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

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 218 253
Rank change year-on-year -161 +35 +3
Contract jobs citing Derivative 234 369 417
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.58% 1.19% 0.93%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.73% 3.62% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 289 387
10th Percentile £513 £500 £550
25th Percentile £613 £638 £609
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £750 £725 £700
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £988 £888 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 £938 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £325 £513
% change year-on-year +61.54% -36.59% -31.67%
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 13,542 10,207 13,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.74% 32.97% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,550 6,122 8,863
10th Percentile £273 £265 £258
25th Percentile £404 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £527
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.28% -4.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 657 314 821
10th Percentile £15.25 £18.73 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.65 £16.54
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +8.98% +42.83%
75th Percentile £63.32 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.80 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.74 £32.50 £34.21
% change year-on-year -8.49% -5.00% +57.69%

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 14 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 14 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 -142 227 £750 +3.45% 31
London -93 218 £750 +3.45% 25
Work from Home -131 73 £800 +10.34% 11
UK excluding London -81 11 £525 +61.54% 13
Northern Ireland -17 3 £320 -1.54%
North of England -55 3 £525 -12.50%
East of England - 3 £681 -
Yorkshire - 3 £525 -
Scotland +2 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 (3.85%) Apache Spark
2 8 (3.42%) Apache
2 8 (3.42%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.99%) Confluence
4 2 (0.85%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.43%) HCL Notes
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.43%) SharePoint
Applications
1 25 (10.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (2.56%) Aladdin
2 5 (2.14%) Temenos T24
3 3 (1.28%) Summit
4 2 (0.85%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.85%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 2 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.85%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.43%) Fidessa
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%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 50 (21.37%) AWS
2 27 (11.54%) Azure
3 14 (5.98%) GCP
4 11 (4.70%) Snowflake
5 8 (3.42%) dbt
6 7 (2.99%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.56%) Serverless
8 5 (2.14%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.14%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.14%) SaaS
9 3 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.85%) npm
10 2 (0.85%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.85%) Yarn
11 1 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (0.43%) Azure Machine Learning
11 1 (0.43%) IaaS
11 1 (0.43%) PaaS
11 1 (0.43%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 10 (4.27%) FIX Connectivity
2 4 (1.71%) Multicast
3 1 (0.43%) RTMP
3 1 (0.43%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (11.54%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (5.98%) SQL Server
3 9 (3.85%) Data Lake
4 8 (3.42%) Amazon Athena
4 8 (3.42%) Apache Arrow
4 8 (3.42%) Apache Iceberg
4 8 (3.42%) Apache Ignite
4 8 (3.42%) Dremio
4 8 (3.42%) Redis
5 7 (2.99%) Power BI
6 5 (2.14%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.71%) Big Data
7 4 (1.71%) KDB
7 4 (1.71%) NoSQL
8 3 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (1.28%) Metadata
8 3 (1.28%) Tableau
9 2 (0.85%) Data Mart
9 2 (0.85%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.85%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 17 (7.26%) Git
2 10 (4.27%) JIRA
3 9 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.56%) Octopus Deploy
4 6 (2.56%) Visual Studio
5 5 (2.14%) Maven
6 4 (1.71%) GitLab
6 4 (1.71%) IntelliJ
7 3 (1.28%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.28%) Gradle
8 2 (0.85%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.85%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.85%) webpack
9 1 (0.43%) Crucible
9 1 (0.43%) NUnit
9 1 (0.43%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.43%) TeamCity
General
1 173 (73.93%) Finance
2 124 (52.99%) Banking
3 96 (41.03%) Front Office
4 83 (35.47%) Investment Banking
5 72 (30.77%) Social Skills
6 36 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
7 26 (11.11%) Financial Institution
8 8 (3.42%) Back Office
9 4 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.28%) Legal
10 3 (1.28%) Spanish Language
10 3 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.85%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.43%) Japanese Language
12 1 (0.43%) Law
12 1 (0.43%) Retail
Job Titles
1 113 (48.29%) Developer
2 53 (22.65%) Senior
3 40 (17.09%) Analyst
3 40 (17.09%) Java Developer
4 33 (14.10%) Business Analyst
5 30 (12.82%) Senior Developer
6 21 (8.97%) Senior Java Developer
7 18 (7.69%) Analytics Developer
7 18 (7.69%) AWS Developer
7 18 (7.69%) Kafka Developer
7 18 (7.69%) PostgreSQL Developer
8 15 (6.41%) Quantitative Developer
8 15 (6.41%) Software Engineer
9 14 (5.98%) Lead
9 14 (5.98%) Python Developer
10 13 (5.56%) C# Developer
10 13 (5.56%) Electronic Trading Developer
10 13 (5.56%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
10 13 (5.56%) Python Engineer
11 12 (5.13%) C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (9.83%) Kafka
1 23 (9.83%) React
2 20 (8.55%) FIX Protocol
3 13 (5.56%) RESTful
4 12 (5.13%) NumPy
4 12 (5.13%) Pandas
5 11 (4.70%) .NET
5 11 (4.70%) Redux
5 11 (4.70%) SciPy
6 10 (4.27%) HTML
7 9 (3.85%) Dask
7 9 (3.85%) Protocol Buffers
8 8 (3.42%) gRPC
8 8 (3.42%) Node.js
8 8 (3.42%) REST
9 7 (2.99%) Spring
10 6 (2.56%) CSS
10 6 (2.56%) WebSockets
11 5 (2.14%) HTML5
11 5 (2.14%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 88 (37.61%) Equities
2 55 (23.50%) Fixed Income
3 51 (21.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 36 (15.38%) Equity Derivative
5 25 (10.68%) Market Risk
6 20 (8.55%) Algorithms
7 19 (8.12%) Management Information System
8 18 (7.69%) Hedge funds
9 16 (6.84%) Distributed Systems
10 13 (5.56%) TWAP
10 13 (5.56%) VWAP
11 11 (4.70%) Cloud Native
11 11 (4.70%) Credit Risk
11 11 (4.70%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (4.27%) Distributed Computing
13 9 (3.85%) Onboarding
14 8 (3.42%) Pricing Data
14 8 (3.42%) Product Ownership
15 7 (2.99%) Analytical Mindset
15 7 (2.99%) Interest Rate Derivative
Operating Systems
1 15 (6.41%) Linux
2 11 (4.70%) Unix
3 7 (2.99%) Windows
4 3 (1.28%) Debian
4 3 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.28%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.28%) VMS
5 1 (0.43%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (30.77%) Agile
2 68 (29.06%) Risk Management
3 42 (17.95%) Problem-Solving
4 40 (17.09%) Mathematics
5 38 (16.24%) Analytics
6 37 (15.81%) TDD
7 34 (14.53%) CI/CD
8 31 (13.25%) Low Latency
9 28 (11.97%) Software Engineering
10 26 (11.11%) Design Patterns
11 25 (10.68%) DevOps
11 25 (10.68%) Electronic Trading
12 24 (10.26%) Stakeholder Management
13 23 (9.83%) Asset Management
14 22 (9.40%) Computer Science
14 22 (9.40%) Data Pipeline
15 21 (8.97%) Multithreading
16 20 (8.55%) Physics
16 20 (8.55%) Quantitative Finance
16 20 (8.55%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 96 (41.03%) Python
2 67 (28.63%) SQL
3 64 (27.35%) Java
4 38 (16.24%) C++
5 31 (13.25%) C#
6 26 (11.11%) JavaScript
7 24 (10.26%) TypeScript
8 5 (2.14%) VBA
9 4 (1.71%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.28%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.85%) Perl
11 2 (0.85%) Rust
11 2 (0.85%) Scala
12 1 (0.43%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.43%) R
12 1 (0.43%) VC++
Qualifications
1 43 (18.38%) Degree
2 17 (7.26%) Master's Degree
3 15 (6.41%) Numerate Degree
4 10 (4.27%) Computer Science Degree
4 10 (4.27%) PhD
5 3 (1.28%) ISTQB
5 3 (1.28%) PMI Certification
5 3 (1.28%) PMP
6 1 (0.43%) CBAP
6 1 (0.43%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.56%) EMIR
1 13 (5.56%) QA
2 8 (3.42%) MiFID
3 7 (2.99%) IFRS
4 5 (2.14%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.71%) IFRS 9
5 4 (1.71%) SLA
6 3 (1.28%) Basel III
6 3 (1.28%) IAS 32
6 3 (1.28%) IAS 39
7 2 (0.85%) GAAP
7 2 (0.85%) PMO
8 1 (0.43%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.43%) FINRA
8 1 (0.43%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 8 (3.42%) Docker
2 3 (1.28%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 8 (3.42%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.99%) Ansible
3 3 (1.28%) Grafana
3 3 (1.28%) Podman
3 3 (1.28%) Thomson Reuters DACS
4 2 (0.85%) ITRS Geneos
4 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.85%) Terraform
5 1 (0.43%) Control-M
Vendors
1 17 (7.26%) Murex
2 16 (6.84%) Bloomberg
2 16 (6.84%) Oracle
3 8 (3.42%) Microsoft
4 7 (2.99%) ION Trading
5 6 (2.56%) Tradeweb
6 5 (2.14%) jBASE
6 5 (2.14%) Sophis
6 5 (2.14%) Temenos
7 4 (1.71%) Calypso
7 4 (1.71%) Charles River
8 3 (1.28%) IBM
8 3 (1.28%) NVIDIA
8 3 (1.28%) NYFIX
8 3 (1.28%) Refinitiv
9 2 (0.85%) AppDynamics
9 2 (0.85%) Apple
9 2 (0.85%) Google
9 2 (0.85%) MarketAxess
9 2 (0.85%) SmartStream