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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 417 304 202
Rank change year-on-year -113 -102 +10
Contract jobs citing Derivative 265 281 451
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.86% 1.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.43% 2.39% 3.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 228 375
10th Percentile £417 £524 £600
25th Percentile £564 £613 £663
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £718 £750 £800
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% -6.25% +14.29%
75th Percentile £788 £825 £888
90th Percentile £881 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £550 £650
% change year-on-year -14.09% -15.38% +10.64%
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 18,572 11,753 11,660
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.15% 35.82% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,116 7,198 7,033
10th Percentile £320 £293 £285
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% -3.53% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £672
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,231 599 437
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.96 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.85 £18.87 £22.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £29.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.14% -42.00% +12.36%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £29.30 £57.35
% change year-on-year +30.55% -48.91% +14.70%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 28 September 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 -132 237 £725 -3.33% 338
London -92 229 £718 -4.33% 316
Work from Home -112 68 £753 +0.33% 89
UK excluding London -83 30 £473 -14.09% 53
Scotland -14 20 £402 -23.43% 13
North of England -67 6 £725 +18.46% 6
Yorkshire -37 5 £725 -
Northern Ireland +1 3 £510 -2.86% 16
Midlands -44 1 - - 1
North West -57 1 £198 -67.65% 6
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 6 (2.26%) Confluence
2 2 (0.75%) Apache
2 2 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.38%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 4 (1.51%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (3.77%) Aladdin
2 3 (1.13%) Orchestrade
3 2 (0.75%) Oracle FAH
3 2 (0.75%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.75%) Oracle General Ledger
3 2 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.75%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.38%) Actimize
4 1 (0.38%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.38%) Front Arena
4 1 (0.38%) Global One
4 1 (0.38%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.38%) MultiFonds
4 1 (0.38%) SimCorp Dimension
4 1 (0.38%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 22 (8.30%) Azure
2 17 (6.42%) AWS
3 15 (5.66%) GCP
4 10 (3.77%) ChatGPT
5 8 (3.02%) Anthropic Claude
5 8 (3.02%) GitHub
6 7 (2.64%) GitHub Copilot
7 5 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (1.51%) Power Platform
8 4 (1.51%) Snowflake
9 3 (1.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 3 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.75%) Serverless
11 1 (0.38%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.53%) FIX Connectivity
2 7 (2.64%) HTTP
3 2 (0.75%) Multicast
4 1 (0.38%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.79%) Relational Database
2 17 (6.42%) MongoDB
3 15 (5.66%) Metadata
4 14 (5.28%) SQL Server
5 9 (3.40%) Db2
6 8 (3.02%) Redis
7 7 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
8 6 (2.26%) Data Lake
8 6 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.89%) RDBMS
10 4 (1.51%) KDB
10 4 (1.51%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.51%) Power BI
10 4 (1.51%) Tableau
11 3 (1.13%) Kdb+
12 2 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.38%) Big Data
13 1 (0.38%) Delta Lake
13 1 (0.38%) Snowflake Schema
13 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 20 (7.55%) JIRA
2 8 (3.02%) Git
3 6 (2.26%) Octopus Deploy
4 5 (1.89%) ER Studio
4 5 (1.89%) ERwin
4 5 (1.89%) PowerDesigner
4 5 (1.89%) TeamCity
5 3 (1.13%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.13%) VTune
6 1 (0.38%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.38%) GitLab
6 1 (0.38%) GoogleTest
6 1 (0.38%) Visual Studio
General
1 190 (71.70%) Finance
2 152 (57.36%) Banking
3 137 (51.70%) Front Office
4 103 (38.87%) Investment Banking
5 73 (27.55%) Social Skills
6 39 (14.72%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (7.17%) Financial Institution
8 12 (4.53%) Private Banking
9 11 (4.15%) Back Office
10 8 (3.02%) Legal
11 4 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (1.13%) General Ledger
12 3 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.13%) Public Sector
13 2 (0.75%) Corporate Banking
14 1 (0.38%) Agriculture
14 1 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.38%) International Banking
14 1 (0.38%) Legal Technology
Job Titles
1 117 (44.15%) Developer
2 65 (24.53%) Analyst
3 56 (21.13%) Business Analyst
4 43 (16.23%) Senior
5 33 (12.45%) Python Developer
6 30 (11.32%) Front Office Developer
7 27 (10.19%) C# Developer
8 25 (9.43%) Java Developer
9 18 (6.79%) Quantitative Developer
10 14 (5.28%) Project Manager
11 13 (4.91%) Electronic Trading Developer
12 12 (4.53%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
12 12 (4.53%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
12 12 (4.53%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
12 12 (4.53%) Low Latency Java Developer
12 12 (4.53%) Senior Developer
12 12 (4.53%) Software Engineer
13 11 (4.15%) Pricing Developer
14 10 (3.77%) Banking Analyst
14 10 (3.77%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (9.81%) FIX Protocol
2 17 (6.42%) React
3 12 (4.53%) WebSockets
4 10 (3.77%) .NET
4 10 (3.77%) NumPy
5 9 (3.40%) Django
5 9 (3.40%) FastAPI
5 9 (3.40%) Pandas
5 9 (3.40%) REST
6 8 (3.02%) Spring
7 7 (2.64%) Kafka
7 7 (2.64%) RxJava
8 6 (2.26%) AngularJS
8 6 (2.26%) Flask
8 6 (2.26%) PySpark
9 5 (1.89%) Middleware
10 4 (1.51%) Next.js
10 4 (1.51%) RESTful
11 3 (1.13%) gRPC
11 3 (1.13%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 71 (26.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 68 (25.66%) Equities
3 54 (20.38%) Fixed Income
4 39 (14.72%) Equity Derivative
5 21 (7.92%) Distributed Systems
6 17 (6.42%) Exotic Derivative
7 16 (6.04%) OTC Derivatives
8 15 (5.66%) Algorithms
8 15 (5.66%) Market Risk
9 14 (5.28%) Credit Risk
10 13 (4.91%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (4.91%) Hedge funds
11 12 (4.53%) Onboarding
11 12 (4.53%) TWAP
11 12 (4.53%) VWAP
12 11 (4.15%) Data Structures
13 10 (3.77%) Management Information System
14 7 (2.64%) Credit Derivative
14 7 (2.64%) Interest Rate Derivative
14 7 (2.64%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.66%) Unix
2 13 (4.91%) Linux
3 1 (0.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
2 44 (16.60%) Agile
2 44 (16.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 36 (13.58%) Analytics
3 36 (13.58%) CI/CD
4 35 (13.21%) Low Latency
5 34 (12.83%) Data Analysis
5 34 (12.83%) User Acceptance Testing
6 33 (12.45%) Software Engineering
7 30 (11.32%) Electronic Trading
8 29 (10.94%) Business Analysis
8 29 (10.94%) Multithreading
8 29 (10.94%) Validation
9 27 (10.19%) Risk Management
10 26 (9.81%) AI
10 26 (9.81%) Data Modelling
10 26 (9.81%) Microservices
11 25 (9.43%) DevOps
11 25 (9.43%) Requirements Gathering
12 23 (8.68%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 99 (37.36%) Python
2 84 (31.70%) SQL
3 69 (26.04%) Java
4 53 (20.00%) C#
5 35 (13.21%) C++
6 19 (7.17%) TypeScript
7 10 (3.77%) Rust
8 8 (3.02%) PowerShell
9 7 (2.64%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.89%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.51%) JavaScript
11 4 (1.51%) Perl
12 3 (1.13%) Scala
12 3 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.75%) Bash
13 2 (0.75%) C
14 1 (0.38%) Korn
14 1 (0.38%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.38%) R
14 1 (0.38%) VBA
Qualifications
1 24 (9.06%) Degree
2 12 (4.53%) Master's Degree
3 10 (3.77%) PhD
4 7 (2.64%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (0.75%) CFA
5 2 (0.75%) Numerate Degree
5 2 (0.75%) PMI Certification
5 2 (0.75%) PMP
5 2 (0.75%) Security Cleared
6 1 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.04%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.77%) MiFID
3 9 (3.40%) EMIR
4 7 (2.64%) QA
5 3 (1.13%) SLA
6 2 (0.75%) Basel III
6 2 (0.75%) COREP
6 2 (0.75%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.75%) FINREP
6 2 (0.75%) GAAP
6 2 (0.75%) IFRS
7 1 (0.38%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 14 (5.28%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (2.26%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.75%) ITRS Geneos
2 2 (0.75%) Thomson Reuters DACS
3 1 (0.38%) Control-M
3 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 20 (7.55%) Murex
2 16 (6.04%) Bloomberg
3 9 (3.40%) Calypso
3 9 (3.40%) Sybase
4 7 (2.64%) Oracle
5 6 (2.26%) Databricks
5 6 (2.26%) IBM
6 5 (1.89%) Charles River
7 3 (1.13%) Google
7 3 (1.13%) Microsoft
7 3 (1.13%) SimCorp
8 2 (0.75%) NYFIX
8 2 (0.75%) Refinitiv
8 2 (0.75%) Tradeweb
9 1 (0.38%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.38%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.38%) eFront
9 1 (0.38%) FIS
9 1 (0.38%) Solace
9 1 (0.38%) Splunk