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 5 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 193 217
Rank change year-on-year -190 +24 +36
Contract jobs citing Derivative 251 413 464
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 1.41% 1.08%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.65% 4.14% 3.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 359 418
10th Percentile £461 £519 £551
25th Percentile £575 £638 £628
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £733 £725 £750
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% -3.33% +1.35%
75th Percentile £850 £875 £850
90th Percentile £988 £938 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £404 £638
% change year-on-year +20.67% -36.63% -20.31%

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 15,251 9,965 13,119
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.08% 34.02% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,494 6,364 8,440
10th Percentile £306 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 719 400 905
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.31 £21.01 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +7.76% +34.13%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £82.57 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £31.08 £28.25
% change year-on-year +60.88% +10.02% +28.41%

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 5 May 2026.

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 9 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 5 May 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 -190 233 £733 -2.33% 73
London -107 226 £740 -1.33% 72
Work from Home -149 86 £800 +10.34% 15
UK excluding London -109 17 £488 +20.67% 8
Scotland -5 12 £470 +16.34%
East of England - 3 £681 -
Northern Ireland -18 1 £475 +46.15% 2
North of England -63 1 - -
Yorkshire - 1 - -

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 5 (1.99%) Confluence
2 4 (1.59%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 1 (0.40%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
Applications
1 13 (5.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.20%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (3.19%) Aladdin
2 7 (2.79%) Summit
3 5 (1.99%) Loan IQ
3 5 (1.99%) Temenos T24
4 3 (1.20%) Advent Geneva
5 2 (0.80%) Algo Collateral
5 2 (0.80%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 2 (0.80%) Front Arena
5 2 (0.80%) Global One
5 2 (0.80%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.80%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.40%) Bloomberg AIM
6 1 (0.40%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.40%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 49 (19.52%) AWS
2 36 (14.34%) Azure
3 24 (9.56%) GCP
4 9 (3.59%) Power Platform
5 8 (3.19%) ChatGPT
6 7 (2.79%) Anthropic Claude
7 6 (2.39%) GitHub
7 6 (2.39%) GitHub Copilot
8 5 (1.99%) Amazon S3
8 5 (1.99%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (1.99%) Serverless
9 4 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.20%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.20%) npm
10 3 (1.20%) SaaS
10 3 (1.20%) Snowflake
10 3 (1.20%) Yarn
11 2 (0.80%) Collibra
11 2 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.80%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.57%) FIX Connectivity
2 5 (1.99%) HTTP
3 1 (0.40%) RTMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (11.95%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (7.17%) Relational Database
3 17 (6.77%) Metadata
4 12 (4.78%) Redis
5 10 (3.98%) SQL Server
6 9 (3.59%) Power BI
6 9 (3.59%) Tableau
7 8 (3.19%) MongoDB
8 7 (2.79%) DB2
8 7 (2.79%) RDBMS
9 5 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.59%) NoSQL
11 3 (1.20%) Data Lake
11 3 (1.20%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.80%) Big Data
12 2 (0.80%) Crystal Reports
12 2 (0.80%) Data Mart
12 2 (0.80%) Power Query
12 2 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (6.37%) Git
2 14 (5.58%) JIRA
3 9 (3.59%) Octopus Deploy
4 8 (3.19%) TeamCity
5 6 (2.39%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.20%) Bitbucket
6 3 (1.20%) ER Studio
6 3 (1.20%) ERwin
6 3 (1.20%) PowerDesigner
6 3 (1.20%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.20%) webpack
7 2 (0.80%) Gradle
7 2 (0.80%) Maven
8 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.40%) GitLab
8 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.40%) NUnit
8 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
General
1 167 (66.53%) Finance
2 127 (50.60%) Banking
3 117 (46.61%) Front Office
4 94 (37.45%) Investment Banking
5 66 (26.29%) Social Skills
6 41 (16.33%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (7.17%) Financial Institution
8 12 (4.78%) Back Office
9 6 (2.39%) Legal
10 4 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.20%) Spanish Language
11 3 (1.20%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.80%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.40%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.40%) Private Banking
13 1 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 121 (48.21%) Developer
2 59 (23.51%) Analyst
3 48 (19.12%) Business Analyst
4 42 (16.73%) Senior
5 41 (16.33%) Java Developer
6 32 (12.75%) Python Developer
7 24 (9.56%) Electronic Trading Developer
7 24 (9.56%) Lead
8 23 (9.16%) Senior Developer
9 22 (8.76%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
10 20 (7.97%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
10 20 (7.97%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
11 19 (7.57%) Low Latency Java Developer
12 18 (7.17%) Software Engineer
13 16 (6.37%) Lead Developer
14 15 (5.98%) Senior Java Developer
15 14 (5.58%) C# Developer
16 12 (4.78%) Lead Software Developer
16 12 (4.78%) Lead Software Engineer
16 12 (4.78%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (14.34%) React
2 30 (11.95%) FIX Protocol
3 20 (7.97%) Redux
4 16 (6.37%) Node.js
5 15 (5.98%) Kafka
6 13 (5.18%) WebSockets
7 12 (4.78%) .NET
8 9 (3.59%) HTML
9 7 (2.79%) HTML5
9 7 (2.79%) RESTful
9 7 (2.79%) XML
10 6 (2.39%) AngularJS
10 6 (2.39%) CSS
10 6 (2.39%) NumPy
10 6 (2.39%) Pandas
10 6 (2.39%) REST
11 4 (1.59%) Dask
11 4 (1.59%) RxJS
11 4 (1.59%) SciPy
12 3 (1.20%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 89 (35.46%) Equities
2 56 (22.31%) Fixed Income
3 41 (16.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 40 (15.94%) Equity Derivative
5 25 (9.96%) Market Risk
6 21 (8.37%) TWAP
6 21 (8.37%) VWAP
7 19 (7.57%) Credit Risk
8 17 (6.77%) Algorithms
8 17 (6.77%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (6.37%) Distributed Systems
10 14 (5.58%) Management Information System
11 12 (4.78%) Hedge funds
11 12 (4.78%) OTC Derivatives
12 11 (4.38%) Data Structures
13 8 (3.19%) Product Ownership
14 7 (2.79%) Reference Data
15 6 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
16 5 (1.99%) Cloud Native
16 5 (1.99%) Credit Derivative
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.98%) Unix
2 8 (3.19%) Linux
3 3 (1.20%) Debian
3 3 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.20%) Ubuntu
3 3 (1.20%) VMS
4 1 (0.40%) Windows
4 1 (0.40%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (26.29%) Agile
2 55 (21.91%) Risk Management
3 42 (16.73%) Electronic Trading
4 41 (16.33%) Low Latency
4 41 (16.33%) Problem-Solving
4 41 (16.33%) TDD
5 32 (12.75%) User Acceptance Testing
6 31 (12.35%) Analytics
6 31 (12.35%) Asset Management
6 31 (12.35%) CI/CD
6 31 (12.35%) Multithreading
7 28 (11.16%) Software Engineering
8 26 (10.36%) DevOps
9 25 (9.96%) Algorithmic Trading
9 25 (9.96%) Design Patterns
10 24 (9.56%) Mentoring
11 23 (9.16%) Mathematics
11 23 (9.16%) Quantitative Trading
11 23 (9.16%) Stakeholder Management
11 23 (9.16%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 107 (42.63%) Python
2 88 (35.06%) SQL
3 68 (27.09%) Java
4 35 (13.94%) C#
5 34 (13.55%) TypeScript
6 33 (13.15%) C++
7 24 (9.56%) JavaScript
8 8 (3.19%) Rust
9 6 (2.39%) Perl
10 5 (1.99%) Scala
11 4 (1.59%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.59%) PowerShell
11 4 (1.59%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.80%) F#
12 2 (0.80%) R
12 2 (0.80%) VBA
13 1 (0.40%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (12.35%) Degree
2 13 (5.18%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (3.59%) Numerate Degree
4 8 (3.19%) Master's Degree
5 5 (1.99%) PhD
6 3 (1.20%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.80%) PMI Certification
7 2 (0.80%) PMP
8 1 (0.40%) CBAP
8 1 (0.40%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.17%) QA
2 14 (5.58%) Data Quality
3 12 (4.78%) EMIR
4 8 (3.19%) MiFID
5 7 (2.79%) IFRS
6 4 (1.59%) Basel III
6 4 (1.59%) IFRS 9
7 3 (1.20%) IAS 32
7 3 (1.20%) IAS 39
7 3 (1.20%) SLA
8 2 (0.80%) GAAP
9 1 (0.40%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.40%) Dodd-Frank
9 1 (0.40%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.40%) PMO
9 1 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 11 (4.38%) Docker
2 3 (1.20%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 6 (2.39%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.99%) Ansible
3 4 (1.59%) Grafana
3 4 (1.59%) ITRS Geneos
4 3 (1.20%) Control-M
4 3 (1.20%) Podman
4 3 (1.20%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.20%) Terraform
Vendors
1 22 (8.76%) Murex
2 18 (7.17%) Oracle
3 16 (6.37%) Bloomberg
4 8 (3.19%) Calypso
5 7 (2.79%) IBM
5 7 (2.79%) Sybase
6 6 (2.39%) Charles River
7 5 (1.99%) jBASE
7 5 (1.99%) Temenos
8 3 (1.20%) Advent
8 3 (1.20%) Apple
8 3 (1.20%) Google
8 3 (1.20%) NVIDIA
9 2 (0.80%) Databricks
9 2 (0.80%) ION Trading
9 2 (0.80%) MarketAxess
9 2 (0.80%) Microsoft
9 2 (0.80%) Reuters
9 2 (0.80%) SmartStream
9 2 (0.80%) Tradeweb