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 4 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 404 225 216
Rank change year-on-year -179 -9 +7
Contract jobs citing Derivative 252 352 486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 1.22% 1.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.59% 3.57% 3.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 310 436
10th Percentile £462 £511 £572
25th Percentile £600 £638 £650
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £729 £725 £750
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% -3.33% +3.45%
75th Percentile £850 £875 £850
90th Percentile £950 £938 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £591 £408 £638
% change year-on-year +44.91% -36.08% -20.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.25 - -
Median hourly rate £57.50 - -
75th Percentile £58.75 - -
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 15,819 9,863 12,909
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.33% 34.21% 30.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,755 6,238 8,277
10th Percentile £313 £290 £270
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 781 408 924
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.31 £19.97 £15.21
Median hourly rate £41.94 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.09% -5.71% +59.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.63 £61.30
90th Percentile £86.00 £82.33 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £32.05 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.16% -8.43% +60.00%

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 4 June 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 7 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 4 June 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 -166 232 £733 -2.33% 111
London -89 226 £733 -2.33% 104
Work from Home -127 84 £800 +10.34% 34
UK excluding London -122 19 £591 +44.91% 30
Scotland -3 14 £470 +16.34% 1
East of England - 3 £681 -
Northern Ireland -12 2 £625 +92.31% 12

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 (1.98%) Confluence
2 3 (1.19%) 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 11 (4.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.59%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 9 (3.57%) Aladdin
2 7 (2.78%) Summit
3 5 (1.98%) Loan IQ
3 5 (1.98%) Temenos T24
4 3 (1.19%) Advent Geneva
5 2 (0.79%) Front Arena
5 2 (0.79%) Global One
5 2 (0.79%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.79%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.79%) Orchestrade
6 1 (0.40%) Bloomberg AIM
6 1 (0.40%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.40%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 47 (18.65%) AWS
2 39 (15.48%) Azure
3 27 (10.71%) GCP
4 11 (4.37%) ChatGPT
5 9 (3.57%) Anthropic Claude
5 9 (3.57%) Power Platform
6 8 (3.17%) GitHub
6 8 (3.17%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (1.59%) SaaS
8 3 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.19%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.79%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (0.79%) Collibra
9 2 (0.79%) Serverless
10 1 (0.40%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.40%) IaaS
10 1 (0.40%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.40%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.54%) FIX Connectivity
2 7 (2.78%) HTTP
3 1 (0.40%) RTMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (10.71%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (9.13%) Relational Database
3 20 (7.94%) Metadata
4 15 (5.95%) Redis
5 14 (5.56%) SQL Server
6 13 (5.16%) MongoDB
7 10 (3.97%) DB2
7 10 (3.97%) RDBMS
8 9 (3.57%) Power BI
8 9 (3.57%) Tableau
9 6 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.98%) NoSQL
11 4 (1.59%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.79%) Big Data
12 2 (0.79%) Crystal Reports
12 2 (0.79%) Power Query
12 2 (0.79%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 1 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.40%) KDB
Development Applications
1 14 (5.56%) JIRA
2 13 (5.16%) Git
3 11 (4.37%) Octopus Deploy
4 8 (3.17%) TeamCity
5 4 (1.59%) ER Studio
5 4 (1.59%) ERwin
5 4 (1.59%) PowerDesigner
6 3 (1.19%) Bitbucket
6 3 (1.19%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.79%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.40%) GitLab
8 1 (0.40%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.40%) Gradle
8 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.40%) Maven
8 1 (0.40%) NUnit
8 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.40%) webpack
General
1 165 (65.48%) Finance
2 130 (51.59%) Banking
3 128 (50.79%) Front Office
4 105 (41.67%) Investment Banking
5 65 (25.79%) Social Skills
6 41 (16.27%) Analytical Skills
7 11 (4.37%) Financial Institution
8 10 (3.97%) Back Office
9 9 (3.57%) Legal
10 4 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.19%) General Ledger
11 3 (1.19%) Spanish Language
11 3 (1.19%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.79%) Private Banking
13 1 (0.40%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.40%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 130 (51.59%) Developer
2 58 (23.02%) Analyst
3 53 (21.03%) Business Analyst
4 44 (17.46%) Senior
5 37 (14.68%) Java Developer
6 36 (14.29%) Python Developer
7 25 (9.92%) Lead
8 24 (9.52%) Software Engineer
9 22 (8.73%) C# Developer
10 21 (8.33%) Electronic Trading Developer
11 20 (7.94%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
11 20 (7.94%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
12 19 (7.54%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
12 19 (7.54%) Low Latency Java Developer
12 19 (7.54%) Senior Developer
13 18 (7.14%) Front Office Developer
14 16 (6.35%) Lead Developer
15 14 (5.56%) Lead Software Engineer
16 13 (5.16%) Derivatives Business Analyst
16 13 (5.16%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (15.48%) React
2 34 (13.49%) FIX Protocol
3 18 (7.14%) Redux
4 16 (6.35%) Node.js
4 16 (6.35%) WebSockets
5 14 (5.56%) .NET
5 14 (5.56%) Kafka
6 8 (3.17%) AngularJS
6 8 (3.17%) RESTful
7 7 (2.78%) HTML
7 7 (2.78%) HTML5
7 7 (2.78%) NumPy
7 7 (2.78%) REST
7 7 (2.78%) XML
8 6 (2.38%) Pandas
9 4 (1.59%) CSS
9 4 (1.59%) RxJava
9 4 (1.59%) Spring
10 3 (1.19%) Django
10 3 (1.19%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 82 (32.54%) Equities
2 55 (21.83%) Fixed Income
3 47 (18.65%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 42 (16.67%) Equity Derivative
5 22 (8.73%) Market Risk
6 20 (7.94%) TWAP
6 20 (7.94%) VWAP
7 19 (7.54%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (7.14%) Algorithms
8 18 (7.14%) Credit Risk
9 16 (6.35%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (5.95%) OTC Derivatives
11 14 (5.56%) Data Structures
11 14 (5.56%) Management Information System
12 13 (5.16%) Hedge funds
13 8 (3.17%) Exotic Derivative
13 8 (3.17%) Reference Data
14 7 (2.78%) Product Ownership
15 6 (2.38%) Cloud Native
15 6 (2.38%) Credit Derivative
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.95%) Unix
2 7 (2.78%) Linux
3 3 (1.19%) Debian
3 3 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.19%) Ubuntu
3 3 (1.19%) VMS
4 2 (0.79%) Windows
5 1 (0.40%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (25.79%) Agile
2 47 (18.65%) Risk Management
3 46 (18.25%) Low Latency
3 46 (18.25%) Problem-Solving
4 39 (15.48%) Electronic Trading
4 39 (15.48%) TDD
5 36 (14.29%) Multithreading
6 35 (13.89%) Software Engineering
7 34 (13.49%) Asset Management
7 34 (13.49%) CI/CD
8 28 (11.11%) Algorithmic Trading
8 28 (11.11%) Analytics
8 28 (11.11%) User Acceptance Testing
9 25 (9.92%) Computer Science
10 23 (9.13%) Data Analysis
10 23 (9.13%) Quantitative Trading
10 23 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
11 22 (8.73%) DevOps
11 22 (8.73%) Full-Stack Development
11 22 (8.73%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 113 (44.84%) Python
2 91 (36.11%) SQL
3 73 (28.97%) Java
4 46 (18.25%) C#
5 36 (14.29%) C++
5 36 (14.29%) TypeScript
6 24 (9.52%) JavaScript
7 10 (3.97%) Rust
8 6 (2.38%) PowerShell
9 5 (1.98%) Perl
9 5 (1.98%) Scala
9 5 (1.98%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.59%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.79%) F#
11 2 (0.79%) VBA
12 1 (0.40%) Bash
12 1 (0.40%) C
12 1 (0.40%) R
12 1 (0.40%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (12.70%) Degree
2 17 (6.75%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (3.97%) Master's Degree
4 7 (2.78%) PhD
5 6 (2.38%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (0.79%) PMI Certification
6 2 (0.79%) PMP
7 1 (0.40%) CBAP
7 1 (0.40%) FFIEC
7 1 (0.40%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.95%) Data Quality
2 13 (5.16%) QA
3 10 (3.97%) EMIR
4 9 (3.57%) MiFID
5 5 (1.98%) IFRS
6 3 (1.19%) Basel III
6 3 (1.19%) GAAP
7 1 (0.40%) Dodd-Frank
7 1 (0.40%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.40%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.40%) PMO
7 1 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.40%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (5.16%) Docker
2 3 (1.19%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 6 (2.38%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.19%) Ansible
2 3 (1.19%) Control-M
2 3 (1.19%) Grafana
2 3 (1.19%) Podman
2 3 (1.19%) Prometheus
2 3 (1.19%) Terraform
3 2 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 19 (7.54%) Murex
2 16 (6.35%) Oracle
3 12 (4.76%) Bloomberg
4 10 (3.97%) Sybase
5 8 (3.17%) IBM
6 6 (2.38%) Calypso
6 6 (2.38%) Charles River
7 5 (1.98%) Google
7 5 (1.98%) jBASE
7 5 (1.98%) Temenos
8 4 (1.59%) Microsoft
9 3 (1.19%) Advent
9 3 (1.19%) Apple
9 3 (1.19%) Databricks
9 3 (1.19%) NVIDIA
10 2 (0.79%) Reuters
11 1 (0.40%) Ab Initio
11 1 (0.40%) Informatica
11 1 (0.40%) ION Trading
11 1 (0.40%) Red Hat