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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 404 274 184
Rank change year-on-year -130 -90 +27
Contract jobs citing Derivative 277 305 510
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.52% 0.93% 1.32%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.54% 2.64% 4.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 260 439
10th Percentile £424 £537 £600
25th Percentile £565 £620 £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 £895 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £538 £638
% change year-on-year -12.56% -15.69% +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 17,986 11,532 11,788
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.61% 35.12% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,908 7,096 7,535
10th Percentile £322 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £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 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,025 568 588
10th Percentile £14.85 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £18.33
Median hourly rate £41.00 £29.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.82% -33.89% +10.31%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -36.84% +13.77%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -151 249 £725 -3.33% 245
London -83 241 £725 -3.33% 239
Work from Home -114 84 £775 +3.33% 63
UK excluding London -111 29 £470 -12.56% 28
Scotland -3 20 £402 -19.60% 4
North of England -59 6 £725 +20.23% 5
Yorkshire -37 5 £725 - 3
Northern Ireland +2 2 £625 +25.00% 8
North West -42 1 £198 -67.16% 2
Midlands -56 1 - -
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 (1.44%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 9 (3.25%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.44%) Summit
3 3 (1.08%) Advent Geneva
3 3 (1.08%) Orchestrade
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%) MultiFonds
5 1 (0.36%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 30 (10.83%) AWS
1 30 (10.83%) Azure
2 23 (8.30%) GCP
3 11 (3.97%) ChatGPT
4 9 (3.25%) Anthropic Claude
5 8 (2.89%) GitHub
5 8 (2.89%) GitHub Copilot
6 7 (2.53%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.81%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.08%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 3 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.08%) Serverless
10 1 (0.36%) Collibra
10 1 (0.36%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.78%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (2.89%) HTTP
3 2 (0.72%) Multicast
4 1 (0.36%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (7.94%) Relational Database
2 19 (6.86%) Metadata
3 17 (6.14%) MongoDB
3 17 (6.14%) SQL Server
4 15 (5.42%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (4.69%) Redis
6 10 (3.61%) Db2
7 8 (2.89%) RDBMS
7 8 (2.89%) Tableau
8 7 (2.53%) Power BI
9 6 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.81%) Data Lake
11 4 (1.44%) KDB
11 4 (1.44%) NoSQL
12 3 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (1.08%) 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 (6.50%) JIRA
2 11 (3.97%) Git
3 10 (3.61%) Octopus Deploy
4 8 (2.89%) TeamCity
5 5 (1.81%) ER Studio
5 5 (1.81%) ERwin
5 5 (1.81%) PowerDesigner
6 4 (1.44%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.08%) VTune
8 1 (0.36%) GitLab
8 1 (0.36%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.36%) Visual Studio
General
1 189 (68.23%) Finance
2 153 (55.23%) Banking
3 152 (54.87%) Front Office
4 113 (40.79%) Investment Banking
5 74 (26.71%) Social Skills
6 41 (14.80%) Analytical Skills
7 16 (5.78%) Financial Institution
8 11 (3.97%) Back Office
8 11 (3.97%) Private Banking
9 9 (3.25%) Legal
10 3 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.08%) Public Sector
11 2 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.36%) Agriculture
12 1 (0.36%) General Ledger
12 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.36%) Legal Technology
12 1 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 136 (49.10%) Developer
2 70 (25.27%) Analyst
3 61 (22.02%) Business Analyst
4 44 (15.88%) Python Developer
5 41 (14.80%) Senior
6 31 (11.19%) Java Developer
7 30 (10.83%) C# Developer
7 30 (10.83%) Front Office Developer
8 18 (6.50%) Electronic Trading Developer
8 18 (6.50%) Software Engineer
9 17 (6.14%) Quantitative Developer
10 16 (5.78%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
10 16 (5.78%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
10 16 (5.78%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
10 16 (5.78%) Low Latency Java Developer
11 15 (5.42%) Lead
12 13 (4.69%) Senior Developer
13 11 (3.97%) Lead Developer
13 11 (3.97%) Pricing Developer
13 11 (3.97%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (11.91%) FIX Protocol
2 29 (10.47%) React
3 13 (4.69%) WebSockets
4 12 (4.33%) .NET
4 12 (4.33%) NumPy
4 12 (4.33%) Redux
5 10 (3.61%) Django
5 10 (3.61%) FastAPI
5 10 (3.61%) Pandas
6 9 (3.25%) AngularJS
6 9 (3.25%) REST
7 8 (2.89%) Kafka
7 8 (2.89%) Node.js
8 7 (2.53%) RxJava
8 7 (2.53%) 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
Miscellaneous
1 74 (26.71%) Equities
2 67 (24.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 60 (21.66%) Fixed Income
4 43 (15.52%) Equity Derivative
5 19 (6.86%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (6.86%) Market Risk
6 18 (6.50%) Algorithms
7 17 (6.14%) OTC Derivatives
8 16 (5.78%) Credit Risk
8 16 (5.78%) Data Structures
8 16 (5.78%) TWAP
8 16 (5.78%) VWAP
9 15 (5.42%) Exotic Derivative
9 15 (5.42%) Hedge funds
10 14 (5.05%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (3.61%) Credit Derivative
11 10 (3.61%) Management Information System
11 10 (3.61%) Onboarding
12 8 (2.89%) Product Ownership
13 7 (2.53%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.50%) Unix
2 13 (4.69%) Linux
3 1 (0.36%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (21.66%) Agile
2 55 (19.86%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (15.88%) Low Latency
4 39 (14.08%) CI/CD
5 38 (13.72%) Multithreading
6 37 (13.36%) Electronic Trading
7 36 (13.00%) Data Analysis
7 36 (13.00%) Software Engineering
8 34 (12.27%) User Acceptance Testing
9 32 (11.55%) Stakeholder Management
10 31 (11.19%) Analytics
10 31 (11.19%) Risk Management
11 29 (10.47%) DevOps
12 28 (10.11%) Algorithmic Trading
12 28 (10.11%) Business Analysis
12 28 (10.11%) Microservices
12 28 (10.11%) TDD
12 28 (10.11%) Validation
13 27 (9.75%) Asset Management
14 26 (9.39%) AI
Programming Languages
1 117 (42.24%) Python
2 95 (34.30%) SQL
3 78 (28.16%) Java
4 57 (20.58%) C#
5 37 (13.36%) C++
6 29 (10.47%) TypeScript
7 13 (4.69%) JavaScript
8 12 (4.33%) Rust
9 9 (3.25%) PowerShell
10 7 (2.53%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.81%) Perl
12 4 (1.44%) PL/SQL
13 3 (1.08%) Scala
14 2 (0.72%) Bash
14 2 (0.72%) C
14 2 (0.72%) F#
14 2 (0.72%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.36%) Korn
15 1 (0.36%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.36%) VBA
Qualifications
1 28 (10.11%) Degree
2 13 (4.69%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (4.33%) Master's Degree
4 10 (3.61%) PhD
5 2 (0.72%) PMI Certification
5 2 (0.72%) PMP
5 2 (0.72%) Security Cleared
6 1 (0.36%) Numerate Degree
6 1 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.42%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.61%) QA
3 9 (3.25%) EMIR
3 9 (3.25%) 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
5 1 (0.36%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.36%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (5.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (2.53%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.08%) 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 (9.39%) Murex
2 18 (6.50%) Bloomberg
3 10 (3.61%) Sybase
4 9 (3.25%) Calypso
5 8 (2.89%) Oracle
6 7 (2.53%) Charles River
6 7 (2.53%) IBM
7 3 (1.08%) Advent
7 3 (1.08%) Databricks
7 3 (1.08%) Google
7 3 (1.08%) SimCorp
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