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 24 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 378 217 246
Rank change year-on-year -161 +29 +4
Contract jobs citing Derivative 233 361 416
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 1.19% 0.94%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.70% 3.59% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 284 380
10th Percentile £513 £500 £550
25th Percentile £603 £638 £607
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £733 £725 £700
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £984 £888 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 £938 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £325 £600
% change year-on-year +61.54% -45.83% -25.00%
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 13,739 10,049 13,511
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.53% 33.26% 30.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,675 6,101 8,694
10th Percentile £278 £270 £258
25th Percentile £406 £408 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £765 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.23% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 648 318 824
10th Percentile £15.31 £18.51 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.37 £16.25
Median hourly rate £30.50 £33.77 £30.58
Median % change year-on-year -9.68% +10.43% +36.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.90 £82.71 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - +47.73%

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 24 February 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 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 24 February 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 -141 226 £750 - 35
London -91 217 £750 - 35
Work from Home -128 72 £800 +10.34% 10
UK excluding London -77 11 £525 +61.54% 15
Northern Ireland -15 3 £320 -1.54%
North of England -65 3 £525 -12.50% 1
East of England - 3 £681 -
Yorkshire - 3 £525 -
Scotland +9 2 £470 +16.34%
Midlands - 2 £525 -
West Midlands - 2 £525 -

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 9 (3.86%) Apache Spark
2 7 (3.00%) Confluence
3 5 (2.15%) Apache
3 5 (2.15%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.86%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 24 (10.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (2.58%) Aladdin
2 5 (2.15%) Temenos T24
3 3 (1.29%) Loan IQ
3 3 (1.29%) Summit
4 2 (0.86%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.86%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 2 (0.86%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.86%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.43%) Advent Geneva
5 1 (0.43%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.43%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 52 (22.32%) AWS
2 28 (12.02%) Azure
3 18 (7.73%) GCP
4 9 (3.86%) Snowflake
5 6 (2.58%) Power Platform
6 5 (2.15%) Amazon S3
6 5 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
6 5 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.15%) dbt
6 5 (2.15%) SaaS
6 5 (2.15%) Serverless
7 3 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (1.29%) npm
7 3 (1.29%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.29%) Yarn
8 1 (0.43%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (0.43%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (0.43%) Figma
8 1 (0.43%) IaaS
8 1 (0.43%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.72%) FIX Connectivity
2 4 (1.72%) Multicast
3 1 (0.43%) RTMP
3 1 (0.43%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (12.88%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 8 (3.43%) Redis
4 6 (2.58%) Data Lake
4 6 (2.58%) Power BI
5 5 (2.15%) Amazon Athena
5 5 (2.15%) Apache Arrow
5 5 (2.15%) Apache Iceberg
5 5 (2.15%) Apache Ignite
5 5 (2.15%) Dremio
5 5 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.72%) Big Data
6 4 (1.72%) KDB
6 4 (1.72%) NoSQL
7 3 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.29%) Metadata
7 3 (1.29%) Tableau
8 2 (0.86%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.86%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.86%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 16 (6.87%) Git
2 10 (4.29%) JIRA
3 9 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.58%) Octopus Deploy
5 5 (2.15%) Visual Studio
6 4 (1.72%) GitLab
6 4 (1.72%) Maven
7 3 (1.29%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.29%) IntelliJ
7 3 (1.29%) webpack
8 2 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.86%) Gradle
9 1 (0.43%) Crucible
9 1 (0.43%) Eclipse
9 1 (0.43%) NUnit
9 1 (0.43%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.43%) TeamCity
General
1 170 (72.96%) Finance
2 118 (50.64%) Banking
3 95 (40.77%) Front Office
4 79 (33.91%) Investment Banking
5 73 (31.33%) Social Skills
6 39 (16.74%) Analytical Skills
7 24 (10.30%) Financial Institution
8 8 (3.43%) Back Office
9 4 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.29%) Legal
10 3 (1.29%) Spanish Language
10 3 (1.29%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.86%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.43%) Japanese Language
12 1 (0.43%) Law
12 1 (0.43%) Retail
Job Titles
1 111 (47.64%) Developer
2 48 (20.60%) Senior
3 43 (18.45%) Analyst
4 40 (17.17%) Java Developer
5 35 (15.02%) Business Analyst
6 29 (12.45%) Senior Developer
7 20 (8.58%) Senior Java Developer
8 19 (8.15%) Lead
9 17 (7.30%) Analytics Developer
9 17 (7.30%) AWS Developer
9 17 (7.30%) Kafka Developer
9 17 (7.30%) PostgreSQL Developer
10 16 (6.87%) Python Developer
11 15 (6.44%) Software Engineer
12 14 (6.01%) Electronic Trading Developer
12 14 (6.01%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
13 12 (5.15%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
13 12 (5.15%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
13 12 (5.15%) Low Latency Java Developer
13 12 (5.15%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (12.02%) React
2 23 (9.87%) Kafka
3 19 (8.15%) FIX Protocol
4 15 (6.44%) Redux
5 13 (5.58%) RESTful
6 12 (5.15%) Node.js
7 10 (4.29%) HTML
7 10 (4.29%) Pandas
8 9 (3.86%) .NET
8 9 (3.86%) Dask
8 9 (3.86%) NumPy
9 8 (3.43%) SciPy
9 8 (3.43%) Spring
10 7 (3.00%) CSS
10 7 (3.00%) REST
11 6 (2.58%) Protocol Buffers
11 6 (2.58%) WebSockets
12 5 (2.15%) gRPC
12 5 (2.15%) HTML5
12 5 (2.15%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 88 (37.77%) Equities
2 59 (25.32%) Fixed Income
3 47 (20.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 33 (14.16%) Equity Derivative
5 24 (10.30%) Market Risk
6 20 (8.58%) Algorithms
7 18 (7.73%) Management Information System
8 14 (6.01%) Distributed Systems
8 14 (6.01%) Hedge funds
8 14 (6.01%) TWAP
8 14 (6.01%) VWAP
9 12 (5.15%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (4.72%) Cloud Native
10 11 (4.72%) Credit Risk
11 9 (3.86%) Distributed Computing
12 8 (3.43%) Onboarding
13 7 (3.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (3.00%) Product Ownership
14 5 (2.15%) Data Structures
14 5 (2.15%) OTC Derivatives
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.15%) Linux
2 10 (4.29%) Unix
3 5 (2.15%) Windows
4 3 (1.29%) Debian
4 3 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.29%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.29%) VMS
5 1 (0.43%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (32.19%) Agile
2 67 (28.76%) Risk Management
3 44 (18.88%) Problem-Solving
4 37 (15.88%) Analytics
4 37 (15.88%) Mathematics
5 35 (15.02%) TDD
6 32 (13.73%) CI/CD
7 31 (13.30%) Low Latency
8 28 (12.02%) Software Engineering
9 27 (11.59%) Electronic Trading
10 26 (11.16%) DevOps
10 26 (11.16%) Stakeholder Management
11 25 (10.73%) Asset Management
11 25 (10.73%) Design Patterns
12 22 (9.44%) Mentoring
13 21 (9.01%) Computer Science
14 20 (8.58%) Data Pipeline
14 20 (8.58%) User Acceptance Testing
14 20 (8.58%) Validation
15 19 (8.15%) Quantitative Finance
Programming Languages
1 97 (41.63%) Python
2 69 (29.61%) SQL
3 61 (26.18%) Java
4 34 (14.59%) C++
5 28 (12.02%) C#
5 28 (12.02%) JavaScript
6 26 (11.16%) TypeScript
7 5 (2.15%) VBA
8 4 (1.72%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.29%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.86%) Perl
10 2 (0.86%) Rust
10 2 (0.86%) Scala
11 1 (0.43%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.43%) R
11 1 (0.43%) VC++
Qualifications
1 42 (18.03%) Degree
2 17 (7.30%) Master's Degree
3 14 (6.01%) Numerate Degree
4 10 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 10 (4.29%) PhD
5 3 (1.29%) ISTQB
5 3 (1.29%) PMI Certification
5 3 (1.29%) PMP
6 1 (0.43%) CBAP
6 1 (0.43%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.58%) EMIR
1 13 (5.58%) QA
2 7 (3.00%) IFRS
2 7 (3.00%) MiFID
3 6 (2.58%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.72%) IFRS 9
4 4 (1.72%) SLA
5 3 (1.29%) Basel III
5 3 (1.29%) IAS 32
5 3 (1.29%) IAS 39
6 2 (0.86%) GAAP
6 2 (0.86%) PMO
7 1 (0.43%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.43%) FINRA
7 1 (0.43%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 9 (3.86%) Docker
2 3 (1.29%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 8 (3.43%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.00%) Ansible
3 3 (1.29%) Grafana
3 3 (1.29%) Podman
3 3 (1.29%) Thomson Reuters DACS
4 2 (0.86%) ITRS Geneos
4 2 (0.86%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.86%) Terraform
5 1 (0.43%) Control-M
Vendors
1 20 (8.58%) Murex
2 18 (7.73%) Bloomberg
3 15 (6.44%) Oracle
4 7 (3.00%) ION Trading
4 7 (3.00%) Microsoft
5 6 (2.58%) Tradeweb
6 5 (2.15%) Charles River
6 5 (2.15%) jBASE
6 5 (2.15%) Temenos
7 4 (1.72%) Calypso
8 3 (1.29%) IBM
8 3 (1.29%) NVIDIA
8 3 (1.29%) NYFIX
8 3 (1.29%) Refinitiv
8 3 (1.29%) Sophis
9 2 (0.86%) AppDynamics
9 2 (0.86%) Apple
9 2 (0.86%) Google
9 2 (0.86%) MarketAxess
9 2 (0.86%) Splunk