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 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 261 165
Rank change year-on-year -34 -96 +50
Contract jobs citing XML 373 291 636
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.79% 1.00% 1.47%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 3.96% 4.40% 7.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 204 348
10th Percentile £350 £357 £408
25th Percentile £400 £415 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +1.85%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £650 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £525
% change year-on-year - -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 72
10th Percentile £32.18 £23.93 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £27.00 £43.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £27.38 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.48% -37.77% -39.31%
75th Percentile £48.75 £77.42 £51.25
90th Percentile £59.50 £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 9,427 6,610 8,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 20.02% 22.66% 20.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,248 4,533 6,165
10th Percentile £358 £363 £338
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £780 £766
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 112 226
10th Percentile £35.00 £27.14 £21.01
25th Percentile £52.50 £48.25 £40.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +40.75% -28.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.87 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £46.84
% change year-on-year - +38.77% -26.81%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 +4 340 £500 +5.26% 66
UK excluding London -48 169 £450 - 55
London -36 162 £550 +4.76% 24
Work from Home -41 96 £475 +0.26% 44
North of England -46 65 £393 -12.64% 10
North West -7 58 £391 -12.67% 7
South East -40 57 £525 +31.25% 26
Midlands -49 24 £455 -17.27% 6
West Midlands -51 16 £453 -17.73% 2
East of England -30 10 £625 +28.21% 3
South West -27 8 £548 +46.00% 6
East Midlands -31 8 £525 +46.65% 4
Yorkshire -59 7 £431 -21.59% 3
Scotland -11 5 £500 +1.21% 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 18 (4.83%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 14 (3.75%) Confluence
2 14 (3.75%) WebLogic
3 11 (2.95%) WebSphere
4 10 (2.68%) Anypoint
5 7 (1.88%) Oracle Workflow
6 5 (1.34%) CMS
6 5 (1.34%) IIS
6 5 (1.34%) Mule
7 4 (1.07%) Apache
7 4 (1.07%) Oracle Service Bus
7 4 (1.07%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.80%) MQSeries
8 3 (0.80%) Mule ESB
8 3 (0.80%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.54%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.54%) Appian
9 2 (0.54%) JBoss
9 2 (0.54%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.27%) Documentum
Applications
1 33 (8.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.54%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.54%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.54%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 12 (3.22%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (2.14%) Maximo
3 8 (2.14%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (2.14%) Oracle Receivables
4 7 (1.88%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (1.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (1.88%) SAP Payroll
5 6 (1.61%) Summit
6 5 (1.34%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (1.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 5 (1.34%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (1.34%) SAP HCM
7 4 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
7 4 (1.07%) Oracle 11i
7 4 (1.07%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (1.07%) Oracle Cash Management
7 4 (1.07%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.80%) Findur
9 2 (0.54%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 76 (20.38%) Azure
2 48 (12.87%) AWS
3 28 (7.51%) OCI
4 22 (5.90%) GCP
5 20 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (5.36%) Power Platform
6 17 (4.56%) SaaS
7 16 (4.29%) PaaS
7 16 (4.29%) Serverless
8 14 (3.75%) GitHub
8 14 (3.75%) IaaS
9 13 (3.49%) Apigee
9 13 (3.49%) Boomi
10 10 (2.68%) Azure Data Factory
10 10 (2.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 10 (2.68%) Cloud Computing
11 9 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.41%) Kong
12 8 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (2.14%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 26 (6.97%) HTTP
2 9 (2.41%) FTP
2 9 (2.41%) HTTPS
3 6 (1.61%) 3GPP
3 6 (1.61%) Firewall
4 4 (1.07%) RTCP
4 4 (1.07%) RTP
4 4 (1.07%) XCAP
5 3 (0.80%) DNS
5 3 (0.80%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.54%) FIX Connectivity
6 2 (0.54%) VPN
7 1 (0.27%) 5G
7 1 (0.27%) AMQP
7 1 (0.27%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 1 (0.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.27%) NAS
7 1 (0.27%) Network Security
7 1 (0.27%) SAN
7 1 (0.27%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.80%) Relational Database
2 39 (10.46%) SQL Server
3 25 (6.70%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (5.90%) RDBMS
5 20 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (5.36%) NoSQL
6 19 (5.09%) MongoDB
7 17 (4.56%) Power BI
8 16 (4.29%) Oracle Reports
9 14 (3.75%) Metadata
9 14 (3.75%) Oracle Database
10 11 (2.95%) Data Lake
11 10 (2.68%) MySQL
11 10 (2.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 8 (2.14%) DB2
13 7 (1.88%) DataStage
14 6 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (1.34%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 5 (1.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 4 (1.07%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (10.46%) Postman
2 37 (9.92%) Git
3 32 (8.58%) JIRA
4 14 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.75%) SoapUI
5 10 (2.68%) Maven
6 9 (2.41%) JUnit
7 8 (2.14%) GitLab
8 6 (1.61%) Cucumber
8 6 (1.61%) Eclipse
8 6 (1.61%) Selenium
9 5 (1.34%) Subversion
10 4 (1.07%) SpecFlow
10 4 (1.07%) TestRail
10 4 (1.07%) Zephyr
11 3 (0.80%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.80%) ClearCase
11 3 (0.80%) Hudson
11 3 (0.80%) MSTest
11 3 (0.80%) REST Assured
General
1 121 (32.44%) Social Skills
2 76 (20.38%) Finance
3 72 (19.30%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (9.92%) Banking
5 31 (8.31%) Public Sector
6 15 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (3.75%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.68%) Legal
10 8 (2.14%) Publishing
11 6 (1.61%) Military
11 6 (1.61%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.34%) General Ledger
13 4 (1.07%) Advertising
13 4 (1.07%) Billing
13 4 (1.07%) Front Office
13 4 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.80%) Back Office
14 3 (0.80%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.80%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 92 (24.66%) Developer
2 67 (17.96%) Consultant
3 45 (12.06%) Analyst
4 33 (8.85%) Implementation Consultant
5 27 (7.24%) Business Analyst
6 22 (5.90%) Senior
7 21 (5.63%) Architect
8 20 (5.36%) Lead
9 16 (4.29%) Software Engineer
10 15 (4.02%) Data Engineer
10 15 (4.02%) DBA
11 13 (3.49%) Payroll Consultant
12 10 (2.68%) C# Developer
12 10 (2.68%) Integration Specialist
13 9 (2.41%) Applications Developer
13 9 (2.41%) Cloud Specialist
13 9 (2.41%) Oracle Specialist
13 9 (2.41%) PostgreSQL DBA
13 9 (2.41%) Senior Developer
13 9 (2.41%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 178 (47.72%) JSON
2 107 (28.69%) SOAP
3 104 (27.88%) REST
4 55 (14.75%) Web Services
5 43 (11.53%) XSLT
6 39 (10.46%) OAuth
7 34 (9.12%) Middleware
8 32 (8.58%) JWT
9 31 (8.31%) .NET
10 30 (8.04%) Oracle Fusion
11 25 (6.70%) HTML
12 24 (6.43%) Kafka
12 24 (6.43%) Swagger
13 23 (6.17%) RESTful
14 22 (5.90%) XSD
15 18 (4.83%) CSS
15 18 (4.83%) EDI
16 17 (4.56%) OpenAPI
17 16 (4.29%) JMS
17 16 (4.29%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.29%) Data Structures
2 14 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.22%) Public Cloud
4 11 (2.95%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.68%) Replication
6 8 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.14%) Fixed Income
7 7 (1.88%) Derivative
7 7 (1.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 6 (1.61%) Credit Risk
8 6 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.61%) Market Risk
8 6 (1.61%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.34%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.34%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.34%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.34%) Digital Wallet
9 5 (1.34%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 4 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 31 (8.31%) Linux
2 23 (6.17%) Unix
3 13 (3.49%) Windows
4 5 (1.34%) AIX
5 2 (0.54%) Android
5 2 (0.54%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.54%) VMS
6 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (28.95%) Agile
2 92 (24.66%) Problem-Solving
3 81 (21.72%) DevOps
4 53 (14.21%) CI/CD
5 46 (12.33%) Data Modelling
5 46 (12.33%) ERP
6 44 (11.80%) Integration Patterns
7 43 (11.53%) Validation
8 42 (11.26%) Migration
9 37 (9.92%) Workflow
10 35 (9.38%) ETL
11 34 (9.12%) Requirements Gathering
12 32 (8.58%) Stakeholder Management
13 30 (8.04%) SDLC
14 29 (7.77%) Computer Science
14 29 (7.77%) Microservices
15 28 (7.51%) Scrum
15 28 (7.51%) Unit Testing
16 27 (7.24%) API Management
16 27 (7.24%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 145 (38.87%) SQL
2 64 (17.16%) Java
3 48 (12.87%) Python
4 47 (12.60%) C#
5 37 (9.92%) JavaScript
6 32 (8.58%) T-SQL
7 18 (4.83%) PL/SQL
8 12 (3.22%) XPath
9 10 (2.68%) PowerShell
10 8 (2.14%) C++
10 8 (2.14%) Shell Script
11 7 (1.88%) ABAP
11 7 (1.88%) Korn
12 6 (1.61%) DataWeave
13 5 (1.34%) Perl
14 4 (1.07%) Bicep
14 4 (1.07%) Kotlin
15 3 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 3 (0.80%) Groovy
16 2 (0.54%) VB6
Qualifications
1 95 (25.47%) Security Cleared
2 66 (17.69%) SC Cleared
3 38 (10.19%) Degree
4 21 (5.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.34%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.34%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.07%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.07%) CCNP
7 4 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (1.07%) ISTQB
7 4 (1.07%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.80%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.80%) ISEB
8 3 (0.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.54%) HNC
9 2 (0.54%) OCP
9 2 (0.54%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (0.54%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.09%) QA
2 12 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.41%) GDPR
4 5 (1.34%) PCI DSS
4 5 (1.34%) PSD2
5 4 (1.07%) GAAP
5 4 (1.07%) HL7
6 3 (0.80%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (0.80%) FATCA
6 3 (0.80%) ISO 8583
6 3 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.54%) Basel III
7 2 (0.54%) IFRS
7 2 (0.54%) IFRS 17
7 2 (0.54%) IFRS 9
7 2 (0.54%) SEPA
7 2 (0.54%) SLA
8 1 (0.27%) DICOM
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 19 (5.09%) Docker
2 4 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.80%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.27%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 17 (4.56%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.88%) Ansible
2 7 (1.88%) TIBCO Hawk
3 4 (1.07%) Control-M
4 3 (0.80%) Grafana
4 3 (0.80%) logstash
4 3 (0.80%) vRealize Orchestrator
5 2 (0.54%) CloudHub
5 2 (0.54%) Fluentd
5 2 (0.54%) Puppet
5 2 (0.54%) QRadar
5 2 (0.54%) Terraform
6 1 (0.27%) CEMLI
6 1 (0.27%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.27%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.27%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.27%) Podman
6 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 108 (28.95%) Oracle
2 43 (11.53%) Microsoft
3 34 (9.12%) SAP
4 28 (7.51%) IBM
5 22 (5.90%) MuleSoft
6 19 (5.09%) Workday
7 18 (4.83%) ServiceNow
8 11 (2.95%) Informatica
8 11 (2.95%) webMethods
9 9 (2.41%) Red Hat
9 9 (2.41%) Splunk
10 8 (2.14%) Google
10 8 (2.14%) Pega
10 8 (2.14%) TIBCO
11 7 (1.88%) BEA
11 7 (1.88%) Databricks
11 7 (1.88%) Dell
12 6 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 6 (1.61%) Talend
13 5 (1.34%) Bloomberg