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 3 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 390 236 203
Rank change year-on-year -154 -33 +14
Contract jobs citing Derivative 267 346 512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.52% 1.11% 1.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.57% 3.19% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 300 454
10th Percentile £450 £537 £588
25th Percentile £569 £638 £663
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £725 £725 £800
Median % change year-on-year - -9.38% +10.34%
75th Percentile £850 £861 £888
90th Percentile £906 £938 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £425 £638
% change year-on-year +44.12% -33.33% -20.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.25 £86.25 -
Median hourly rate £57.50 £87.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -34.29% - -
75th Percentile £58.75 £88.75 -
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 16,974 10,834 13,148
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.95% 34.64% 30.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,364 6,746 8,352
10th Percentile £313 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £539
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.51% -2.09%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £663
90th Percentile £749 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 869 499 919
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.55 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £19.00 £15.39
Median hourly rate £43.50 £31.00 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +40.32% -14.00% +60.20%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.55 £62.25
90th Percentile £87.16 £78.71 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £35.65
% change year-on-year +46.53% -15.85% +58.44%

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 3 July 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 8 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 3 July 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 -157 246 £725 -3.33% 92
London -79 241 £725 -3.33% 83
Work from Home -124 89 £788 +8.62% 53
UK excluding London -116 21 £613 +44.12% 20
Scotland -1 15 £460 +13.86% 4
Yorkshire -50 4 £725 - 5
North of England -76 4 £725 +20.23% 9
Northern Ireland -8 2 £625 +50.15% 3

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 6 (2.25%) Confluence
2 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.37%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.87%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 9 (3.37%) Aladdin
2 6 (2.25%) Summit
3 5 (1.87%) Loan IQ
4 3 (1.12%) Advent Geneva
4 3 (1.12%) Orchestrade
5 2 (0.75%) Front Arena
5 2 (0.75%) Global One
6 1 (0.37%) Bloomberg AIM
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.37%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 42 (15.73%) AWS
2 38 (14.23%) Azure
3 30 (11.24%) GCP
4 11 (4.12%) ChatGPT
5 9 (3.37%) Anthropic Claude
6 8 (3.00%) GitHub
6 8 (3.00%) GitHub Copilot
6 8 (3.00%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.12%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.12%) SaaS
8 3 (1.12%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.75%) Collibra
10 1 (0.37%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.37%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.37%) npm
10 1 (0.37%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.37%) Serverless
10 1 (0.37%) Yarn
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.12%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (3.00%) HTTP
3 1 (0.37%) RTMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (10.11%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (9.36%) Relational Database
3 20 (7.49%) Metadata
4 18 (6.74%) MongoDB
5 17 (6.37%) SQL Server
6 14 (5.24%) Redis
7 10 (3.75%) Db2
7 10 (3.75%) RDBMS
8 8 (3.00%) Power BI
8 8 (3.00%) Tableau
9 5 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.50%) Data Lake
10 4 (1.50%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.75%) Crystal Reports
11 2 (0.75%) KDB
11 2 (0.75%) Kdb+
11 2 (0.75%) Power Query
11 2 (0.75%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.37%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 17 (6.37%) JIRA
2 11 (4.12%) Octopus Deploy
3 10 (3.75%) Git
4 8 (3.00%) TeamCity
5 4 (1.50%) ER Studio
5 4 (1.50%) ERwin
5 4 (1.50%) PowerDesigner
6 3 (1.12%) VTune
7 2 (0.75%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.37%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.37%) GitLab
8 1 (0.37%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.37%) Gradle
8 1 (0.37%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.37%) Maven
8 1 (0.37%) NUnit
8 1 (0.37%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.37%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.37%) webpack
General
1 172 (64.42%) Finance
2 143 (53.56%) Banking
3 141 (52.81%) Front Office
4 114 (42.70%) Investment Banking
5 73 (27.34%) Social Skills
6 42 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
7 9 (3.37%) Back Office
7 9 (3.37%) Legal
8 8 (3.00%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.87%) Private Banking
10 4 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.12%) Public Sector
12 2 (0.75%) General Ledger
13 1 (0.37%) Agriculture
13 1 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.37%) Legal Technology
13 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 134 (50.19%) Developer
2 71 (26.59%) Analyst
3 64 (23.97%) Business Analyst
4 40 (14.98%) Senior
5 39 (14.61%) Java Developer
5 39 (14.61%) Python Developer
6 30 (11.24%) C# Developer
7 27 (10.11%) Front Office Developer
8 25 (9.36%) Lead
9 24 (8.99%) Software Engineer
10 21 (7.87%) Electronic Trading Developer
11 20 (7.49%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
11 20 (7.49%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
12 19 (7.12%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
12 19 (7.12%) Lead Developer
12 19 (7.12%) Low Latency Java Developer
13 14 (5.24%) Lead Software Engineer
14 13 (4.87%) Derivatives Business Analyst
14 13 (4.87%) Python Engineer
14 13 (4.87%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (15.36%) React
2 35 (13.11%) FIX Protocol
3 18 (6.74%) Redux
4 16 (5.99%) Node.js
5 15 (5.62%) .NET
5 15 (5.62%) WebSockets
6 13 (4.87%) Kafka
7 9 (3.37%) NumPy
8 8 (3.00%) AngularJS
8 8 (3.00%) RxJava
8 8 (3.00%) Spring
9 7 (2.62%) REST
9 7 (2.62%) RESTful
9 7 (2.62%) XML
10 6 (2.25%) Django
10 6 (2.25%) FastAPI
10 6 (2.25%) HTML
10 6 (2.25%) HTML5
10 6 (2.25%) Middleware
10 6 (2.25%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 79 (29.59%) Equities
2 59 (22.10%) Fixed Income
2 59 (22.10%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 40 (14.98%) Equity Derivative
4 20 (7.49%) TWAP
4 20 (7.49%) VWAP
5 19 (7.12%) Market Risk
6 18 (6.74%) Credit Risk
7 17 (6.37%) Data Structures
7 17 (6.37%) OTC Derivatives
8 16 (5.99%) Distributed Systems
9 14 (5.24%) Data Protection Act
9 14 (5.24%) Hedge funds
10 13 (4.87%) Algorithms
10 13 (4.87%) Management Information System
11 11 (4.12%) Exotic Derivative
12 8 (3.00%) Reference Data
13 7 (2.62%) Credit Derivative
13 7 (2.62%) Product Ownership
14 6 (2.25%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.74%) Unix
2 7 (2.62%) Linux
3 1 (0.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (26.59%) Agile
2 56 (20.97%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (17.98%) Low Latency
4 43 (16.10%) Electronic Trading
5 41 (15.36%) Multithreading
6 38 (14.23%) Risk Management
7 37 (13.86%) User Acceptance Testing
8 36 (13.48%) Software Engineering
8 36 (13.48%) TDD
9 35 (13.11%) CI/CD
10 33 (12.36%) Asset Management
11 29 (10.86%) Algorithmic Trading
12 28 (10.49%) Analytics
12 28 (10.49%) Data Analysis
12 28 (10.49%) DevOps
12 28 (10.49%) Full-Stack Development
12 28 (10.49%) Microservices
13 27 (10.11%) Stakeholder Management
14 25 (9.36%) AI
14 25 (9.36%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 110 (41.20%) Python
2 95 (35.58%) SQL
3 83 (31.09%) Java
4 55 (20.60%) C#
5 38 (14.23%) TypeScript
6 35 (13.11%) C++
7 23 (8.61%) JavaScript
8 13 (4.87%) Rust
9 7 (2.62%) PowerShell
10 6 (2.25%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.87%) Perl
12 4 (1.50%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.50%) Scala
13 2 (0.75%) F#
13 2 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.37%) Bash
14 1 (0.37%) C
14 1 (0.37%) Korn
14 1 (0.37%) R
14 1 (0.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 29 (10.86%) Degree
2 17 (6.37%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (3.75%) Master's Degree
4 8 (3.00%) PhD
5 1 (0.37%) FFIEC
5 1 (0.37%) ISTQB
5 1 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.99%) Data Quality
2 13 (4.87%) QA
3 8 (3.00%) EMIR
4 7 (2.62%) MiFID
5 5 (1.87%) IFRS
6 3 (1.12%) Basel III
6 3 (1.12%) GAAP
7 2 (0.75%) COREP
7 2 (0.75%) FINREP
8 1 (0.37%) Dodd-Frank
8 1 (0.37%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.37%) PMO
8 1 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (6.74%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (2.62%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.75%) Control-M
2 2 (0.75%) Grafana
2 2 (0.75%) ITRS Geneos
2 2 (0.75%) Prometheus
2 2 (0.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 24 (8.99%) Murex
2 16 (5.99%) Bloomberg
3 15 (5.62%) Oracle
4 10 (3.75%) Sybase
5 7 (2.62%) IBM
6 6 (2.25%) Calypso
6 6 (2.25%) Charles River
7 4 (1.50%) Google
7 4 (1.50%) Microsoft
8 3 (1.12%) Advent
8 3 (1.12%) Databricks
9 2 (0.75%) Apple
9 2 (0.75%) Reuters
9 2 (0.75%) SimCorp
10 1 (0.37%) Ab Initio
10 1 (0.37%) Alteryx
10 1 (0.37%) CA Agile Central
10 1 (0.37%) ION Trading
10 1 (0.37%) Solace