Foreign Exchange (FX) Contract Job Trends

Foreign Exchange (FX)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Foreign Exchange (FX) in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Foreign Exchange (FX) over the 6 months leading up to 10 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 413 190 298
Rank change year-on-year -223 +108 -77
Contract jobs citing Foreign Exchange (FX) 224 395 310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 1.35% 0.70%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.50% 3.99% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 333 256
10th Percentile £450 £519 £509
25th Percentile £499 £638 £636
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £775 £750
Median % change year-on-year -16.13% +3.33% -
75th Percentile £843 £875 £850
90th Percentile £925 £938 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £393 £410 £600
% change year-on-year -4.27% -31.67% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £41.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £35.13 -

All Generic Skills
UK

Foreign Exchange (FX) 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 14,911 9,889 13,388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.51% 33.85% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,350 6,341 8,588
10th Percentile £300 £290 £263
25th Percentile £412 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.07% -2.53%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 708 379 901
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £22.27 £15.39
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +16.07% +24.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £83.24 £67.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £31.76 £26.00
% change year-on-year +49.56% +22.15% +18.18%

Foreign Exchange (FX)
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Foreign Exchange (FX) relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Foreign Exchange (FX) job vacancy trend in the UK

Foreign Exchange (FX)
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Foreign Exchange (FX).

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Foreign Exchange (FX)

Foreign Exchange (FX)
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Foreign Exchange (FX) over the 6 months to 10 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Foreign Exchange (FX) in the UK

Foreign Exchange (FX)
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Foreign Exchange (FX).

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Foreign Exchange (FX)

Foreign Exchange (FX)
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Foreign Exchange (FX) within the UK over the 6 months to 10 April 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 -203 215 £700 -9.68% 96
London -127 206 £700 -9.68% 75
Work from Home -180 36 £613 -23.44% 32
UK excluding London -125 10 £393 -4.27% 45
North of England -83 5 £413 -13.34% 7
Yorkshire -53 4 £575 +43.21% 1
Midlands -66 2 - - 3
East Midlands - 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland -5 1 £475 +39.71% 1
Wales -13 1 £310 +93.75% 2
North West -38 1 £250 -53.14% 6
South East -51 1 - - 29

Foreign Exchange (FX)
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 11 (4.91%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.13%) Confluence
3 5 (2.23%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.89%) Apache
4 2 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.89%) JBoss
5 1 (0.45%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.45%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.45%) Notion
Business Applications
1 5 (2.23%) Loan IQ
1 5 (2.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 4 (1.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (1.34%) Findur
3 3 (1.34%) Summit
4 2 (0.89%) Front Arena
4 2 (0.89%) Global One
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle FAH
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.89%) Orchestrade
4 2 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.89%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.45%) Actimize
5 1 (0.45%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.45%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.45%) MetaTrader
5 1 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.45%) SAP VC
5 1 (0.45%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 27 (12.05%) Azure
2 25 (11.16%) Power Platform
3 19 (8.48%) AWS
4 15 (6.70%) PowerApps
5 12 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
5 12 (5.36%) Power Automate
6 10 (4.46%) Microsoft 365
7 8 (3.57%) Entra ID
8 7 (3.13%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (2.68%) Azure Logic Apps
10 5 (2.23%) GCP
10 5 (2.23%) SaaS
11 4 (1.79%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (1.79%) npm
11 4 (1.79%) Yarn
12 3 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
12 3 (1.34%) GitHub
12 3 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
13 2 (0.89%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.68%) Multicast
2 2 (0.89%) Ethernet
2 2 (0.89%) HTTP
2 2 (0.89%) RTMP
3 1 (0.45%) Firewall
3 1 (0.45%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (7.14%) KDB
2 15 (6.70%) Power BI
3 11 (4.91%) Kdb+
4 9 (4.02%) SQL Server
4 9 (4.02%) Tableau
5 6 (2.68%) Tick Data
6 5 (2.23%) Big Data
7 3 (1.34%) Data Mart
7 3 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.34%) Metadata
7 3 (1.34%) NoSQL
7 3 (1.34%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.89%) Amazon Athena
8 2 (0.89%) Apache Arrow
8 2 (0.89%) Apache Iceberg
8 2 (0.89%) Apache Ignite
8 2 (0.89%) Crystal Reports
8 2 (0.89%) Dremio
8 2 (0.89%) Redis
8 2 (0.89%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (6.25%) JIRA
2 10 (4.46%) Git
3 7 (3.13%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.23%) webpack
5 3 (1.34%) Gradle
5 3 (1.34%) JUnit
5 3 (1.34%) Maven
6 2 (0.89%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.89%) GitLab
6 2 (0.89%) Postman
6 2 (0.89%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.89%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.89%) Selenium
6 2 (0.89%) TestNG
7 1 (0.45%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.45%) Gatling
7 1 (0.45%) GCC
7 1 (0.45%) GDB
7 1 (0.45%) Newman
7 1 (0.45%) SoapUI
General
1 148 (66.07%) Finance
2 102 (45.54%) Banking
3 94 (41.96%) Front Office
4 67 (29.91%) Social Skills
5 48 (21.43%) Investment Banking
6 35 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (8.04%) Back Office
7 18 (8.04%) Financial Institution
8 8 (3.57%) Legal
9 5 (2.23%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.79%) Law
10 4 (1.79%) Public Sector
10 4 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (1.34%) Retail
12 2 (0.89%) Billing
12 2 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.89%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 104 (46.43%) Developer
2 41 (18.30%) Java Developer
3 38 (16.96%) Analyst
4 34 (15.18%) Senior
5 33 (14.73%) Business Analyst
6 14 (6.25%) Senior Developer
7 13 (5.80%) Python Developer
8 11 (4.91%) Lead
9 10 (4.46%) FX Business Analyst
9 10 (4.46%) Java Engineer
10 9 (4.02%) RAD Developer
10 9 (4.02%) Senior Java Developer
11 8 (3.57%) C# Developer
11 8 (3.57%) Consultant
11 8 (3.57%) Full-Stack Developer
11 8 (3.57%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 8 (3.57%) KDB Developer
11 8 (3.57%) Low Latency Java Developer
12 6 (2.68%) Applications Developer
12 6 (2.68%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (12.95%) FIX Protocol
2 23 (10.27%) React
3 16 (7.14%) REST
4 14 (6.25%) NumPy
4 14 (6.25%) Pandas
5 11 (4.91%) .NET
5 11 (4.91%) CSS
6 9 (4.02%) COM
6 9 (4.02%) Redux
7 8 (3.57%) HTML
7 8 (3.57%) Kafka
8 7 (3.13%) Spring
9 6 (2.68%) Microsoft Graph
10 5 (2.23%) AngularJS
10 5 (2.23%) Dask
10 5 (2.23%) HTML5 Canvas
10 5 (2.23%) SciPy
10 5 (2.23%) Spring Boot
11 4 (1.79%) Middleware
11 4 (1.79%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (20.09%) Equities
2 43 (19.20%) Fixed Income
3 41 (18.30%) Derivative
4 22 (9.82%) Algorithms
4 22 (9.82%) Hedge funds
5 20 (8.93%) Data Protection Act
6 12 (5.36%) Distributed Systems
7 11 (4.91%) Product Ownership
8 10 (4.46%) Onboarding
9 9 (4.02%) Data Structures
9 9 (4.02%) Market Risk
10 6 (2.68%) Cloud Native
10 6 (2.68%) Credit Risk
10 6 (2.68%) Distributed Computing
11 5 (2.23%) OTC Derivatives
11 5 (2.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 4 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
13 2 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 23 (10.27%) Linux
2 18 (8.04%) Unix
3 3 (1.34%) Windows
4 2 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (26.34%) Problem-Solving
2 58 (25.89%) Low Latency
3 44 (19.64%) Agile
4 39 (17.41%) Analytics
5 37 (16.52%) Electronic Trading
6 36 (16.07%) Risk Management
7 28 (12.50%) CI/CD
8 26 (11.61%) AI
8 26 (11.61%) Data Analysis
8 26 (11.61%) Stakeholder Management
9 25 (11.16%) Full-Stack Development
10 24 (10.71%) Multithreading
11 23 (10.27%) Scrum
11 23 (10.27%) Software Engineering
12 22 (9.82%) User Acceptance Testing
13 21 (9.38%) Computer Science
13 21 (9.38%) Data Protection
14 20 (8.93%) DevOps
14 20 (8.93%) Mathematics
15 17 (7.59%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 81 (36.16%) Java
2 46 (20.54%) SQL
3 41 (18.30%) Python
4 32 (14.29%) C#
5 24 (10.71%) JavaScript
6 23 (10.27%) TypeScript
7 20 (8.93%) C++
8 10 (4.46%) VBA
9 5 (2.23%) PowerShell
10 4 (1.79%) Perl
10 4 (1.79%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.79%) Scala
11 3 (1.34%) Rust
12 2 (0.89%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.89%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 20 (8.93%) Degree
2 7 (3.13%) Master's Degree
3 6 (2.68%) Security Cleared
4 5 (2.23%) PhD
4 5 (2.23%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.79%) PMP
6 3 (1.34%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.45%) ACCA
7 1 (0.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.45%) CBAP
7 1 (0.45%) CFA
7 1 (0.45%) CIMA
7 1 (0.45%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.04%) QA
2 6 (2.68%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.23%) Basel III
3 5 (2.23%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.79%) IFRS
4 4 (1.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (1.34%) EMIR
5 3 (1.34%) GAAP
5 3 (1.34%) MiFID
5 3 (1.34%) SLA
6 2 (0.89%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.45%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.45%) GDPR
7 1 (0.45%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.45%) NIST
7 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.45%) PMO
System Software
1 10 (4.46%) Docker
2 3 (1.34%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 7 (3.13%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.68%) Ansible
3 5 (2.23%) ITRS Geneos
4 4 (1.79%) Control-M
5 2 (0.89%) Grafana
6 1 (0.45%) Kibana
6 1 (0.45%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.45%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 21 (9.38%) Microsoft
1 21 (9.38%) Murex
2 10 (4.46%) Bloomberg
2 10 (4.46%) Oracle
3 9 (4.02%) SAP
4 6 (2.68%) Solace
5 5 (2.23%) IBM
6 4 (1.79%) Workday
7 3 (1.34%) OpenAI
7 3 (1.34%) OpenLink
7 3 (1.34%) Splunk
8 2 (0.89%) AppDynamics
8 2 (0.89%) Avaloq
8 2 (0.89%) Calypso
8 2 (0.89%) Charles River
8 2 (0.89%) Citrix
8 2 (0.89%) Informatica
8 2 (0.89%) MarketAxess
8 2 (0.89%) Sybase
8 2 (0.89%) Tradeweb