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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 418 299 195
Rank change year-on-year -119 -104 +16
Contract jobs citing Derivative 273 290 500
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 161 248 431
10th Percentile £413 £533 £600
25th Percentile £563 £620 £663
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £725 £750 £800
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -6.25% +14.29%
75th Percentile £813 £825 £888
90th Percentile £900 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £550 £563
% change year-on-year -14.55% -2.22% +4.65%
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 18,083 11,655 11,708
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.65% 35.37% 30.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,907 7,178 7,343
10th Percentile £324 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -5.68% -
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 1,081 574 545
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.13 £13.24
25th Percentile £19.03 £18.87 £19.38
Median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +7.54%
75th Percentile £67.89 £56.00 £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% +16.67%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -127 245 £725 -3.33% 141
London -75 237 £725 -3.33% 137
Work from Home -102 78 £753 +0.33% 49
UK excluding London -82 29 £470 -14.55% 35
Scotland -8 20 £402 -19.60% 8
North of England -70 6 £725 +18.46% 4
Yorkshire -41 5 £725 -
Northern Ireland -1 2 £625 +25.00% 5
Midlands -50 1 - -
North West -52 1 £198 -67.65% 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 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (4.40%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.47%) Summit
3 3 (1.10%) Orchestrade
4 2 (0.73%) Advent Geneva
4 2 (0.73%) Front Arena
4 2 (0.73%) Global One
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 21 (7.69%) AWS
1 21 (7.69%) Azure
2 15 (5.49%) GCP
3 11 (4.03%) ChatGPT
4 9 (3.30%) Anthropic Claude
5 8 (2.93%) GitHub
5 8 (2.93%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (2.20%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.83%) 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 (5.49%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (2.93%) HTTP
3 2 (0.73%) Multicast
4 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.06%) Relational Database
2 19 (6.96%) Metadata
3 17 (6.23%) MongoDB
3 17 (6.23%) SQL Server
4 12 (4.40%) Redis
5 10 (3.66%) Db2
6 8 (2.93%) RDBMS
7 7 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (2.56%) Tableau
8 6 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (2.20%) Power BI
9 5 (1.83%) Data Lake
10 4 (1.47%) KDB
10 4 (1.47%) NoSQL
11 3 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (1.10%) Kdb+
12 2 (0.73%) Crystal Reports
12 2 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 1 (0.37%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 17 (6.23%) JIRA
2 10 (3.66%) Git
2 10 (3.66%) Octopus Deploy
3 8 (2.93%) TeamCity
4 5 (1.83%) ER Studio
4 5 (1.83%) ERwin
4 5 (1.83%) PowerDesigner
5 4 (1.47%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.10%) VTune
7 1 (0.37%) GitLab
7 1 (0.37%) GoogleTest
7 1 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 184 (67.40%) Finance
2 152 (55.68%) Banking
3 147 (53.85%) Front Office
4 112 (41.03%) Investment Banking
5 75 (27.47%) Social Skills
6 40 (14.65%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (6.59%) Financial Institution
8 11 (4.03%) Back Office
8 11 (4.03%) Private Banking
9 10 (3.66%) 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
1 129 (47.25%) Developer
2 69 (25.27%) Analyst
3 61 (22.34%) Business Analyst
4 43 (15.75%) Senior
5 40 (14.65%) Python Developer
6 30 (10.99%) C# Developer
6 30 (10.99%) Front Office Developer
6 30 (10.99%) Java Developer
7 19 (6.96%) Quantitative Developer
8 17 (6.23%) Electronic Trading Developer
9 15 (5.49%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
9 15 (5.49%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
9 15 (5.49%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
9 15 (5.49%) Low Latency Java Developer
10 13 (4.76%) Senior Developer
11 12 (4.40%) Software Engineer
12 11 (4.03%) Pricing Developer
12 11 (4.03%) Project Manager
13 10 (3.66%) C# Developer - Commodities
14 9 (3.30%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (11.72%) FIX Protocol
2 18 (6.59%) React
3 12 (4.40%) .NET
3 12 (4.40%) NumPy
3 12 (4.40%) WebSockets
4 10 (3.66%) Django
4 10 (3.66%) FastAPI
5 9 (3.30%) Pandas
6 8 (2.93%) REST
7 7 (2.56%) AngularJS
7 7 (2.56%) Kafka
7 7 (2.56%) RxJava
7 7 (2.56%) Spring
8 6 (2.20%) Flask
8 6 (2.20%) Middleware
9 5 (1.83%) PySpark
9 5 (1.83%) XML
10 4 (1.47%) Next.js
10 4 (1.47%) Polars
10 4 (1.47%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 69 (25.27%) Equities
2 68 (24.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 55 (20.15%) Fixed Income
4 44 (16.12%) Equity Derivative
5 19 (6.96%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (6.96%) Market Risk
6 18 (6.59%) Algorithms
7 17 (6.23%) Credit Risk
7 17 (6.23%) Exotic Derivative
8 16 (5.86%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (5.86%) Hedge funds
8 16 (5.86%) OTC Derivatives
9 15 (5.49%) TWAP
9 15 (5.49%) VWAP
10 14 (5.13%) Data Structures
11 10 (3.66%) Credit Derivative
11 10 (3.66%) Management Information System
12 9 (3.30%) Onboarding
13 8 (2.93%) Product Ownership
14 7 (2.56%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.59%) Unix
2 13 (4.76%) Linux
3 1 (0.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (20.15%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (17.22%) Agile
3 42 (15.38%) Low Latency
4 39 (14.29%) CI/CD
5 37 (13.55%) Multithreading
6 36 (13.19%) User Acceptance Testing
7 35 (12.82%) Data Analysis
7 35 (12.82%) Electronic Trading
7 35 (12.82%) Stakeholder Management
8 33 (12.09%) Analytics
9 32 (11.72%) Risk Management
10 29 (10.62%) Software Engineering
11 28 (10.26%) DevOps
11 28 (10.26%) Validation
12 27 (9.89%) Algorithmic Trading
12 27 (9.89%) Business Analysis
12 27 (9.89%) Microservices
12 27 (9.89%) TDD
13 24 (8.79%) AI
13 24 (8.79%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 107 (39.19%) Python
2 93 (34.07%) SQL
3 75 (27.47%) Java
4 55 (20.15%) C#
5 38 (13.92%) C++
6 18 (6.59%) TypeScript
7 11 (4.03%) Rust
8 9 (3.30%) PowerShell
9 7 (2.56%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.83%) Perl
11 4 (1.47%) JavaScript
11 4 (1.47%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.10%) Scala
13 2 (0.73%) Bash
13 2 (0.73%) C
13 2 (0.73%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.37%) Korn
14 1 (0.37%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.37%) R
Qualifications
1 29 (10.62%) Degree
2 12 (4.40%) Computer Science Degree
2 12 (4.40%) Master's Degree
3 10 (3.66%) PhD
4 2 (0.73%) Numerate Degree
4 2 (0.73%) PMI Certification
4 2 (0.73%) PMP
4 2 (0.73%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.37%) CFA
5 1 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.13%) Data Quality
2 9 (3.30%) EMIR
2 9 (3.30%) MiFID
2 9 (3.30%) QA
3 3 (1.10%) Basel III
4 2 (0.73%) COREP
4 2 (0.73%) Dodd-Frank
4 2 (0.73%) FINREP
4 2 (0.73%) GAAP
4 2 (0.73%) IFRS
4 2 (0.73%) SLA
5 1 (0.37%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 16 (5.86%) Docker
2 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 7 (2.56%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.10%) ITRS Geneos
3 2 (0.73%) Control-M
3 2 (0.73%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 24 (8.79%) Murex
2 16 (5.86%) Bloomberg
3 10 (3.66%) Sybase
4 9 (3.30%) Calypso
5 8 (2.93%) Oracle
6 7 (2.56%) Charles River
6 7 (2.56%) IBM
7 3 (1.10%) Databricks
7 3 (1.10%) SimCorp
8 2 (0.73%) Advent
8 2 (0.73%) Google
8 2 (0.73%) Microsoft
8 2 (0.73%) NYFIX
8 2 (0.73%) Refinitiv
8 2 (0.73%) Tradeweb
9 1 (0.37%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.37%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.37%) FIS
9 1 (0.37%) Solace
9 1 (0.37%) Splunk