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 18 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 234 245 190
Rank change year-on-year +11 -55 0
Contract jobs citing XML 421 368 624
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.02% 1.34%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 5.20% 4.71% 6.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 228 394
10th Percentile £340 £203 £361
25th Percentile £400 £400 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £479 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.20% -9.09% -2.22%
75th Percentile £586 £575 £625
90th Percentile £695 £630 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £530
% change year-on-year +5.56% -15.09% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 0 36
10th Percentile £31.25 - £45.88
25th Percentile £40.75 - -
Median hourly rate £43.00 - £48.72
75th Percentile £43.75 - £70.00
90th Percentile £92.50 - £78.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.75 - £48.72
% change year-on-year - - +10.78%

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 8,093 7,811 10,402
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.86% 21.67% 22.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,382 4,924 7,418
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.64% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £651
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 113 190
10th Percentile £30.18 £22.00 £36.19
25th Percentile £42.63 £36.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £55.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +13.12% -12.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £74.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 £65.00 £54.78
% change year-on-year -3.08% +18.66% -15.72%

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 18 November 2025.

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 18 November 2025.

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 18 November 2025. 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 -8 355 £485 -3.00% 179
UK excluding London +25 184 £475 +5.56% 107
London -15 171 £525 - 90
Work from Home +31 169 £480 -3.03% 151
South East -14 41 £475 +82.69% 35
North of England -23 40 £525 -4.55% 24
East of England +19 38 £550 - 16
North West -6 30 £525 +17.98% 17
Midlands -35 28 £429 -14.20% 19
West Midlands -28 26 £429 -23.60% 7
South West +11 18 £375 -20.00% 7
Wales +8 14 £301 +47.48%
Yorkshire -37 10 £575 +1.41% 7
Scotland +5 9 £475 +21.48% 7
East Midlands -17 2 - - 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 30 (7.13%) WebLogic
2 20 (4.75%) Apache
3 19 (4.51%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 14 (3.33%) Anypoint
4 14 (3.33%) MQSeries
5 12 (2.85%) Confluence
5 12 (2.85%) Mule
5 12 (2.85%) WebSphere
6 11 (2.61%) IIS
6 11 (2.61%) JBoss
7 10 (2.38%) Oracle Service Bus
8 7 (1.66%) Appian
8 7 (1.66%) nginx
9 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.95%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.71%) Alfresco
10 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.71%) Documentum
10 3 (0.71%) Mule ESB
10 3 (0.71%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 17 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.61%) FrameMaker
3 8 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.95%) Siemens NX
5 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.24%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 11 (2.61%) Maximo
1 11 (2.61%) Oracle BPM
2 7 (1.66%) SAP HCM
2 7 (1.66%) SAP Payroll
3 5 (1.19%) BusinessWorks
4 4 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.95%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.95%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.71%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.71%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.48%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.48%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.24%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 105 (24.94%) Azure
2 71 (16.86%) AWS
3 35 (8.31%) Azure DevOps
4 34 (8.08%) GitHub
5 20 (4.75%) GCP
5 20 (4.75%) Power Platform
6 17 (4.04%) Serverless
7 16 (3.80%) SaaS
8 15 (3.56%) Power Automate
9 14 (3.33%) Azure Logic Apps
9 14 (3.33%) Tricentis Tosca
10 12 (2.85%) SuccessFactors
11 11 (2.61%) Amazon S3
11 11 (2.61%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (2.14%) Boomi
13 9 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (2.14%) Nutanix
14 7 (1.66%) Amazon EventBridge
14 7 (1.66%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 33 (7.84%) HTTPS
2 28 (6.65%) HTTP
3 11 (2.61%) Firewall
4 10 (2.38%) SSL
5 8 (1.90%) NFC
5 8 (1.90%) PPP
6 7 (1.66%) AMQP
6 7 (1.66%) DSL
7 4 (0.95%) VPN
8 3 (0.71%) BGP
8 3 (0.71%) MPLS
9 2 (0.48%) DNS
9 2 (0.48%) Ethernet VPN
9 2 (0.48%) FTP
9 2 (0.48%) LAN
10 1 (0.24%) DHCP
10 1 (0.24%) Internet
10 1 (0.24%) SMS
10 1 (0.24%) TCP/IP
10 1 (0.24%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (13.06%) SQL Server
2 53 (12.59%) Relational Database
3 17 (4.04%) MongoDB
3 17 (4.04%) MySQL
3 17 (4.04%) Oracle Database
4 16 (3.80%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (3.09%) DB2
7 11 (2.61%) DataStage
8 10 (2.38%) Power BI
9 9 (2.14%) Amazon RDS
9 9 (2.14%) Amazon Redshift
9 9 (2.14%) Big Data
9 9 (2.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 8 (1.90%) Amazon QuickSight
10 8 (1.90%) Apache Cassandra
10 8 (1.90%) Metadata
11 7 (1.66%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (1.43%) MariaDB
13 5 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 68 (16.15%) Git
2 58 (13.78%) JIRA
3 40 (9.50%) Jenkins
4 31 (7.36%) Postman
5 27 (6.41%) Selenium
6 24 (5.70%) JUnit
7 22 (5.23%) Cucumber
7 22 (5.23%) GitLab
8 19 (4.51%) Eclipse
9 11 (2.61%) IntelliJ
9 11 (2.61%) SoapUI
10 9 (2.14%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (2.14%) Firebug
10 9 (2.14%) Maven
11 8 (1.90%) PVCS
11 8 (1.90%) SonarQube
11 8 (1.90%) Valgrind
12 7 (1.66%) Robot Framework
12 7 (1.66%) SpecFlow
12 7 (1.66%) Zephyr
General
1 138 (32.78%) Social Skills
2 76 (18.05%) Analytical Skills
2 76 (18.05%) Finance
3 40 (9.50%) Banking
3 40 (9.50%) Public Sector
4 14 (3.33%) Publishing
5 13 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (2.61%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (2.61%) Telecoms
7 10 (2.38%) Aerospace
8 9 (2.14%) Back Office
8 9 (2.14%) Investment Banking
8 9 (2.14%) Manufacturing
9 8 (1.90%) Private Banking
10 6 (1.43%) Digital Healthcare
10 6 (1.43%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.43%) Retail
11 5 (1.19%) Automotive
11 5 (1.19%) Front Office
12 4 (0.95%) Legal
Job Titles
1 146 (34.68%) Developer
2 58 (13.78%) Analyst
3 46 (10.93%) Consultant
4 44 (10.45%) Senior
5 24 (5.70%) Software Engineer
6 21 (4.99%) Business Analyst
7 18 (4.28%) Architect
7 18 (4.28%) Data Engineer
7 18 (4.28%) Integration Developer
8 16 (3.80%) Java Developer
8 16 (3.80%) Lead
8 16 (3.80%) Support Engineer
8 16 (3.80%) webMethods Developer
9 14 (3.33%) Author
9 14 (3.33%) Senior Developer
9 14 (3.33%) Technical Author
9 14 (3.33%) Tester
10 13 (3.09%) Applications Engineer
11 11 (2.61%) SAP Consultant
11 11 (2.61%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (52.26%) JSON
2 155 (36.82%) SOAP
3 142 (33.73%) REST
4 57 (13.54%) Web Services
5 50 (11.88%) OAuth
6 49 (11.64%) HTML
7 37 (8.79%) RESTful
8 34 (8.08%) Spring
9 33 (7.84%) JMS
10 32 (7.60%) XSLT
11 31 (7.36%) OAuth2
12 27 (6.41%) XSD
13 25 (5.94%) .NET
14 23 (5.46%) Kafka
14 23 (5.46%) Swagger
15 22 (5.23%) Hibernate
16 20 (4.75%) CSS
16 20 (4.75%) J2EE
17 18 (4.28%) AngularJS
17 18 (4.28%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 23 (5.46%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.75%) Virtual Team
3 16 (3.80%) Replication
4 14 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.85%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (2.61%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
7 9 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.14%) Onboarding
7 9 (2.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 8 (1.90%) AS400
8 8 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.90%) Smartcard
9 7 (1.66%) Algorithms
9 7 (1.66%) Low-Code
9 7 (1.66%) Product Ownership
10 5 (1.19%) Clustering
10 5 (1.19%) Derivative
10 5 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (1.19%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 42 (9.98%) Linux
2 34 (8.08%) Windows
3 30 (7.13%) Unix
4 9 (2.14%) Windows Server
5 8 (1.90%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.71%) AIX
7 2 (0.48%) Android
7 2 (0.48%) CentOS
8 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.24%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (37.53%) Agile
2 146 (34.68%) DevOps
3 103 (24.47%) CI/CD
4 93 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
5 79 (18.76%) Test Automation
6 54 (12.83%) Scrum
7 51 (12.11%) Microservices
7 51 (12.11%) Validation
8 50 (11.88%) Migration
9 47 (11.16%) Deployment Automation
10 45 (10.69%) ETL
11 39 (9.26%) API Management
12 38 (9.03%) Data Modelling
13 36 (8.55%) SDLC
13 36 (8.55%) Software Engineering
14 35 (8.31%) Data Migration
15 33 (7.84%) Computer Science
15 33 (7.84%) Continuous Improvement
15 33 (7.84%) Workflow
16 30 (7.13%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 171 (40.62%) SQL
2 144 (34.20%) Java
3 81 (19.24%) Python
4 79 (18.76%) JavaScript
5 59 (14.01%) C#
6 26 (6.18%) PL/SQL
7 22 (5.23%) PowerShell
8 17 (4.04%) C++
9 16 (3.80%) T-SQL
10 14 (3.33%) XPath
11 11 (2.61%) RPG
12 9 (2.14%) ABAP
12 9 (2.14%) DataWeave
12 9 (2.14%) Scala
13 8 (1.90%) C
14 7 (1.66%) Groovy
14 7 (1.66%) Shell Script
14 7 (1.66%) VBA
15 4 (0.95%) BeanShell
16 3 (0.71%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 112 (26.60%) Security Cleared
2 95 (22.57%) SC Cleared
3 52 (12.35%) Degree
4 28 (6.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (3.56%) ISTQB
6 12 (2.85%) HNC
6 12 (2.85%) HND
7 11 (2.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 10 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (2.38%) ISEB
9 8 (1.90%) DV Cleared
10 7 (1.66%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.95%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.71%) CEH
12 3 (0.71%) GIAC
12 3 (0.71%) GWAPT
12 3 (0.71%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.71%) PMP
13 2 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (8.08%) QA
2 30 (7.13%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.90%) SEPA
4 4 (0.95%) HL7
5 3 (0.71%) ISO 20022
5 3 (0.71%) SLA
6 2 (0.48%) EMIR
6 2 (0.48%) GAAP
6 2 (0.48%) GDPR
6 2 (0.48%) GxP
7 1 (0.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 1 (0.24%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.24%) AIFMD
7 1 (0.24%) DICOM
7 1 (0.24%) GMP
7 1 (0.24%) IFRS
7 1 (0.24%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.24%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (13.06%) Docker
2 3 (0.71%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 27 (6.41%) Kubernetes
2 19 (4.51%) Ansible
3 11 (2.61%) Control-M
4 9 (2.14%) Puppet
5 8 (1.90%) logstash
5 8 (1.90%) Terraform
6 7 (1.66%) Kibana
7 5 (1.19%) ITRS Geneos
7 5 (1.19%) TIBCO Hawk
8 4 (0.95%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.48%) CloudHub
9 2 (0.48%) Fluentd
9 2 (0.48%) QRadar
9 2 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.24%) CEMLI
10 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.24%) Podman
Vendors
1 78 (18.53%) Oracle
2 60 (14.25%) Microsoft
3 52 (12.35%) SAP
4 44 (10.45%) IBM
5 31 (7.36%) webMethods
6 18 (4.28%) MuleSoft
6 18 (4.28%) ServiceNow
7 12 (2.85%) Salesforce
7 12 (2.85%) Software AG
7 12 (2.85%) Workday
8 11 (2.61%) Cisco
8 11 (2.61%) Splunk
9 10 (2.38%) Axway
9 10 (2.38%) TIBCO
10 9 (2.14%) Blue Prism
11 7 (1.66%) Pega
11 7 (1.66%) Veracode
12 5 (1.19%) Databricks
12 5 (1.19%) EMC
12 5 (1.19%) Solace