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 29 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 341 229 250
Rank change year-on-year -112 +21 +9
Contract jobs citing Derivative 260 405 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.11% 1.01%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.02% 3.56% 3.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 317 421
10th Percentile £498 £600 £550
25th Percentile £575 £644 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £750 £789 £700
Median % change year-on-year -4.94% +12.71% -
75th Percentile £850 £888 £838
90th Percentile £988 - £950
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £538
% change year-on-year +2.78% -16.28% +16.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £86.25 £76.25 -
Median hourly rate £87.50 £77.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% - -
75th Percentile £88.75 £78.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
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 12,853 11,387 14,538
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.66% 31.24% 31.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,978 6,697 9,742
10th Percentile £275 £285 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.95% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £635 £663 £668
90th Percentile £738 £788 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 665 380 496
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.75 £16.89
25th Percentile £18.25 £22.50 £21.00
Median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -22.86% -20.90% +26.43%
75th Percentile £56.25 £66.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.11 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -16.60% -29.62% +58.15%

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 29 November 2025.

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 29 November 2025. 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 -104 249 £750 -5.60% 50
London -56 244 £750 -6.25% 48
Work from Home -106 92 £750 -6.25% 22
UK excluding London -25 13 £463 +2.78% 21
Northern Ireland -2 5 £325 +8.33% 1
Scotland +6 4 £463 -
North of England -40 3 £525 -12.50% 3
Midlands - 3 £525 -
Yorkshire - 3 £525 -
West Midlands - 2 £525 -
East Midlands - 1 £375 -

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 30 (11.54%) Apache
1 30 (11.54%) Apache Airflow
2 12 (4.62%) Confluence
3 7 (2.69%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.92%) SharePoint
5 4 (1.54%) HCL Notes
6 2 (0.77%) IIS
7 1 (0.38%) MQSeries
7 1 (0.38%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.38%) WebSphere
Applications
1 21 (8.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.38%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (3.08%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.54%) Fidessa
2 4 (1.54%) thinkFolio
3 2 (0.77%) Algo Collateral
3 2 (0.77%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.38%) Endur
4 1 (0.38%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.38%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.38%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 62 (23.85%) AWS
2 33 (12.69%) Snowflake
3 32 (12.31%) Azure
4 30 (11.54%) dbt
5 16 (6.15%) Power Platform
6 7 (2.69%) Serverless
7 6 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (1.54%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 4 (1.54%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (1.54%) Azure Service Bus
8 4 (1.54%) GCP
8 4 (1.54%) npm
8 4 (1.54%) Power Automate
8 4 (1.54%) PowerApps
8 4 (1.54%) Yarn
9 3 (1.15%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.77%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.77%) SaaS
11 1 (0.38%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.31%) TCP/IP
2 4 (1.54%) Multicast
3 2 (0.77%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (11.92%) Data Lake
2 30 (11.54%) Amazon Athena
2 30 (11.54%) Apache Arrow
2 30 (11.54%) Apache Iceberg
2 30 (11.54%) Apache Ignite
2 30 (11.54%) Dremio
3 22 (8.46%) SQL Server
4 19 (7.31%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (6.15%) Power BI
6 11 (4.23%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.31%) Redis
8 5 (1.92%) Tableau
9 4 (1.54%) Big Data
9 4 (1.54%) KDB
10 3 (1.15%) Power Query
11 2 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.77%) Data Mart
11 2 (0.77%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.77%) Metadata
11 2 (0.77%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 14 (5.38%) Git
2 13 (5.00%) JIRA
3 9 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.69%) Octopus Deploy
5 4 (1.54%) GitLab
5 4 (1.54%) Maven
5 4 (1.54%) Visual Studio
5 4 (1.54%) webpack
6 3 (1.15%) Gradle
6 3 (1.15%) IntelliJ
7 2 (0.77%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.38%) Crucible
8 1 (0.38%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.38%) Hudson
8 1 (0.38%) JUnit
8 1 (0.38%) TeamCity
General
1 207 (79.62%) Finance
2 155 (59.62%) Banking
3 125 (48.08%) Front Office
4 114 (43.85%) Investment Banking
5 81 (31.15%) Social Skills
6 43 (16.54%) Analytical Skills
7 25 (9.62%) Financial Institution
8 10 (3.85%) Back Office
9 5 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.15%) Law
10 3 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.77%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.77%) Legal
12 1 (0.38%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.38%) Prime Brokerage
12 1 (0.38%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 96 (36.92%) Developer
2 74 (28.46%) Senior
3 60 (23.08%) Analyst
4 37 (14.23%) Business Analyst
5 33 (12.69%) Senior Developer
6 32 (12.31%) Java Developer
6 32 (12.31%) Java Engineer
6 32 (12.31%) Software Engineer
7 31 (11.92%) Java Software Engineer
8 30 (11.54%) AWS Engineer
8 30 (11.54%) AWS Software Engineer
8 30 (11.54%) Python Engineer
8 30 (11.54%) Python Software Engineer
9 29 (11.15%) Senior Java Engineer
9 29 (11.15%) Senior Java Software Engineer
9 29 (11.15%) Senior Software Engineer
10 20 (7.69%) Senior Java Developer
11 18 (6.92%) AWS Developer
11 18 (6.92%) Kafka Developer
11 18 (6.92%) PostgreSQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (12.31%) NumPy
1 32 (12.31%) Pandas
1 32 (12.31%) SciPy
2 31 (11.92%) Protocol Buffers
3 30 (11.54%) gRPC
4 22 (8.46%) Kafka
5 20 (7.69%) FIX Protocol
6 16 (6.15%) .NET
7 10 (3.85%) React
8 9 (3.46%) Spring
9 8 (3.08%) Middleware
10 7 (2.69%) CSS
10 7 (2.69%) Dask
10 7 (2.69%) REST
10 7 (2.69%) RESTful
11 5 (1.92%) FpML
11 5 (1.92%) RabbitMQ
11 5 (1.92%) XML
12 4 (1.54%) .NET Framework
12 4 (1.54%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 86 (33.08%) Fixed Income
2 85 (32.69%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 81 (31.15%) Equities
4 38 (14.62%) Hedge funds
5 30 (11.54%) Pricing Data
6 29 (11.15%) Equity Derivative
7 23 (8.85%) Market Risk
8 19 (7.31%) Product Ownership
9 18 (6.92%) Algorithms
9 18 (6.92%) Management Information System
10 15 (5.77%) Distributed Systems
11 13 (5.00%) Cloud Native
12 11 (4.23%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (3.85%) Credit Risk
13 10 (3.85%) Interest Rate Derivative
13 10 (3.85%) Onboarding
14 9 (3.46%) Data Structures
14 9 (3.46%) Distributed Computing
14 9 (3.46%) OTC Derivatives
15 8 (3.08%) Credit Derivative
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.15%) Linux
2 8 (3.08%) Unix
3 7 (2.69%) Windows
4 1 (0.38%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (39.23%) Agile
2 53 (20.38%) Risk Management
3 49 (18.85%) Mathematics
4 47 (18.08%) Analytics
5 44 (16.92%) Software Engineering
6 36 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (13.08%) Asset Management
8 30 (11.54%) Investment Management
9 29 (11.15%) CI/CD
9 29 (11.15%) Stakeholder Management
10 28 (10.77%) Computer Science
10 28 (10.77%) Physics
11 26 (10.00%) DevOps
12 25 (9.62%) TDD
13 23 (8.85%) Design Patterns
14 22 (8.46%) Scrum
15 20 (7.69%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (7.31%) Low Latency
16 19 (7.31%) User Acceptance Testing
17 18 (6.92%) Electronic Trading
Programming Languages
1 113 (43.46%) Python
2 81 (31.15%) Java
3 77 (29.62%) SQL
4 39 (15.00%) C#
4 39 (15.00%) C++
5 38 (14.62%) JavaScript
6 37 (14.23%) TypeScript
7 6 (2.31%) VBA
8 4 (1.54%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.15%) Perl
10 1 (0.38%) Bash
10 1 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.38%) R
10 1 (0.38%) Scala
10 1 (0.38%) VC++
Qualifications
1 52 (20.00%) Degree
2 26 (10.00%) Master's Degree
3 15 (5.77%) PhD
4 14 (5.38%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (3.08%) Numerate Degree
6 3 (1.15%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.15%) PMP
7 2 (0.77%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.38%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.38%) MiFID
2 13 (5.00%) QA
3 12 (4.62%) EMIR
4 9 (3.46%) Data Quality
5 5 (1.92%) Basel III
5 5 (1.92%) SLA
6 4 (1.54%) GDPR
7 3 (1.15%) IFRS
7 3 (1.15%) PMO
8 2 (0.77%) IAS 32
8 2 (0.77%) IAS 39
8 2 (0.77%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.38%) Dodd-Frank
9 1 (0.38%) FINRA
9 1 (0.38%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.38%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.38%) SEPA
9 1 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 5 (1.92%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (2.31%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.92%) Ansible
3 3 (1.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
4 2 (0.77%) ITRS Geneos
5 1 (0.38%) Grafana
5 1 (0.38%) Terraform
5 1 (0.38%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 16 (6.15%) Bloomberg
1 16 (6.15%) Murex
2 14 (5.38%) Microsoft
3 8 (3.08%) Calypso
4 7 (2.69%) ION Trading
5 6 (2.31%) Databricks
5 6 (2.31%) Sophis
5 6 (2.31%) Tradeweb
6 5 (1.92%) Oracle
7 4 (1.54%) Lotus
7 4 (1.54%) Portware
7 4 (1.54%) Reuters
8 3 (1.15%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.15%) Charles River
8 3 (1.15%) NYFIX
8 3 (1.15%) Refinitiv
8 3 (1.15%) Splunk
9 2 (0.77%) AppDynamics
9 2 (0.77%) IBM
9 2 (0.77%) SmartStream