Derivative Contract Job Trends

Derivatives
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Derivative in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Derivative over the 6 months leading up to 6 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 330 227 232
Rank change year-on-year -103 +5 +19
Contract jobs citing Derivative 257 383 500
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 1.05% 1.08%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.07% 3.42% 3.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 301 456
10th Percentile £520 £613 £550
25th Percentile £612 £663 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £750 £800 £700
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +14.29% -
75th Percentile £825 £875 £844
90th Percentile £1,000 £888 £1,000
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £625 £538
% change year-on-year -18.00% +16.28% +7.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £86.25 £76.25 -
Median hourly rate £87.50 £77.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% - -
75th Percentile £88.75 £78.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Generic Skills
UK

Derivative falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,394 11,215 14,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.80% 30.70% 32.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,644 6,627 10,056
10th Percentile £281 £275 £281
25th Percentile £406 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £659 £673
90th Percentile £750 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 675 345 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.85 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.22 £22.40 £21.05
Median hourly rate £27.00 £40.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.50% -10.11% +64.94%
75th Percentile £50.00 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.25 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -38.24% -7.97% +100.78%

Derivative
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Derivative relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Derivative job vacancy trend in the UK

Derivative
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Derivative.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Derivative

Derivative
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Derivative over the 6 months to 6 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Derivative in the UK

Derivative
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Derivative.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Derivative

Derivative
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Derivative within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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 -80 246 £750 -6.25% 250
London -63 239 £750 -6.25% 198
Work from Home -84 98 £750 -6.25% 117
UK excluding London -35 17 £513 -18.00% 123
North of England -30 6 £569 -9.04% 3
Scotland +6 5 £463 - 4
Northern Ireland -4 5 £325 - 1
Yorkshire - 4 £525 - 2
Midlands - 3 £525 -
North West -16 2 £612 -2.08%
West Midlands - 2 £525 -
East Midlands - 1 £375 -

Derivative
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 36 (14.01%) Apache
1 36 (14.01%) Apache Airflow
2 15 (5.84%) Confluence
3 5 (1.95%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.56%) HCL Notes
5 2 (0.78%) IIS
6 1 (0.39%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.39%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.39%) WebSphere
Applications
1 23 (8.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.56%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.39%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 14 (5.45%) Aladdin
2 7 (2.72%) thinkFolio
3 4 (1.56%) Fidessa
4 2 (0.78%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.78%) Kondor
5 1 (0.39%) Actimize
5 1 (0.39%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.39%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.39%) Endur
5 1 (0.39%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.39%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 65 (25.29%) AWS
2 39 (15.18%) Snowflake
3 36 (14.01%) dbt
4 31 (12.06%) Azure
5 16 (6.23%) Power Platform
6 5 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (1.95%) Serverless
7 4 (1.56%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 4 (1.56%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (1.56%) Azure Service Bus
7 4 (1.56%) Power Automate
7 4 (1.56%) PowerApps
8 3 (1.17%) GCP
8 3 (1.17%) npm
8 3 (1.17%) Yarn
9 2 (0.78%) SaaS
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.39%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.39%) Azure Machine Learning
10 1 (0.39%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.33%) TCP/IP
2 4 (1.56%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (14.40%) Data Lake
2 36 (14.01%) Amazon Athena
2 36 (14.01%) Apache Arrow
2 36 (14.01%) Apache Iceberg
2 36 (14.01%) Apache Ignite
2 36 (14.01%) Dremio
3 24 (9.34%) SQL Server
4 19 (7.39%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (6.23%) Power BI
6 10 (3.89%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.33%) Redis
7 6 (2.33%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.33%) Tableau
8 4 (1.56%) KDB
9 3 (1.17%) Big Data
9 3 (1.17%) Power Query
10 2 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.78%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (5.84%) JIRA
2 9 (3.50%) Git
3 7 (2.72%) Octopus Deploy
4 5 (1.95%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.56%) GitLab
6 3 (1.17%) IntelliJ
6 3 (1.17%) Maven
6 3 (1.17%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.17%) webpack
7 2 (0.78%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.78%) Gradle
8 1 (0.39%) Crucible
8 1 (0.39%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.39%) Hudson
8 1 (0.39%) JUnit
8 1 (0.39%) TeamCity
General
1 207 (80.54%) Finance
2 155 (60.31%) Banking
3 130 (50.58%) Front Office
4 117 (45.53%) Investment Banking
5 77 (29.96%) Social Skills
6 36 (14.01%) Analytical Skills
7 21 (8.17%) Financial Institution
8 8 (3.11%) Back Office
9 5 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.17%) Law
10 3 (1.17%) Legal
10 3 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.39%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.39%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.39%) Prime Brokerage
12 1 (0.39%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 91 (35.41%) Developer
2 81 (31.52%) Senior
3 68 (26.46%) Analyst
4 48 (18.68%) Business Analyst
5 38 (14.79%) Software Engineer
6 37 (14.40%) Java Engineer
6 37 (14.40%) Java Software Engineer
7 36 (14.01%) AWS Engineer
7 36 (14.01%) AWS Software Engineer
7 36 (14.01%) Python Engineer
7 36 (14.01%) Python Software Engineer
8 35 (13.62%) Senior Java Engineer
8 35 (13.62%) Senior Java Software Engineer
8 35 (13.62%) Senior Software Engineer
9 31 (12.06%) Senior Developer
10 28 (10.89%) Java Developer
11 18 (7.00%) Analytics Developer
11 18 (7.00%) AWS Developer
11 18 (7.00%) PostgreSQL Developer
11 18 (7.00%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (14.40%) Protocol Buffers
2 36 (14.01%) gRPC
2 36 (14.01%) NumPy
2 36 (14.01%) Pandas
2 36 (14.01%) SciPy
3 22 (8.56%) Kafka
4 17 (6.61%) FIX Protocol
5 16 (6.23%) .NET
6 9 (3.50%) React
6 9 (3.50%) REST
6 9 (3.50%) Spring
7 8 (3.11%) Middleware
8 7 (2.72%) RESTful
9 6 (2.33%) CSS
10 5 (1.95%) Dask
10 5 (1.95%) FpML
10 5 (1.95%) RabbitMQ
10 5 (1.95%) XML
11 4 (1.56%) .NET Core
11 4 (1.56%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 95 (36.96%) Fixed Income
2 93 (36.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 84 (32.68%) Equities
4 48 (18.68%) Hedge funds
5 36 (14.01%) Pricing Data
6 30 (11.67%) Equity Derivative
7 26 (10.12%) Market Risk
8 18 (7.00%) Management Information System
9 17 (6.61%) Distributed Systems
9 17 (6.61%) Product Ownership
10 16 (6.23%) Algorithms
11 14 (5.45%) Onboarding
12 12 (4.67%) Cloud Native
13 10 (3.89%) Credit Derivative
13 10 (3.89%) Credit Risk
13 10 (3.89%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (3.89%) Interest Rate Derivative
14 9 (3.50%) Data Structures
15 8 (3.11%) Distributed Computing
16 7 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.23%) Linux
2 8 (3.11%) Unix
3 7 (2.72%) Windows
4 1 (0.39%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (43.97%) Agile
2 52 (20.23%) Risk Management
3 49 (19.07%) Software Engineering
4 46 (17.90%) Analytics
4 46 (17.90%) Asset Management
4 46 (17.90%) Mathematics
5 41 (15.95%) Investment Management
6 38 (14.79%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (10.89%) CI/CD
8 27 (10.51%) Computer Science
9 26 (10.12%) Business Analysis
10 25 (9.73%) Scrum
10 25 (9.73%) Stakeholder Management
11 24 (9.34%) Physics
12 23 (8.95%) Data Pipeline
13 22 (8.56%) TDD
14 21 (8.17%) Business Intelligence
15 20 (7.78%) DevOps
16 19 (7.39%) Design Patterns
16 19 (7.39%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 119 (46.30%) Python
2 83 (32.30%) SQL
3 80 (31.13%) Java
4 43 (16.73%) JavaScript
5 42 (16.34%) TypeScript
6 38 (14.79%) C#
7 37 (14.40%) C++
8 6 (2.33%) VBA
9 4 (1.56%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.78%) Scala
11 1 (0.39%) Bash
11 1 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.39%) Perl
11 1 (0.39%) Rust
11 1 (0.39%) VC++
Qualifications
1 47 (18.29%) Degree
2 22 (8.56%) Master's Degree
3 14 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
4 12 (4.67%) PhD
5 9 (3.50%) Numerate Degree
6 3 (1.17%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.17%) PMP
7 1 (0.39%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.39%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.23%) MiFID
2 11 (4.28%) QA
3 9 (3.50%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.72%) Basel III
4 7 (2.72%) EMIR
5 6 (2.33%) GDPR
6 4 (1.56%) SLA
7 3 (1.17%) PMO
8 2 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.39%) COREP
9 1 (0.39%) Dodd-Frank
9 1 (0.39%) FINRA
9 1 (0.39%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.39%) IFRS
9 1 (0.39%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.39%) SEPA
9 1 (0.39%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 3 (1.17%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.56%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.17%) Ansible
2 3 (1.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
3 1 (0.39%) Grafana
3 1 (0.39%) Terraform
3 1 (0.39%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 16 (6.23%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.06%) Bloomberg
3 12 (4.67%) Murex
4 9 (3.50%) Calypso
5 8 (3.11%) Oracle
6 7 (2.72%) Databricks
6 7 (2.72%) ION Trading
6 7 (2.72%) Sophis
7 6 (2.33%) Charles River
8 5 (1.95%) BISAM
8 5 (1.95%) Reuters
9 4 (1.56%) Lotus
9 4 (1.56%) Portware
9 4 (1.56%) Tradeweb
10 3 (1.17%) Atlassian
10 3 (1.17%) NYFIX
10 3 (1.17%) Refinitiv
10 3 (1.17%) SimCorp
10 3 (1.17%) Sybase
11 2 (0.78%) Salesforce