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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 401 278 185
Rank change year-on-year -123 -93 +27
Contract jobs citing Derivative 273 303 508
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.92% 1.31%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.53% 2.62% 4.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 256 436
10th Percentile £425 £537 £600
25th Percentile £568 £613 £663
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £725 £750 £800
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -6.25% +10.34%
75th Percentile £825 £825 £888
90th Percentile £894 £988 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £538 £638
% change year-on-year -11.63% -15.69% -7.27%
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 17,890 11,575 11,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.51% 35.17% 30.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,850 7,129 7,574
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £765 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 997 563 603
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.13 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.35
Median hourly rate £43.50 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.46% -34.44% +11.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £67.20
90th Percentile £85.00 £78.46 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -33.33% +10.86%

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 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 14 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 14 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 -132 248 £725 -3.33% 140
London -79 240 £725 -3.33% 134
Work from Home -102 81 £775 +3.33% 42
UK excluding London -97 27 £475 -11.63% 18
Scotland +2 18 £402 -19.60% 2
North of England -67 6 £725 +20.23% 4
Yorkshire -36 5 £725 - 1
Northern Ireland +2 2 £625 +25.00% 10
North West -48 1 £198 -67.16% 3
Midlands -49 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 (1.83%) Confluence
2 1 (0.37%) Apache
2 1 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.37%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (1.47%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 9 (3.30%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.47%) Loan IQ
2 4 (1.47%) Summit
3 3 (1.10%) Advent Geneva
3 3 (1.10%) Orchestrade
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%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 32 (11.72%) AWS
2 30 (10.99%) Azure
3 23 (8.42%) GCP
4 11 (4.03%) ChatGPT
5 9 (3.30%) Anthropic Claude
6 8 (2.93%) GitHub
6 8 (2.93%) GitHub Copilot
7 6 (2.20%) Power Platform
8 5 (1.83%) Snowflake
9 4 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.10%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (1.10%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (1.10%) Serverless
11 1 (0.37%) Collibra
11 1 (0.37%) npm
11 1 (0.37%) OpenShift
11 1 (0.37%) SaaS
11 1 (0.37%) Yarn
Communications & Networking
1 17 (6.23%) FIX Connectivity
2 8 (2.93%) HTTP
3 1 (0.37%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.69%) Relational Database
2 19 (6.96%) Metadata
3 17 (6.23%) MongoDB
3 17 (6.23%) SQL Server
4 15 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (4.76%) Redis
6 10 (3.66%) Db2
7 8 (2.93%) RDBMS
8 7 (2.56%) Tableau
9 6 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (2.20%) Power BI
10 5 (1.83%) Data Lake
11 4 (1.47%) NoSQL
12 3 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (1.10%) KDB
13 2 (0.73%) Crystal Reports
13 2 (0.73%) Kdb+
13 2 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 1 (0.37%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 18 (6.59%) JIRA
2 11 (4.03%) Git
3 10 (3.66%) Octopus Deploy
4 8 (2.93%) TeamCity
5 5 (1.83%) ER Studio
5 5 (1.83%) ERwin
5 5 (1.83%) PowerDesigner
6 4 (1.47%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.10%) VTune
8 1 (0.37%) GitLab
8 1 (0.37%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.37%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.37%) webpack
General
1 184 (67.40%) Finance
2 152 (55.68%) Banking
3 148 (54.21%) Front Office
4 113 (41.39%) Investment Banking
5 73 (26.74%) Social Skills
6 40 (14.65%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (5.13%) Financial Institution
8 11 (4.03%) Back Office
9 10 (3.66%) Private Banking
10 9 (3.30%) Legal
11 4 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (1.10%) Public Sector
13 2 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
14 1 (0.37%) Agriculture
14 1 (0.37%) General Ledger
14 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.37%) Legal Technology
14 1 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 136 (49.82%) Developer
2 69 (25.27%) Analyst
3 60 (21.98%) Business Analyst
4 43 (15.75%) Python Developer
5 38 (13.92%) Senior
6 33 (12.09%) Java Developer
7 30 (10.99%) C# Developer
7 30 (10.99%) Front Office Developer
8 19 (6.96%) Electronic Trading Developer
9 18 (6.59%) Software Engineer
10 17 (6.23%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
10 17 (6.23%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
10 17 (6.23%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
10 17 (6.23%) Low Latency Java Developer
11 16 (5.86%) Lead
11 16 (5.86%) Quantitative Developer
12 13 (4.76%) Senior Developer
13 11 (4.03%) Derivatives Business Analyst
13 11 (4.03%) Lead Developer
13 11 (4.03%) Pricing Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (12.09%) FIX Protocol
2 29 (10.62%) React
3 12 (4.40%) .NET
3 12 (4.40%) NumPy
3 12 (4.40%) WebSockets
4 11 (4.03%) Redux
5 10 (3.66%) Django
5 10 (3.66%) FastAPI
5 10 (3.66%) Pandas
6 9 (3.30%) AngularJS
6 9 (3.30%) Kafka
6 9 (3.30%) REST
7 8 (2.93%) Node.js
7 8 (2.93%) RxJava
7 8 (2.93%) 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%) Polars
Miscellaneous
1 72 (26.37%) Equities
2 68 (24.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 60 (21.98%) Fixed Income
4 41 (15.02%) Equity Derivative
5 19 (6.96%) Market Risk
5 19 (6.96%) OTC Derivatives
6 18 (6.59%) Algorithms
6 18 (6.59%) Distributed Systems
7 17 (6.23%) TWAP
7 17 (6.23%) VWAP
8 16 (5.86%) Credit Risk
8 16 (5.86%) Data Structures
9 15 (5.49%) Data Protection Act
10 14 (5.13%) Exotic Derivative
10 14 (5.13%) Hedge funds
11 10 (3.66%) Credit Derivative
11 10 (3.66%) Management Information System
12 9 (3.30%) Onboarding
13 8 (2.93%) Cloud Native
13 8 (2.93%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.59%) Unix
2 13 (4.76%) Linux
3 1 (0.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (22.34%) Agile
2 54 (19.78%) Problem-Solving
3 45 (16.48%) Low Latency
4 40 (14.65%) CI/CD
5 38 (13.92%) Electronic Trading
5 38 (13.92%) Multithreading
6 34 (12.45%) Software Engineering
6 34 (12.45%) User Acceptance Testing
7 33 (12.09%) Stakeholder Management
8 32 (11.72%) Data Analysis
8 32 (11.72%) Risk Management
9 30 (10.99%) Analytics
9 30 (10.99%) DevOps
10 29 (10.62%) Microservices
10 29 (10.62%) TDD
11 28 (10.26%) Algorithmic Trading
11 28 (10.26%) Validation
12 27 (9.89%) Asset Management
13 26 (9.52%) AI
13 26 (9.52%) Business Analysis
Programming Languages
1 115 (42.12%) Python
2 93 (34.07%) SQL
3 79 (28.94%) Java
4 54 (19.78%) C#
5 36 (13.19%) C++
6 29 (10.62%) TypeScript
7 14 (5.13%) JavaScript
8 12 (4.40%) Rust
9 8 (2.93%) PowerShell
10 7 (2.56%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.83%) Perl
12 4 (1.47%) PL/SQL
13 3 (1.10%) Scala
14 2 (0.73%) Bash
14 2 (0.73%) F#
14 2 (0.73%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.37%) C
15 1 (0.37%) Korn
15 1 (0.37%) R
15 1 (0.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 28 (10.26%) Degree
2 13 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (4.40%) Master's Degree
4 10 (3.66%) PhD
5 2 (0.73%) PMI Certification
5 2 (0.73%) PMP
5 2 (0.73%) Security Cleared
6 1 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
6 1 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.13%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.66%) QA
3 9 (3.30%) EMIR
3 9 (3.30%) MiFID
4 2 (0.73%) 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
5 1 (0.37%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (6.23%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (2.56%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.10%) ITRS Geneos
3 2 (0.73%) Control-M
4 1 (0.37%) Grafana
4 1 (0.37%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.37%) Terraform
4 1 (0.37%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 28 (10.26%) Murex
2 17 (6.23%) Bloomberg
3 10 (3.66%) Sybase
4 8 (2.93%) Calypso
4 8 (2.93%) Oracle
5 7 (2.56%) Charles River
5 7 (2.56%) IBM
6 3 (1.10%) Advent
6 3 (1.10%) Databricks
6 3 (1.10%) Google
7 2 (0.73%) Microsoft
7 2 (0.73%) SimCorp
8 1 (0.37%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.37%) Apple
8 1 (0.37%) ION Trading
8 1 (0.37%) NYFIX
8 1 (0.37%) Refinitiv
8 1 (0.37%) Reuters
8 1 (0.37%) Splunk
8 1 (0.37%) Tradeweb