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 1 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 411 293 199
Rank change year-on-year -118 -94 +9
Contract jobs citing Derivative 272 289 500
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.88% 1.30%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.51% 2.49% 4.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 247 431
10th Percentile £413 £532 £600
25th Percentile £563 £618 £663
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £725 £750 £800
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -6.25% +14.29%
75th Percentile £825 £825 £888
90th Percentile £900 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £538 £563
% change year-on-year -12.56% -4.44% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
10th Percentile £59.13 - -
25th Percentile £63.44 £86.25 -
Median hourly rate £71.25 £87.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -18.57% - -
75th Percentile £78.44 £88.75 -
90th Percentile £82.38 - -
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 18,068 11,593 11,710
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.68% 35.40% 30.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,896 7,141 7,338
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £424 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% -5.91% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,083 569 545
10th Percentile £14.52 £15.13 £13.24
25th Percentile £18.88 £18.87 £19.38
Median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +3.75%
75th Percentile £67.89 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -42.86% +15.61%

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 1 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Derivative over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Derivative in the UK

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 1 September 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 -136 244 £725 -3.33% 343
London -90 236 £725 -3.33% 337
Work from Home -104 77 £765 +2.00% 86
UK excluding London -90 29 £470 -12.56% 47
Scotland -9 20 £402 -19.60% 12
North of England -68 6 £725 +20.23% 5
Yorkshire -33 5 £725 - 1
Northern Ireland 0 2 £625 +25.00% 8
Midlands -55 1 - -
North West -58 1 £198 -67.16% 4
West Midlands - 1 - -

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 4 (1.47%) Confluence
2 1 (0.37%) Apache
2 1 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 4 (1.47%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (4.41%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.47%) Summit
3 3 (1.10%) Orchestrade
4 2 (0.74%) Front Arena
4 2 (0.74%) Global One
5 1 (0.37%) Advent Geneva
5 1 (0.37%) Bloomberg AIM
5 1 (0.37%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.37%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.37%) MultiFonds
5 1 (0.37%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 20 (7.35%) AWS
1 20 (7.35%) Azure
2 15 (5.51%) GCP
3 11 (4.04%) ChatGPT
4 9 (3.31%) Anthropic Claude
5 8 (2.94%) GitHub
5 8 (2.94%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (2.21%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.84%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.10%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.10%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.10%) Serverless
10 1 (0.37%) Collibra
10 1 (0.37%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.51%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (2.94%) HTTP
3 2 (0.74%) Multicast
4 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.09%) Relational Database
2 19 (6.99%) Metadata
3 17 (6.25%) MongoDB
4 16 (5.88%) SQL Server
5 11 (4.04%) Redis
6 10 (3.68%) Db2
7 8 (2.94%) RDBMS
8 7 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
8 7 (2.57%) Tableau
9 6 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (2.21%) Power BI
10 5 (1.84%) Data Lake
11 4 (1.47%) KDB
12 3 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (1.10%) Kdb+
12 3 (1.10%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.74%) Crystal Reports
13 2 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 1 (0.37%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 17 (6.25%) JIRA
2 9 (3.31%) Git
2 9 (3.31%) Octopus Deploy
3 7 (2.57%) TeamCity
4 5 (1.84%) ER Studio
4 5 (1.84%) ERwin
4 5 (1.84%) PowerDesigner
5 3 (1.10%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.10%) VTune
6 1 (0.37%) GitLab
6 1 (0.37%) GoogleTest
6 1 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 184 (67.65%) Finance
2 152 (55.88%) Banking
3 148 (54.41%) Front Office
4 112 (41.18%) Investment Banking
5 75 (27.57%) Social Skills
6 40 (14.71%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (6.62%) Financial Institution
8 11 (4.04%) Back Office
8 11 (4.04%) Private Banking
9 10 (3.68%) Legal
10 3 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.37%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.37%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.37%) Legal Technology
11 1 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 127 (46.69%) Developer
2 70 (25.74%) Analyst
3 61 (22.43%) Business Analyst
4 43 (15.81%) Senior
5 39 (14.34%) Python Developer
6 30 (11.03%) Front Office Developer
6 30 (11.03%) Java Developer
7 29 (10.66%) C# Developer
8 19 (6.99%) Quantitative Developer
9 17 (6.25%) Electronic Trading Developer
10 15 (5.51%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
10 15 (5.51%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
10 15 (5.51%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
10 15 (5.51%) Low Latency Java Developer
11 13 (4.78%) Senior Developer
12 12 (4.41%) Software Engineer
13 11 (4.04%) Pricing Developer
13 11 (4.04%) Project Manager
14 9 (3.31%) Python Engineer
14 9 (3.31%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (11.76%) FIX Protocol
2 18 (6.62%) React
3 12 (4.41%) WebSockets
4 11 (4.04%) .NET
4 11 (4.04%) NumPy
5 10 (3.68%) Django
5 10 (3.68%) FastAPI
6 8 (2.94%) Pandas
6 8 (2.94%) REST
7 7 (2.57%) AngularJS
7 7 (2.57%) Kafka
7 7 (2.57%) RxJava
7 7 (2.57%) Spring
8 6 (2.21%) Flask
8 6 (2.21%) Middleware
9 5 (1.84%) PySpark
9 5 (1.84%) XML
10 4 (1.47%) Next.js
10 4 (1.47%) Polars
10 4 (1.47%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 70 (25.74%) Equities
2 68 (25.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 55 (20.22%) Fixed Income
4 44 (16.18%) Equity Derivative
5 20 (7.35%) Distributed Systems
6 19 (6.99%) Market Risk
7 18 (6.62%) Algorithms
8 17 (6.25%) Credit Risk
8 17 (6.25%) Exotic Derivative
9 16 (5.88%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (5.88%) Hedge funds
9 16 (5.88%) OTC Derivatives
10 15 (5.51%) TWAP
10 15 (5.51%) VWAP
11 13 (4.78%) Data Structures
12 10 (3.68%) Management Information System
13 9 (3.31%) Credit Derivative
13 9 (3.31%) Onboarding
14 8 (2.94%) Interest Rate Derivative
14 8 (2.94%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.62%) Unix
2 13 (4.78%) Linux
3 1 (0.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (20.59%) Problem-Solving
2 46 (16.91%) Agile
3 42 (15.44%) Low Latency
4 38 (13.97%) CI/CD
5 36 (13.24%) Electronic Trading
5 36 (13.24%) Multithreading
6 35 (12.87%) Data Analysis
6 35 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 35 (12.87%) User Acceptance Testing
7 34 (12.50%) Analytics
8 32 (11.76%) Risk Management
9 31 (11.40%) Software Engineering
10 27 (9.93%) Algorithmic Trading
10 27 (9.93%) Business Analysis
10 27 (9.93%) DevOps
10 27 (9.93%) TDD
10 27 (9.93%) Validation
11 26 (9.56%) Microservices
12 24 (8.82%) Project Delivery
12 24 (8.82%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 108 (39.71%) Python
2 90 (33.09%) SQL
3 74 (27.21%) Java
4 54 (19.85%) C#
5 38 (13.97%) C++
6 18 (6.62%) TypeScript
7 11 (4.04%) Rust
8 9 (3.31%) PowerShell
9 7 (2.57%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.84%) Perl
11 4 (1.47%) JavaScript
11 4 (1.47%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.10%) Scala
13 2 (0.74%) Bash
13 2 (0.74%) C
13 2 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.37%) Korn
14 1 (0.37%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.37%) R
Qualifications
1 28 (10.29%) Degree
2 11 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 11 (4.04%) Master's Degree
3 10 (3.68%) PhD
4 2 (0.74%) Numerate Degree
4 2 (0.74%) PMI Certification
4 2 (0.74%) PMP
4 2 (0.74%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.37%) CFA
5 1 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.15%) Data Quality
2 9 (3.31%) EMIR
2 9 (3.31%) MiFID
3 8 (2.94%) QA
4 3 (1.10%) Basel III
5 2 (0.74%) COREP
5 2 (0.74%) Dodd-Frank
5 2 (0.74%) FINREP
5 2 (0.74%) GAAP
5 2 (0.74%) IFRS
5 2 (0.74%) SLA
6 1 (0.37%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 15 (5.51%) Docker
2 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (2.21%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.10%) ITRS Geneos
3 2 (0.74%) Control-M
3 2 (0.74%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 24 (8.82%) Murex
2 15 (5.51%) Bloomberg
3 10 (3.68%) Sybase
4 9 (3.31%) Calypso
5 8 (2.94%) Oracle
6 7 (2.57%) Charles River
6 7 (2.57%) IBM
7 3 (1.10%) Databricks
7 3 (1.10%) SimCorp
8 2 (0.74%) Google
8 2 (0.74%) Microsoft
8 2 (0.74%) NYFIX
8 2 (0.74%) Refinitiv
8 2 (0.74%) Tradeweb
9 1 (0.37%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.37%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.37%) FIS
9 1 (0.37%) ION Trading
9 1 (0.37%) Solace
9 1 (0.37%) Splunk