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 9 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 351 225 249
Rank change year-on-year -126 +24 +3
Contract jobs citing Derivative 235 367 413
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 1.15% 0.97%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.86% 3.57% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 279 389
10th Percentile £484 £500 £550
25th Percentile £608 £638 £609
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £741 £725 £700
Median % change year-on-year +2.24% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £988 £888 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 £938 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £325 £575
% change year-on-year +61.54% -43.48% -
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 12,617 10,279 13,161
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.38% 32.18% 31.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,932 6,103 8,718
10th Percentile £280 £264 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -2.75% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £660
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 618 321 528
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £18.23 £23.00 £19.46
Median hourly rate £27.36 £33.54 £38.10
Median % change year-on-year -18.44% -11.96% +52.39%
75th Percentile £61.23 £64.75 £64.65
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.50 £44.13
% change year-on-year -16.28% -26.35% +114.15%

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 9 January 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 9 January 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 -125 227 £750 +3.45% 98
London -70 218 £750 +3.45% 37
Work from Home -116 72 £750 -4.76% 42
UK excluding London -58 12 £525 +61.54% 73
Scotland 0 3 £448 - 2
Northern Ireland -14 3 £320 -0.78% 2
North of England -45 3 £525 -12.50% 11
East of England - 3 £681 - 13
Yorkshire - 3 £525 - 5
Midlands - 2 £525 - 7
West Midlands - 2 £525 - 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 18 (7.66%) Apache
1 18 (7.66%) Apache Airflow
2 9 (3.83%) Apache Spark
3 8 (3.40%) Confluence
4 4 (1.70%) HCL Notes
4 4 (1.70%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.85%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.43%) IIS
6 1 (0.43%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.43%) Tomcat
Applications
1 24 (10.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (2.55%) Aladdin
2 5 (2.13%) Temenos T24
3 3 (1.28%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 2 (0.85%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.85%) Fidessa
4 2 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.85%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.85%) thinkFolio
5 1 (0.43%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.43%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.43%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.43%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 54 (22.98%) AWS
2 27 (11.49%) Azure
3 21 (8.94%) Snowflake
4 18 (7.66%) dbt
5 13 (5.53%) Power Platform
6 7 (2.98%) Serverless
7 6 (2.55%) GCP
8 5 (2.13%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.70%) npm
9 4 (1.70%) Power Automate
9 4 (1.70%) PowerApps
9 4 (1.70%) Yarn
10 3 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.28%) SaaS
11 2 (0.85%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (0.85%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (0.85%) Azure Service Bus
11 2 (0.85%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.55%) FIX Connectivity
2 4 (1.70%) Multicast
3 1 (0.43%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.51%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (8.09%) Data Lake
3 18 (7.66%) Amazon Athena
3 18 (7.66%) Apache Arrow
3 18 (7.66%) Apache Iceberg
3 18 (7.66%) Apache Ignite
3 18 (7.66%) Dremio
3 18 (7.66%) SQL Server
4 13 (5.53%) Power BI
5 8 (3.40%) Redis
6 5 (2.13%) NoSQL
6 5 (2.13%) Tableau
7 4 (1.70%) Big Data
7 4 (1.70%) KDB
8 3 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.85%) Data Mart
9 2 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.43%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.43%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 18 (7.66%) Git
2 11 (4.68%) JIRA
3 10 (4.26%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.55%) Octopus Deploy
4 6 (2.55%) Visual Studio
5 5 (2.13%) GitLab
6 4 (1.70%) Maven
6 4 (1.70%) webpack
7 3 (1.28%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.28%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.85%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.85%) Gradle
9 1 (0.43%) Crucible
9 1 (0.43%) Eclipse
9 1 (0.43%) TeamCity
General
1 185 (78.72%) Finance
2 139 (59.15%) Banking
3 96 (40.85%) Front Office
4 93 (39.57%) Investment Banking
5 70 (29.79%) Social Skills
6 31 (13.19%) Analytical Skills
7 27 (11.49%) Financial Institution
8 9 (3.83%) Back Office
9 5 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.70%) Legal
11 3 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.28%) Spanish Language
11 3 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.43%) General Ledger
13 1 (0.43%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.43%) Law
13 1 (0.43%) Retail
Job Titles
1 104 (44.26%) Developer
2 65 (27.66%) Senior
3 44 (18.72%) Analyst
4 35 (14.89%) Java Developer
5 33 (14.04%) Senior Developer
6 27 (11.49%) Business Analyst
7 21 (8.94%) Senior Java Developer
8 20 (8.51%) Java Engineer
9 19 (8.09%) Java Software Engineer
9 19 (8.09%) Software Engineer
10 18 (7.66%) Analytics Developer
10 18 (7.66%) AWS Developer
10 18 (7.66%) AWS Engineer
10 18 (7.66%) AWS Software Engineer
10 18 (7.66%) Kafka Developer
10 18 (7.66%) PostgreSQL Developer
10 18 (7.66%) Python Engineer
10 18 (7.66%) Python Software Engineer
11 17 (7.23%) Senior Java Engineer
11 17 (7.23%) Senior Java Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (10.21%) Kafka
2 21 (8.94%) NumPy
2 21 (8.94%) Pandas
2 21 (8.94%) SciPy
3 19 (8.09%) Protocol Buffers
4 18 (7.66%) gRPC
5 17 (7.23%) FIX Protocol
6 14 (5.96%) .NET
7 13 (5.53%) React
8 10 (4.26%) RESTful
9 9 (3.83%) Dask
10 8 (3.40%) REST
11 7 (2.98%) CSS
11 7 (2.98%) Spring
12 6 (2.55%) HTML
13 4 (1.70%) XML
14 3 (1.28%) Middleware
14 3 (1.28%) RabbitMQ
14 3 (1.28%) scikit-learn
14 3 (1.28%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 83 (35.32%) Equities
2 68 (28.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 58 (24.68%) Fixed Income
4 30 (12.77%) Equity Derivative
5 28 (11.91%) Hedge funds
6 24 (10.21%) Market Risk
7 19 (8.09%) Algorithms
8 18 (7.66%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (7.66%) Management Information System
8 18 (7.66%) Pricing Data
9 12 (5.11%) Cloud Native
9 12 (5.11%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (5.11%) Product Ownership
10 10 (4.26%) Distributed Computing
10 10 (4.26%) Interest Rate Derivative
11 9 (3.83%) Onboarding
12 8 (3.40%) Credit Risk
12 8 (3.40%) TWAP
12 8 (3.40%) VWAP
13 7 (2.98%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.23%) Linux
2 8 (3.40%) Windows
3 6 (2.55%) Unix
4 3 (1.28%) Debian
4 3 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.28%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.28%) VMS
5 2 (0.85%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (31.06%) Agile
2 60 (25.53%) Risk Management
3 43 (18.30%) Mathematics
4 40 (17.02%) Analytics
5 36 (15.32%) CI/CD
6 35 (14.89%) Problem-Solving
7 31 (13.19%) Software Engineering
8 30 (12.77%) TDD
9 26 (11.06%) DevOps
10 24 (10.21%) Asset Management
10 24 (10.21%) Stakeholder Management
11 23 (9.79%) Computer Science
11 23 (9.79%) Low Latency
12 22 (9.36%) Data Pipeline
13 21 (8.94%) Design Patterns
13 21 (8.94%) Electronic Trading
13 21 (8.94%) Physics
13 21 (8.94%) Quantitative Finance
14 20 (8.51%) Validation
15 18 (7.66%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 98 (41.70%) Python
2 67 (28.51%) Java
3 63 (26.81%) SQL
4 39 (16.60%) C++
5 35 (14.89%) C#
6 28 (11.91%) JavaScript
7 27 (11.49%) TypeScript
8 6 (2.55%) VBA
9 4 (1.70%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.85%) Perl
10 2 (0.85%) Rust
10 2 (0.85%) Scala
11 1 (0.43%) Bash
11 1 (0.43%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.43%) R
11 1 (0.43%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.43%) VC++
Qualifications
1 46 (19.57%) Degree
2 20 (8.51%) Master's Degree
3 15 (6.38%) Numerate Degree
4 11 (4.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.26%) PhD
6 3 (1.28%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.28%) PMP
7 2 (0.85%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.43%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.53%) EMIR
1 13 (5.53%) QA
2 10 (4.26%) MiFID
3 6 (2.55%) Data Quality
3 6 (2.55%) IFRS
3 6 (2.55%) SLA
4 4 (1.70%) IFRS 9
5 3 (1.28%) IAS 32
5 3 (1.28%) IAS 39
6 2 (0.85%) Basel III
6 2 (0.85%) GAAP
6 2 (0.85%) GDPR
6 2 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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%) PMO
7 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (2.98%) Docker
2 3 (1.28%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 8 (3.40%) Ansible
2 7 (2.98%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.70%) Grafana
4 3 (1.28%) Podman
4 3 (1.28%) Terraform
4 3 (1.28%) Thomson Reuters DACS
5 2 (0.85%) ITRS Geneos
5 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.43%) Control-M
6 1 (0.43%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 16 (6.81%) Bloomberg
1 16 (6.81%) Murex
2 11 (4.68%) Oracle
3 10 (4.26%) Microsoft
4 7 (2.98%) ION Trading
5 6 (2.55%) Calypso
5 6 (2.55%) Sophis
5 6 (2.55%) Tradeweb
6 5 (2.13%) jBASE
6 5 (2.13%) Temenos
7 4 (1.70%) Databricks
7 4 (1.70%) Lotus
8 3 (1.28%) Charles River
8 3 (1.28%) IBM
8 3 (1.28%) NVIDIA
8 3 (1.28%) NYFIX
8 3 (1.28%) Refinitiv
8 3 (1.28%) Splunk
9 2 (0.85%) Google
9 2 (0.85%) Reuters