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 23 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 252 199
Rank change year-on-year 0 -53 +7
Contract jobs citing XML 402 320 501
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.06% 1.01% 1.15%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 4.77% 4.53% 5.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 200 334
10th Percentile £350 £248 £377
25th Percentile £401 £398 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.70% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £638 £588 £613
90th Percentile £715 £651 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £445 £533
% change year-on-year +1.12% -16.51% +7.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 2 29
10th Percentile £40.75 - £39.51
25th Percentile £41.25 £91.25 -
Median hourly rate £43.00 £92.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year -53.51% +89.86% -32.80%
75th Percentile £48.75 £93.75 -
90th Percentile £88.25 - £72.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 - £48.72
% change year-on-year - - -18.80%

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 8,429 7,067 9,272
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.23% 22.30% 21.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,618 4,497 6,583
10th Percentile £356 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £538 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.65% -1.38% -5.22%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £766 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 91 182
10th Percentile £33.20 £22.00 £26.79
25th Percentile £46.25 £37.50 £46.18
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - +13.64% -15.38%
75th Percentile £68.00 £65.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £77.19 £77.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 £65.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -3.08% +18.18% -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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 +7 358 £478 -5.58% 241
London -21 182 £525 -1.87% 37
UK excluding London -9 161 £450 +1.12% 237
Work from Home +23 149 £475 +9.83% 68
North of England -27 55 £425 -19.05% 43
North West 0 45 £402 -9.66% 16
South East -26 36 £425 +21.43% 70
East of England +6 31 £581 - 38
Midlands -38 24 £429 -24.34% 34
West Midlands -37 21 £429 -24.34% 10
South West -3 10 £400 -9.86% 32
Yorkshire -49 10 £600 +5.82% 22
Scotland +2 8 £500 +11.11% 10
East Midlands -26 3 - - 23
Wales -10 1 - - 12

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 23 (5.72%) WebLogic
2 20 (4.98%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 15 (3.73%) Confluence
4 12 (2.99%) Apache
5 10 (2.49%) JBoss
5 10 (2.49%) WebSphere
6 8 (1.99%) Appian
7 7 (1.74%) Anypoint
7 7 (1.74%) MQSeries
7 7 (1.74%) Mule
7 7 (1.74%) nginx
7 7 (1.74%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (1.24%) Oracle Service Bus
9 4 (1.00%) Mule ESB
10 3 (0.75%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.75%) Documentum
10 3 (0.75%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.50%) BizTalk Server
12 1 (0.25%) CMS
12 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 12 (2.99%) FrameMaker
2 6 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.50%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.25%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.99%) Oracle ERP
1 8 (1.99%) SAP Payroll
2 7 (1.74%) BusinessWorks
2 7 (1.74%) SAP HCM
3 6 (1.49%) Oracle Payables
3 6 (1.49%) Oracle Receivables
3 6 (1.49%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 5 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (1.24%) Oracle General Ledger
4 5 (1.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 5 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (1.00%) Maximo
5 4 (1.00%) Oracle 11i
5 4 (1.00%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.75%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.50%) NEC Housing
7 2 (0.50%) Oracle BPM
7 2 (0.50%) Oracle Cash Management
7 2 (0.50%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (22.39%) Azure
2 70 (17.41%) AWS
3 26 (6.47%) OCI
4 25 (6.22%) GitHub
5 23 (5.72%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (5.22%) GCP
6 21 (5.22%) Power Platform
7 19 (4.73%) Cloud Computing
7 19 (4.73%) SaaS
8 18 (4.48%) Serverless
9 14 (3.48%) Dynamics 365
9 14 (3.48%) PaaS
9 14 (3.48%) Tricentis Tosca
10 13 (3.23%) Apigee
11 12 (2.99%) Azure Logic Apps
11 12 (2.99%) IaaS
12 11 (2.74%) Boomi
13 10 (2.49%) Power Automate
14 9 (2.24%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (1.99%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 35 (8.71%) HTTPS
2 27 (6.72%) HTTP
3 10 (2.49%) Firewall
3 10 (2.49%) SSL
4 3 (0.75%) NFC
4 3 (0.75%) PPP
4 3 (0.75%) VPN
5 2 (0.50%) 5G
5 2 (0.50%) BGP
5 2 (0.50%) DNS
5 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 2 (0.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 2 (0.50%) FIX Connectivity
5 2 (0.50%) FTP
5 2 (0.50%) MPLS
5 2 (0.50%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.25%) AMQP
6 1 (0.25%) DSL
6 1 (0.25%) Network Security
6 1 (0.25%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (12.44%) Relational Database
2 39 (9.70%) SQL Server
3 22 (5.47%) MongoDB
4 21 (5.22%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (4.98%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (3.48%) Oracle Reports
6 14 (3.48%) RDBMS
7 12 (2.99%) NoSQL
7 12 (2.99%) Oracle Database
7 12 (2.99%) Power BI
8 11 (2.74%) Metadata
9 9 (2.24%) DataStage
9 9 (2.24%) MySQL
9 9 (2.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 8 (1.99%) Apache Cassandra
11 7 (1.74%) DB2
11 7 (1.74%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (1.49%) Amazon Redshift
12 6 (1.49%) Big Data
12 6 (1.49%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 55 (13.68%) JIRA
2 47 (11.69%) Git
3 44 (10.95%) Postman
4 33 (8.21%) Jenkins
5 28 (6.97%) Selenium
6 22 (5.47%) Cucumber
6 22 (5.47%) JUnit
7 12 (2.99%) Eclipse
8 10 (2.49%) GitLab
8 10 (2.49%) SoapUI
9 9 (2.24%) IntelliJ
9 9 (2.24%) SpecFlow
9 9 (2.24%) TestRail
9 9 (2.24%) Zephyr
10 8 (1.99%) SonarQube
11 7 (1.74%) Maven
11 7 (1.74%) Robot Framework
11 7 (1.74%) Toad
12 6 (1.49%) Browser DevTools
12 6 (1.49%) Firebug
General
1 138 (34.33%) Social Skills
2 90 (22.39%) Finance
3 61 (15.17%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (11.94%) Public Sector
5 43 (10.70%) Banking
6 18 (4.48%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (4.23%) Publishing
8 11 (2.74%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.74%) Telecoms
9 10 (2.49%) Aerospace
10 9 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.99%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.99%) Legal
11 8 (1.99%) Private Banking
12 7 (1.74%) Manufacturing
12 7 (1.74%) Retail
13 6 (1.49%) Digital Healthcare
14 5 (1.24%) Automotive
14 5 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (1.00%) Military
Job Titles
1 130 (32.34%) Developer
2 56 (13.93%) Analyst
3 34 (8.46%) Consultant
4 28 (6.97%) Senior
5 24 (5.97%) Business Analyst
6 23 (5.72%) Lead
7 19 (4.73%) Architect
7 19 (4.73%) Software Engineer
8 16 (3.98%) Author
8 16 (3.98%) Integration Developer
8 16 (3.98%) Technical Author
8 16 (3.98%) webMethods Developer
9 12 (2.99%) Data Engineer
9 12 (2.99%) Java Developer
10 11 (2.74%) DBA
10 11 (2.74%) Tester
11 10 (2.49%) Administrator
11 10 (2.49%) SAP Consultant
11 10 (2.49%) Senior Developer
11 10 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (54.48%) JSON
2 141 (35.07%) REST
2 141 (35.07%) SOAP
3 55 (13.68%) OAuth
4 46 (11.44%) XSLT
5 43 (10.70%) Web Services
6 42 (10.45%) HTML
7 33 (8.21%) JMS
8 29 (7.21%) RESTful
9 26 (6.47%) JWT
10 25 (6.22%) Oracle Fusion
11 23 (5.72%) .NET
11 23 (5.72%) Middleware
12 22 (5.47%) OAuth2
12 22 (5.47%) Spring
13 21 (5.22%) J2EE
14 20 (4.98%) XSD
15 19 (4.73%) CSS
15 19 (4.73%) Swagger
16 17 (4.23%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.48%) Data Structures
2 16 (3.98%) Cloud Native
3 14 (3.48%) Replication
4 11 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (2.49%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.49%) Public Cloud
6 9 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.24%) Onboarding
6 9 (2.24%) Virtual Team
7 8 (1.99%) Algorithms
7 8 (1.99%) AS400
7 8 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (1.99%) Product Ownership
8 7 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 5 (1.24%) CMDB
10 5 (1.24%) Fixed Income
10 5 (1.24%) Low-Code
11 4 (1.00%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 46 (11.44%) Linux
2 24 (5.97%) Unix
3 18 (4.48%) Windows
4 5 (1.24%) AIX
5 4 (1.00%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.75%) Android
7 2 (0.50%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.25%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (34.58%) DevOps
2 138 (34.33%) Agile
3 91 (22.64%) Problem-Solving
4 85 (21.14%) CI/CD
5 58 (14.43%) Test Automation
5 58 (14.43%) Validation
6 52 (12.94%) ERP
7 49 (12.19%) Microservices
8 48 (11.94%) Deployment Automation
8 48 (11.94%) Scrum
9 45 (11.19%) Data Modelling
9 45 (11.19%) ETL
9 45 (11.19%) Migration
10 36 (8.96%) Computer Science
11 34 (8.46%) API Management
11 34 (8.46%) SDLC
12 33 (8.21%) Integration Patterns
13 32 (7.96%) Data Migration
13 32 (7.96%) Software Engineering
13 32 (7.96%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 142 (35.32%) SQL
2 117 (29.10%) Java
3 65 (16.17%) Python
4 58 (14.43%) C#
5 54 (13.43%) JavaScript
6 20 (4.98%) PL/SQL
7 19 (4.73%) PowerShell
8 17 (4.23%) XPath
9 10 (2.49%) C++
10 9 (2.24%) Scala
11 8 (1.99%) RPG
11 8 (1.99%) Shell Script
12 7 (1.74%) ABAP
12 7 (1.74%) Korn
12 7 (1.74%) T-SQL
13 6 (1.49%) Groovy
14 5 (1.24%) Perl
15 4 (1.00%) BeanShell
15 4 (1.00%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.75%) DataWeave
Qualifications
1 110 (27.36%) Security Cleared
2 86 (21.39%) SC Cleared
3 56 (13.93%) Degree
4 29 (7.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (3.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (3.48%) HNC
6 14 (3.48%) HND
7 11 (2.74%) ISTQB
8 9 (2.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 6 (1.49%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.24%) AWS Certification
10 5 (1.24%) CCNP
10 5 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.24%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.24%) ISEB
10 5 (1.24%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.24%) PMP
11 3 (0.75%) CEH
11 3 (0.75%) GIAC
11 3 (0.75%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.22%) QA
2 17 (4.23%) Data Quality
3 6 (1.49%) GDPR
4 5 (1.24%) GAAP
4 5 (1.24%) PCI DSS
5 4 (1.00%) PSD2
6 3 (0.75%) IFRS
6 3 (0.75%) ISO 8583
6 3 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.50%) Basel III
7 2 (0.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.50%) EMIR
7 2 (0.50%) GxP
7 2 (0.50%) IFRS 17
7 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
7 2 (0.50%) SEPA
8 1 (0.25%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.25%) DICOM
8 1 (0.25%) HL7
8 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 44 (10.95%) Docker
2 3 (0.75%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 16 (3.98%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.48%) Ansible
3 10 (2.49%) Control-M
3 10 (2.49%) Puppet
4 8 (1.99%) logstash
5 7 (1.74%) Kibana
5 7 (1.74%) TIBCO Hawk
6 5 (1.24%) ITRS Geneos
7 3 (0.75%) CloudHub
7 3 (0.75%) Terraform
8 2 (0.50%) Fluentd
8 2 (0.50%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.50%) QRadar
9 1 (0.25%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.25%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.25%) Podman
9 1 (0.25%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 101 (25.12%) Oracle
2 52 (12.94%) SAP
3 40 (9.95%) IBM
4 39 (9.70%) Microsoft
5 31 (7.71%) webMethods
6 17 (4.23%) MuleSoft
7 16 (3.98%) Workday
8 13 (3.23%) Splunk
9 12 (2.99%) Pega
9 12 (2.99%) ServiceNow
9 12 (2.99%) Software AG
9 12 (2.99%) TIBCO
10 11 (2.74%) Informatica
11 10 (2.49%) Axway
12 9 (2.24%) Cisco
13 8 (1.99%) Google
13 8 (1.99%) Red Hat
14 7 (1.74%) BEA
14 7 (1.74%) Salesforce
14 7 (1.74%) Veracode