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 28 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 352 222 245
Rank change year-on-year -130 +23 +9
Contract jobs citing Derivative 244 381 422
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 1.14% 0.97%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.91% 3.54% 3.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 291 394
10th Percentile £499 £519 £550
25th Percentile £610 £638 £609
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £750 £725 £700
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £975 £888 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 £938 £900
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £325 £575
% change year-on-year +57.69% -43.48% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £77.50 -
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 12,800 10,754 13,611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.65% 32.05% 31.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,021 6,418 9,043
10th Percentile £275 £265 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £528 £549
Median % change year-on-year -4.74% -3.92% -0.18%
75th Percentile £630 £656 £665
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 628 330 510
10th Percentile £14.03 £17.95 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £23.30 £19.99
Median hourly rate £27.21 £33.65 £41.85
Median % change year-on-year -19.13% -19.60% +26.80%
75th Percentile £60.75 £64.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -16.28% -26.97% +70.43%

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 28 December 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 11 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 28 December 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 -118 235 £750 - 185
London -67 227 £750 - 111
Work from Home -101 80 £750 -6.25% 76
UK excluding London -51 13 £513 +57.69% 87
Scotland +9 4 £470 - 1
Northern Ireland -14 3 £320 -
North of England -38 3 £525 -12.50% 10
Yorkshire - 3 £525 - 3
East of England - 3 £681 - 16
Midlands - 2 £525 - 10
West Midlands - 2 £525 - 5

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 22 (9.02%) Apache
1 22 (9.02%) Apache Airflow
2 9 (3.69%) Apache Spark
3 8 (3.28%) Confluence
4 4 (1.64%) HCL Notes
4 4 (1.64%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.82%) IIS
5 2 (0.82%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.41%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.41%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (9.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (3.28%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.64%) Fidessa
2 4 (1.64%) thinkFolio
3 3 (1.23%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 2 (0.82%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.82%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.41%) Endur
5 1 (0.41%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.41%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.41%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.41%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.41%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.41%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.41%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.41%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 58 (23.77%) AWS
2 30 (12.30%) Azure
3 25 (10.25%) Snowflake
4 22 (9.02%) dbt
5 16 (6.56%) Power Platform
6 9 (3.69%) Serverless
7 6 (2.46%) GCP
8 5 (2.05%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.05%) npm
8 5 (2.05%) Yarn
9 4 (1.64%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 4 (1.64%) Azure Logic Apps
9 4 (1.64%) Azure Service Bus
9 4 (1.64%) Power Automate
9 4 (1.64%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.23%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.23%) SaaS
11 2 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.05%) FIX Connectivity
2 4 (1.64%) Multicast
3 1 (0.41%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (9.43%) Data Lake
2 22 (9.02%) Amazon Athena
2 22 (9.02%) Apache Arrow
2 22 (9.02%) Apache Iceberg
2 22 (9.02%) Apache Ignite
2 22 (9.02%) Dremio
3 21 (8.61%) SQL Server
4 20 (8.20%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (6.56%) Power BI
6 7 (2.87%) Redis
7 6 (2.46%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.46%) Tableau
8 4 (1.64%) Big Data
8 4 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (1.64%) KDB
9 3 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.82%) Data Mart
10 2 (0.82%) Metadata
10 2 (0.82%) Oracle Database
11 1 (0.41%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 18 (7.38%) Git
2 11 (4.51%) JIRA
3 10 (4.10%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.46%) Octopus Deploy
4 6 (2.46%) Visual Studio
5 5 (2.05%) GitLab
5 5 (2.05%) webpack
6 4 (1.64%) Maven
7 3 (1.23%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.82%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.82%) Gradle
9 1 (0.41%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.41%) Crucible
9 1 (0.41%) Eclipse
9 1 (0.41%) JUnit
9 1 (0.41%) TeamCity
General
1 191 (78.28%) Finance
2 147 (60.25%) Banking
3 104 (42.62%) Front Office
4 101 (41.39%) Investment Banking
5 74 (30.33%) Social Skills
6 34 (13.93%) Analytical Skills
7 26 (10.66%) Financial Institution
8 10 (4.10%) Back Office
9 5 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.64%) Legal
11 3 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.23%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.41%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.41%) General Ledger
13 1 (0.41%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.41%) Retail
13 1 (0.41%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 102 (41.80%) Developer
2 69 (28.28%) Senior
3 47 (19.26%) Analyst
4 35 (14.34%) Java Developer
5 34 (13.93%) Senior Developer
6 30 (12.30%) Business Analyst
7 24 (9.84%) Java Engineer
8 23 (9.43%) Java Software Engineer
8 23 (9.43%) Software Engineer
9 22 (9.02%) AWS Engineer
9 22 (9.02%) AWS Software Engineer
9 22 (9.02%) Python Engineer
9 22 (9.02%) Python Software Engineer
10 21 (8.61%) Senior Java Developer
10 21 (8.61%) Senior Java Engineer
10 21 (8.61%) Senior Java Software Engineer
10 21 (8.61%) Senior Software Engineer
11 18 (7.38%) Analytics Developer
11 18 (7.38%) AWS Developer
11 18 (7.38%) PostgreSQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (10.25%) NumPy
1 25 (10.25%) Pandas
1 25 (10.25%) SciPy
2 23 (9.43%) Kafka
2 23 (9.43%) Protocol Buffers
3 22 (9.02%) gRPC
4 18 (7.38%) FIX Protocol
5 16 (6.56%) .NET
6 13 (5.33%) React
7 9 (3.69%) Dask
7 9 (3.69%) REST
7 9 (3.69%) RESTful
8 8 (3.28%) CSS
8 8 (3.28%) Spring
9 6 (2.46%) HTML
10 5 (2.05%) RabbitMQ
10 5 (2.05%) XML
11 4 (1.64%) .NET Core
11 4 (1.64%) .NET Framework
12 3 (1.23%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 85 (34.84%) Equities
2 74 (30.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 65 (26.64%) Fixed Income
4 33 (13.52%) Hedge funds
5 29 (11.89%) Equity Derivative
6 23 (9.43%) Market Risk
7 22 (9.02%) Pricing Data
8 19 (7.79%) Distributed Systems
9 18 (7.38%) Algorithms
9 18 (7.38%) Management Information System
10 15 (6.15%) Product Ownership
11 14 (5.74%) Cloud Native
12 13 (5.33%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (4.10%) Distributed Computing
13 10 (4.10%) Interest Rate Derivative
13 10 (4.10%) Onboarding
14 8 (3.28%) Credit Risk
15 7 (2.87%) OTC Derivatives
15 7 (2.87%) TWAP
15 7 (2.87%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 18 (7.38%) Linux
2 8 (3.28%) Windows
3 7 (2.87%) Unix
4 3 (1.23%) Debian
4 3 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.23%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.23%) VMS
5 2 (0.82%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (34.02%) Agile
2 61 (25.00%) Risk Management
3 44 (18.03%) Analytics
4 42 (17.21%) Mathematics
5 37 (15.16%) CI/CD
5 37 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
6 35 (14.34%) Software Engineering
7 29 (11.89%) DevOps
7 29 (11.89%) TDD
8 28 (11.48%) Asset Management
9 27 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 24 (9.84%) Computer Science
11 22 (9.02%) Data Pipeline
11 22 (9.02%) Design Patterns
11 22 (9.02%) Investment Management
11 22 (9.02%) Low Latency
12 21 (8.61%) Physics
13 20 (8.20%) Electronic Trading
13 20 (8.20%) Quantitative Finance
13 20 (8.20%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 102 (41.80%) Python
2 72 (29.51%) Java
3 68 (27.87%) SQL
4 37 (15.16%) C#
4 37 (15.16%) C++
5 32 (13.11%) JavaScript
6 31 (12.70%) TypeScript
7 6 (2.46%) VBA
8 4 (1.64%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.23%) Perl
10 2 (0.82%) Scala
11 1 (0.41%) Bash
11 1 (0.41%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.41%) R
11 1 (0.41%) Rust
11 1 (0.41%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.41%) VC++
Qualifications
1 46 (18.85%) Degree
2 21 (8.61%) Master's Degree
3 14 (5.74%) Numerate Degree
4 12 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.10%) PhD
6 4 (1.64%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.64%) PMP
7 2 (0.82%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.41%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.33%) EMIR
1 13 (5.33%) MiFID
2 12 (4.92%) QA
3 8 (3.28%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.87%) SLA
5 5 (2.05%) IFRS
6 4 (1.64%) IFRS 9
7 3 (1.23%) Basel III
7 3 (1.23%) GDPR
7 3 (1.23%) IAS 32
7 3 (1.23%) IAS 39
8 2 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.41%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.41%) FINRA
9 1 (0.41%) GAAP
9 1 (0.41%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.41%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.41%) PMO
9 1 (0.41%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (2.87%) Docker
2 3 (1.23%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 8 (3.28%) Ansible
2 7 (2.87%) Kubernetes
3 3 (1.23%) Grafana
3 3 (1.23%) Podman
3 3 (1.23%) Thomson Reuters DACS
4 2 (0.82%) ITRS Geneos
4 2 (0.82%) Terraform
5 1 (0.41%) Control-M
5 1 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.41%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 17 (6.97%) Bloomberg
2 15 (6.15%) Murex
3 11 (4.51%) Microsoft
4 10 (4.10%) Oracle
5 7 (2.87%) Calypso
5 7 (2.87%) ION Trading
6 6 (2.46%) Databricks
6 6 (2.46%) Sophis
6 6 (2.46%) Tradeweb
7 4 (1.64%) Lotus
7 4 (1.64%) Portware
8 3 (1.23%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.23%) Charles River
8 3 (1.23%) IBM
8 3 (1.23%) NVIDIA
8 3 (1.23%) NYFIX
8 3 (1.23%) Refinitiv
8 3 (1.23%) Reuters
8 3 (1.23%) Splunk
9 2 (0.82%) MarketAxess