI/CD
5 58 (14.39%) Validation
6 49 (12.16%) Data Modelling
6 49 (12.16%) ERP
7 46 (11.41%) Migration
8 44 (10.92%) Scrum
9 42 (10.42%) ETL
10 41 (10.17%) Integration Patterns
11 39 (9.68%) Requirements Gathering
12 37 (9.18%) Test Automation
13 36 (8.93%) Microservices
14 35 (8.68%) Software Engineering
15 34 (8.44%) Mentoring
15 34 (8.44%) SDLC
16 33 (8.19%) Workflow
17 32 (7.94%) Stakeholder Management
18 31 (7.69%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 163 (40.45%) SQL
2 99 (24.57%) Java
3 58 (14.39%) C#
3 58 (14.39%) Python
4 46 (11.41%) JavaScript
5 39 (9.68%) T-SQL
6 18 (4.47%) PL/SQL
7 17 (4.22%) PowerShell
8 16 (3.97%) XPath
9 9 (2.23%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.99%) ABAP
10 8 (1.99%) Groovy
10 8 (1.99%) Scala
11 7 (1.74%) C++
11 7 (1.74%) Korn
12 6 (1.49%) Kotlin
13 5 (1.24%) Perl
14 4 (0.99%) Bicep
14 4 (0.99%) RPG
15 3 (0.74%) DataWeave
Qualifications
1 99 (24.57%) Security Cleared
2 72 (17.87%) SC Cleared
3 39 (9.68%) Degree
4 22 (5.46%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (3.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.98%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 7 (1.74%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.49%) ISEB
10 5 (1.24%) CCNP
10 5 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.24%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.24%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.24%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.24%) PMP
11 4 (0.99%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.99%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.50%) CCNA
12 2 (0.50%) OCP
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.95%) QA
2 15 (3.72%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.99%) GDPR
4 6 (1.49%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.24%) PSD2
6 4 (0.99%) GAAP
7 3 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.74%) FATCA
7 3 (0.74%) ISO 8583
7 3 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.50%) Basel III
8 2 (0.50%) HL7
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.50%) SEPA
9 1 (0.25%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 1 (0.25%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.25%) GxP
9 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 28 (6.95%) Docker
2 3 (0.74%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 13 (3.23%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.23%) Ansible
2 9 (2.23%) Puppet
3 7 (1.74%) Control-M
3 7 (1.74%) TIBCO Hawk
4 5 (1.24%) logstash
5 4 (0.99%) Kibana
6 2 (0.50%) CloudHub
6 2 (0.50%) Fluentd
6 2 (0.50%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.50%) Grafana
6 2 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
6 2 (0.50%) QRadar
6 2 (0.50%) Terraform
7 1 (0.25%) CEMLI
7 1 (0.25%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.25%) Podman
7 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 108 (26.80%) Oracle
2 43 (10.67%) Microsoft
3 38 (9.43%) SAP
4 32 (7.94%) IBM
5 21 (5.21%) webMethods
6 18 (4.47%) MuleSoft
7 15 (3.72%) Workday
8 14 (3.47%) ServiceNow
9 11 (2.73%) Informatica
9 11 (2.73%) Splunk
10 9 (2.23%) TIBCO
11 8 (1.99%) Google
11 8 (1.99%) Pega
11 8 (1.99%) Talend
12 7 (1.74%) BEA
12 7 (1.74%) Red Hat
12 7 (1.74%) Software AG
13 5 (1.24%) Cisco
13 5 (1.24%) Computacenter
13 5 (1.24%) Dell