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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 422 288 196
Rank change year-on-year -134 -92 +19
Contract jobs citing Derivative 276 299 507
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.91% 1.31%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.53% 2.57% 4.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 163 254 436
10th Percentile £423 £537 £600
25th Percentile £567 £622 £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 £899 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £550 £638
% change year-on-year -14.55% -13.73% +18.60%
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 17,998 11,630 11,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.56% 35.25% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,892 7,155 7,468
10th Percentile £322 £300 £300
25th Percentile £421 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,055 578 570
10th Percentile £14.86 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £18.39
Median hourly rate £42.50 £30.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.67% -33.33% +2.66%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.50 £69.45
90th Percentile £84.60 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £49.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -38.78% +7.91%

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 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -139 248 £725 -3.33% 48
London -79 240 £725 -3.33% 45
Work from Home -115 82 £765 +2.00% 19
UK excluding London -100 29 £470 -14.55% 17
Scotland -7 20 £402 -19.60%
North of England -68 6 £725 +20.23% 3
Yorkshire -34 5 £725 - 1
Northern Ireland 0 2 £625 +21.95% 1
Midlands -47 1 - -
North West -51 1 £198 -67.16% 2
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 5 (1.81%) Confluence
2 1 (0.36%) Apache
2 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.36%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.36%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (1.45%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 9 (3.26%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.45%) Summit
3 3 (1.09%) Orchestrade
4 2 (0.72%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.72%) Front Arena
4 2 (0.72%) Global One
4 2 (0.72%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.36%) Bloomberg AIM
5 1 (0.36%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.36%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.36%) MultiFonds
5 1 (0.36%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 26 (9.42%) AWS
1 26 (9.42%) Azure
2 19 (6.88%) GCP
3 11 (3.99%) ChatGPT
4 9 (3.26%) Anthropic Claude
5 8 (2.90%) GitHub
5 8 (2.90%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (2.17%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.81%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.09%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.09%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.09%) Serverless
10 1 (0.36%) Collibra
10 1 (0.36%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.80%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (2.90%) HTTP
3 2 (0.72%) Multicast
4 1 (0.36%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (7.97%) Relational Database
2 19 (6.88%) Metadata
3 17 (6.16%) MongoDB
3 17 (6.16%) SQL Server
4 13 (4.71%) Redis
5 11 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (3.62%) Db2
7 8 (2.90%) RDBMS
8 7 (2.54%) Tableau
9 6 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (2.17%) Power BI
10 5 (1.81%) Data Lake
11 4 (1.45%) KDB
11 4 (1.45%) NoSQL
12 3 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (1.09%) Kdb+
13 2 (0.72%) Crystal Reports
13 2 (0.72%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 1 (0.36%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 18 (6.52%) JIRA
2 11 (3.99%) Git
3 10 (3.62%) Octopus Deploy
4 8 (2.90%) TeamCity
5 5 (1.81%) ER Studio
5 5 (1.81%) ERwin
5 5 (1.81%) PowerDesigner
6 4 (1.45%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.09%) VTune
8 1 (0.36%) GitLab
8 1 (0.36%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.36%) Visual Studio
General
1 186 (67.39%) Finance
2 154 (55.80%) Banking
3 150 (54.35%) Front Office
4 113 (40.94%) Investment Banking
5 72 (26.09%) Social Skills
6 41 (14.86%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (6.16%) Financial Institution
8 11 (3.99%) Back Office
8 11 (3.99%) Private Banking
9 10 (3.62%) Legal
10 3 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.09%) Public Sector
11 2 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.36%) Agriculture
12 1 (0.36%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.36%) General Ledger
12 1 (0.36%) Legal Technology
12 1 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 133 (48.19%) Developer
2 70 (25.36%) Analyst
3 61 (22.10%) Business Analyst
4 42 (15.22%) Python Developer
5 41 (14.86%) Senior
6 31 (11.23%) Java Developer
7 30 (10.87%) C# Developer
7 30 (10.87%) Front Office Developer
8 18 (6.52%) Electronic Trading Developer
8 18 (6.52%) Quantitative Developer
9 16 (5.80%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
9 16 (5.80%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
9 16 (5.80%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
9 16 (5.80%) Low Latency Java Developer
10 15 (5.43%) Software Engineer
11 13 (4.71%) Senior Developer
12 11 (3.99%) Lead
12 11 (3.99%) Pricing Developer
13 10 (3.62%) C# Developer - Commodities
14 9 (3.26%) Derivatives Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (11.96%) FIX Protocol
2 25 (9.06%) React
3 13 (4.71%) WebSockets
4 12 (4.35%) .NET
4 12 (4.35%) NumPy
5 10 (3.62%) Django
5 10 (3.62%) FastAPI
6 9 (3.26%) AngularJS
6 9 (3.26%) Pandas
6 9 (3.26%) REST
7 8 (2.90%) Kafka
7 8 (2.90%) Redux
8 7 (2.54%) RxJava
8 7 (2.54%) Spring
9 6 (2.17%) Flask
9 6 (2.17%) Middleware
10 5 (1.81%) PySpark
10 5 (1.81%) RESTful
10 5 (1.81%) XML
11 4 (1.45%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 72 (26.09%) Equities
2 68 (24.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 57 (20.65%) Fixed Income
4 44 (15.94%) Equity Derivative
5 19 (6.88%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (6.88%) Market Risk
6 18 (6.52%) Algorithms
6 18 (6.52%) OTC Derivatives
7 16 (5.80%) Credit Risk
7 16 (5.80%) Data Structures
7 16 (5.80%) Exotic Derivative
7 16 (5.80%) Hedge funds
7 16 (5.80%) TWAP
7 16 (5.80%) VWAP
8 14 (5.07%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (3.62%) Credit Derivative
9 10 (3.62%) Management Information System
9 10 (3.62%) Onboarding
10 8 (2.90%) Product Ownership
11 7 (2.54%) Interest Rate Derivative
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.52%) Unix
2 13 (4.71%) Linux
3 1 (0.36%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (19.93%) Agile
1 55 (19.93%) Problem-Solving
2 44 (15.94%) Low Latency
3 39 (14.13%) CI/CD
4 38 (13.77%) Multithreading
5 36 (13.04%) Electronic Trading
6 35 (12.68%) Data Analysis
7 34 (12.32%) User Acceptance Testing
8 32 (11.59%) Analytics
8 32 (11.59%) Risk Management
8 32 (11.59%) Software Engineering
8 32 (11.59%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (10.51%) DevOps
10 28 (10.14%) Algorithmic Trading
10 28 (10.14%) Business Analysis
10 28 (10.14%) Microservices
10 28 (10.14%) TDD
10 28 (10.14%) Validation
11 26 (9.42%) AI
12 25 (9.06%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 113 (40.94%) Python
2 94 (34.06%) SQL
3 78 (28.26%) Java
4 57 (20.65%) C#
5 38 (13.77%) C++
6 25 (9.06%) TypeScript
7 12 (4.35%) Rust
8 9 (3.26%) JavaScript
8 9 (3.26%) PowerShell
9 7 (2.54%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.81%) Perl
11 4 (1.45%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.09%) Scala
13 2 (0.72%) Bash
13 2 (0.72%) C
13 2 (0.72%) F#
13 2 (0.72%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.36%) Korn
14 1 (0.36%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.36%) R
Qualifications
1 29 (10.51%) Degree
2 13 (4.71%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (4.35%) Master's Degree
4 10 (3.62%) PhD
5 2 (0.72%) Numerate Degree
5 2 (0.72%) PMI Certification
5 2 (0.72%) PMP
5 2 (0.72%) Security Cleared
6 1 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.07%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.62%) QA
3 9 (3.26%) EMIR
3 9 (3.26%) MiFID
4 2 (0.72%) Basel III
4 2 (0.72%) COREP
4 2 (0.72%) Dodd-Frank
4 2 (0.72%) FINREP
4 2 (0.72%) GAAP
4 2 (0.72%) IFRS
4 2 (0.72%) SLA
5 1 (0.36%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 16 (5.80%) Docker
2 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 7 (2.54%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.09%) ITRS Geneos
3 2 (0.72%) Control-M
3 2 (0.72%) Thomson Reuters DACS
4 1 (0.36%) Grafana
4 1 (0.36%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (9.42%) Murex
2 18 (6.52%) Bloomberg
3 10 (3.62%) Sybase
4 9 (3.26%) Calypso
5 8 (2.90%) Oracle
6 7 (2.54%) Charles River
6 7 (2.54%) IBM
7 3 (1.09%) Databricks
7 3 (1.09%) Google
7 3 (1.09%) SimCorp
8 2 (0.72%) Advent
8 2 (0.72%) Microsoft
8 2 (0.72%) NYFIX
8 2 (0.72%) Refinitiv
8 2 (0.72%) Tradeweb
9 1 (0.36%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.36%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.36%) FIS
9 1 (0.36%) Solace
9 1 (0.36%) Splunk