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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 384 207 208
Rank change year-on-year -177 +1 +29
Contract jobs citing Derivative 252 396 479
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 1.35% 1.12%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.65% 3.97% 3.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 349 430
10th Percentile £463 £524 £551
25th Percentile £622 £638 £641
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £733 £725 £750
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% -3.33% +3.45%
75th Percentile £850 £875 £850
90th Percentile £984 £938 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £404 £638
% change year-on-year +23.76% -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 15,307 9,975 12,915
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.92% 33.94% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,494 6,359 8,316
10th Percentile £313 £300 £267
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £739 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +0.26% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 732 397 899
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.87 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.96 £20.75 £15.17
Median hourly rate £42.50 £31.76 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.82% +0.83% +40.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.35 £83.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +56.43% +1.30% +36.36%

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 18 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 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 18 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 -177 233 £733 -2.33% 66
London -97 227 £733 -2.33% 61
Work from Home -139 84 £800 +10.34% 28
UK excluding London -114 18 £500 +23.76% 16
Scotland +5 13 £470 +16.34%
East of England - 3 £681 -
Northern Ireland -14 2 £625 +92.31% 2

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 2 (0.79%) 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 (5.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.59%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (3.17%) 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%) Bloomberg TOMS
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
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 48 (19.05%) AWS
2 37 (14.68%) Azure
3 25 (9.92%) GCP
4 9 (3.57%) ChatGPT
4 9 (3.57%) Power Platform
5 7 (2.78%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (2.38%) GitHub
6 6 (2.38%) GitHub Copilot
7 5 (1.98%) Amazon S3
7 5 (1.98%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (1.98%) Serverless
8 3 (1.19%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.19%) SaaS
8 3 (1.19%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.79%) Collibra
9 2 (0.79%) npm
9 2 (0.79%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.79%) Yarn
Communications & Networking
1 18 (7.14%) FIX Connectivity
2 7 (2.78%) HTTP
3 1 (0.40%) RTMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (11.11%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (7.94%) Relational Database
3 18 (7.14%) Metadata
4 12 (4.76%) Redis
5 11 (4.37%) SQL Server
6 9 (3.57%) MongoDB
6 9 (3.57%) Power BI
6 9 (3.57%) RDBMS
6 9 (3.57%) Tableau
7 8 (3.17%) DB2
8 6 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.59%) Data Lake
10 3 (1.19%) NoSQL
10 3 (1.19%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.79%) Crystal Reports
11 2 (0.79%) Power Query
11 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.40%) Apache Cassandra
12 1 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 16 (6.35%) Git
2 12 (4.76%) JIRA
3 9 (3.57%) Octopus Deploy
4 7 (2.78%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.78%) TeamCity
5 4 (1.59%) ER Studio
5 4 (1.59%) ERwin
5 4 (1.59%) PowerDesigner
5 4 (1.59%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.19%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.79%) GitLab
7 2 (0.79%) Gradle
7 2 (0.79%) Maven
7 2 (0.79%) webpack
8 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.40%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.40%) NUnit
8 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
General
1 167 (66.27%) Finance
2 127 (50.40%) Banking
3 121 (48.02%) Front Office
4 96 (38.10%) Investment Banking
5 65 (25.79%) Social Skills
6 41 (16.27%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (5.95%) Financial Institution
8 11 (4.37%) Back Office
9 7 (2.78%) Legal
10 4 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.19%) Spanish Language
11 3 (1.19%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.79%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.40%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.40%) Private Banking
13 1 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 125 (49.60%) Developer
2 56 (22.22%) Analyst
3 49 (19.44%) Business Analyst
4 42 (16.67%) Senior
5 39 (15.48%) Java Developer
6 35 (13.89%) Python Developer
7 24 (9.52%) Lead
8 22 (8.73%) Electronic Trading Developer
8 22 (8.73%) Software Engineer
9 20 (7.94%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
9 20 (7.94%) Senior Developer
10 19 (7.54%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
10 19 (7.54%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
11 18 (7.14%) Low Latency Java Developer
12 17 (6.75%) C# Developer
13 16 (6.35%) Lead Developer
14 13 (5.16%) Lead Software Engineer
14 13 (5.16%) Python Engineer
15 12 (4.76%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 12 (4.76%) Lead Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (14.29%) React
2 32 (12.70%) FIX Protocol
3 19 (7.54%) Redux
4 16 (6.35%) Node.js
5 15 (5.95%) WebSockets
6 13 (5.16%) Kafka
7 12 (4.76%) .NET
8 8 (3.17%) HTML
8 8 (3.17%) RESTful
9 7 (2.78%) AngularJS
9 7 (2.78%) HTML5
9 7 (2.78%) NumPy
9 7 (2.78%) Pandas
9 7 (2.78%) REST
9 7 (2.78%) XML
10 5 (1.98%) CSS
11 4 (1.59%) RxJava
11 4 (1.59%) SciPy
11 4 (1.59%) Spring
12 3 (1.19%) RxJS
Miscellaneous
1 86 (34.13%) Equities
2 55 (21.83%) Fixed Income
3 41 (16.27%) Equity Derivative
3 41 (16.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 25 (9.92%) Market Risk
5 21 (8.33%) Distributed Systems
6 20 (7.94%) Credit Risk
6 20 (7.94%) TWAP
6 20 (7.94%) VWAP
7 19 (7.54%) Algorithms
8 17 (6.75%) Data Protection Act
9 14 (5.56%) Data Structures
10 13 (5.16%) Management Information System
10 13 (5.16%) OTC Derivatives
11 12 (4.76%) Hedge funds
12 8 (3.17%) Reference Data
13 7 (2.78%) Product Ownership
14 6 (2.38%) Credit Derivative
14 6 (2.38%) Exotic Derivative
15 5 (1.98%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 17 (6.75%) Unix
2 9 (3.57%) 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 53 (21.03%) Risk Management
3 45 (17.86%) Low Latency
4 44 (17.46%) Problem-Solving
5 42 (16.67%) Electronic Trading
6 39 (15.48%) TDD
7 36 (14.29%) CI/CD
8 34 (13.49%) Multithreading
9 32 (12.70%) Software Engineering
10 31 (12.30%) Asset Management
11 30 (11.90%) Analytics
11 30 (11.90%) User Acceptance Testing
12 28 (11.11%) Algorithmic Trading
13 27 (10.71%) DevOps
14 25 (9.92%) Mathematics
14 25 (9.92%) Mentoring
15 24 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
16 23 (9.13%) Design Patterns
16 23 (9.13%) Quantitative Trading
16 23 (9.13%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 114 (45.24%) Python
2 90 (35.71%) SQL
3 68 (26.98%) Java
4 41 (16.27%) C#
5 38 (15.08%) C++
6 35 (13.89%) TypeScript
7 24 (9.52%) JavaScript
8 10 (3.97%) Rust
9 7 (2.78%) Perl
10 6 (2.38%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.98%) Scala
11 5 (1.98%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.59%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.79%) F#
13 2 (0.79%) R
13 2 (0.79%) VBA
14 1 (0.40%) Bash
14 1 (0.40%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 33 (13.10%) Degree
2 14 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (3.97%) Master's Degree
3 10 (3.97%) Numerate Degree
4 6 (2.38%) PhD
5 2 (0.79%) PMI Certification
5 2 (0.79%) PMP
6 1 (0.40%) CBAP
6 1 (0.40%) FFIEC
6 1 (0.40%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.35%) QA
2 14 (5.56%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.97%) EMIR
4 9 (3.57%) MiFID
5 6 (2.38%) IFRS
6 4 (1.59%) Basel III
7 3 (1.19%) IFRS 9
7 3 (1.19%) SLA
8 2 (0.79%) GAAP
8 2 (0.79%) IAS 32
8 2 (0.79%) IAS 39
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 13 (5.16%) Docker
2 3 (1.19%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 6 (2.38%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.98%) Ansible
3 4 (1.59%) Grafana
3 4 (1.59%) ITRS Geneos
4 3 (1.19%) Control-M
4 3 (1.19%) Podman
4 3 (1.19%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.19%) Terraform
Vendors
1 20 (7.94%) Murex
2 18 (7.14%) Oracle
3 15 (5.95%) Bloomberg
4 8 (3.17%) Sybase
5 7 (2.78%) Calypso
6 6 (2.38%) Charles River
6 6 (2.38%) IBM
7 5 (1.98%) jBASE
7 5 (1.98%) Temenos
8 4 (1.59%) Google
9 3 (1.19%) Advent
9 3 (1.19%) Apple
9 3 (1.19%) Databricks
9 3 (1.19%) Microsoft
9 3 (1.19%) NVIDIA
10 2 (0.79%) ION Trading
10 2 (0.79%) MarketAxess
10 2 (0.79%) Reuters
10 2 (0.79%) Splunk
10 2 (0.79%) Tradeweb