Hedge funds Contract Job Trends

Hedge fund
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Hedge funds in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Hedge funds over the 6 months leading up to 1 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 479 293 347
Rank change year-on-year -186 +54 +52
Contract jobs citing Hedge funds 111 258 262
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.82% 0.58%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.85% 2.52% 1.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 220 232
10th Percentile £414 £575 £400
25th Percentile £463 £638 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £673 £725 £700
Median % change year-on-year -7.24% +3.57% +16.67%
75th Percentile £825 £938 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 - £938
UK excluding London median daily rate £673 - £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%

All Generic Skills
UK

Hedge funds 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 13,108 10,229 13,816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.01% 32.57% 30.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,288 6,072 9,003
10th Percentile £275 £263 £255
25th Percentile £403 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £650
90th Percentile £738 £769 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 621 310 779
10th Percentile £15.00 £19.77 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.28 £23.89 £17.17
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.14% - +55.66%
75th Percentile £63.10 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.90 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.52 £32.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -15.32% -8.45% +69.33%

Hedge funds
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Hedge funds relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Hedge funds job vacancy trend in the UK

Hedge funds
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Hedge funds.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Hedge funds

Hedge funds
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Hedge funds over the 6 months to 1 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Hedge funds in the UK

Hedge funds
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Hedge funds.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Hedge funds

Hedge funds
Top 9 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Hedge funds within the UK over the 6 months to 1 February 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 -190 109 £686 -5.34% 108
London -143 105 £700 -3.45% 96
Work from Home -121 32 £750 -6.25% 19
UK excluding London - 4 £673 - 29
Yorkshire - 2 £673 - 2
Midlands - 2 £975 -
North of England - 2 £673 - 9
West Midlands - 1 £975 -
East Midlands - 1 - -

Hedge funds
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 13 (11.71%) Apache Airflow
2 9 (8.11%) Apache
3 7 (6.31%) Apache Spark
4 3 (2.70%) Confluence
5 2 (1.80%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (1.80%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.90%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.90%) Fidessa
2 1 (0.90%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 43 (38.74%) AWS
2 14 (12.61%) Azure
3 11 (9.91%) Snowflake
4 9 (8.11%) dbt
5 7 (6.31%) GCP
6 4 (3.60%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.70%) GitHub
7 3 (2.70%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.70%) Power Platform
8 2 (1.80%) Azure Pipelines
8 2 (1.80%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 1 (0.90%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (0.90%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.90%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.90%) SaaS
9 1 (0.90%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (6.31%) WebEx
2 4 (3.60%) Network Security
3 1 (0.90%) DHCP
3 1 (0.90%) DNS
3 1 (0.90%) IP Telephony
3 1 (0.90%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.90%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (9.01%) Amazon Athena
2 9 (8.11%) Apache Arrow
2 9 (8.11%) Apache Iceberg
2 9 (8.11%) Apache Ignite
2 9 (8.11%) Data Lake
2 9 (8.11%) Dremio
3 6 (5.41%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.70%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (2.70%) MongoDB
4 3 (2.70%) NoSQL
4 3 (2.70%) Power BI
5 2 (1.80%) Big Data
5 2 (1.80%) Oracle Database
5 2 (1.80%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.90%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.90%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (12.61%) Git
2 7 (6.31%) JIRA
3 5 (4.50%) GitLab
4 3 (2.70%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Forms
General
1 85 (76.58%) Finance
2 42 (37.84%) Banking
3 33 (29.73%) Front Office
4 32 (28.83%) Investment Banking
5 31 (27.93%) Social Skills
6 22 (19.82%) Financial Institution
7 8 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.70%) Advertising
9 2 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Back Office
10 1 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Law
10 1 (0.90%) Legal
10 1 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 32 (28.83%) Developer
2 25 (22.52%) Python Engineer
3 23 (20.72%) AWS Engineer
4 22 (19.82%) Python Developer
5 17 (15.32%) Senior
6 10 (9.01%) Java Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Automation Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) AWS Developer
7 9 (8.11%) AWS Software Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) IP Network Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Java Software Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) JavaScript Developer
7 9 (8.11%) Network Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Python Software Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) RAD Developer
7 9 (8.11%) Software Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Switch Engineer
8 8 (7.21%) Senior Java Engineer
8 8 (7.21%) Senior Java Software Engineer
8 8 (7.21%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (27.03%) NumPy
2 29 (26.13%) Pandas
3 20 (18.02%) SciPy
4 14 (12.61%) REST
5 12 (10.81%) AngularJS
5 12 (10.81%) React
6 9 (8.11%) COM
6 9 (8.11%) FastAPI
6 9 (8.11%) Flask
6 9 (8.11%) gRPC
6 9 (8.11%) Polars
6 9 (8.11%) Protocol Buffers
6 9 (8.11%) Vue
7 6 (5.41%) Dask
8 5 (4.50%) .NET
9 4 (3.60%) Kafka
9 4 (3.60%) RabbitMQ
9 4 (3.60%) Web Services
10 3 (2.70%) CSS
10 3 (2.70%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 36 (32.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 26 (23.42%) Equities
3 18 (16.22%) Derivative
4 16 (14.41%) Fixed Income
5 9 (8.11%) Pricing Data
6 7 (6.31%) Cloud Native
7 6 (5.41%) Distributed Computing
8 4 (3.60%) Management Information System
9 3 (2.70%) Data Fabric
9 3 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (1.80%) AI Agents
10 2 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (1.80%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.80%) Video Conferencing
11 1 (0.90%) Data Structures
11 1 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
11 1 (0.90%) Market Risk
11 1 (0.90%) Product Ownership
11 1 (0.90%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 22 (19.82%) Linux
2 14 (12.61%) Windows
3 6 (5.41%) Unix
3 6 (5.41%) Windows 10
4 5 (4.50%) CentOS
5 4 (3.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (2.70%) Mac OS
6 3 (2.70%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.80%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (27.93%) Software Engineering
2 21 (18.92%) CI/CD
2 21 (18.92%) Problem-Solving
3 20 (18.02%) Mathematics
4 19 (17.12%) Agile
5 17 (15.32%) Analytics
5 17 (15.32%) Risk Management
6 13 (11.71%) Data Analysis
7 12 (10.81%) Computer Science
8 11 (9.91%) Asset Management
8 11 (9.91%) Clean Code
8 11 (9.91%) Data Engineering
8 11 (9.91%) Investment Management
9 10 (9.01%) Data Pipeline
9 10 (9.01%) Systematic Trading
10 9 (8.11%) DevOps
10 9 (8.11%) Fintech
10 9 (8.11%) Physics
10 9 (8.11%) Prototyping
10 9 (8.11%) Rapid Prototyping
Programming Languages
1 68 (61.26%) Python
2 27 (24.32%) Java
3 26 (23.42%) SQL
4 21 (18.92%) JavaScript
5 16 (14.41%) C#
6 12 (10.81%) PowerShell
7 11 (9.91%) C++
8 10 (9.01%) VBA
9 9 (8.11%) Rust
9 9 (8.11%) TypeScript
10 4 (3.60%) Bash
10 4 (3.60%) Perl
10 4 (3.60%) Shell Script
11 3 (2.70%) C
12 1 (0.90%) Groovy
12 1 (0.90%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 15 (13.51%) Degree
2 10 (9.01%) Master's Degree
3 6 (5.41%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (5.41%) PhD
4 3 (2.70%) CISM
4 3 (2.70%) CISSP
4 3 (2.70%) TOGAF Certification
5 2 (1.80%) RHCE
5 2 (1.80%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.50%) MiFID
2 4 (3.60%) NIST
2 4 (3.60%) QA
3 3 (2.70%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.70%) GRC
4 2 (1.80%) Dodd-Frank
4 2 (1.80%) EMIR
4 2 (1.80%) GDPR
4 2 (1.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.90%) AIFMD
5 1 (0.90%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.90%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.90%) PMO
5 1 (0.90%) Solvency II
5 1 (0.90%) UCITS
System Software
1 17 (15.32%) Docker
2 8 (7.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.70%) VMware Workstation
4 2 (1.80%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.80%) KVM
5 1 (0.90%) Firmware
5 1 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.90%) vSphere
5 1 (0.90%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 13 (11.71%) Ansible
2 12 (10.81%) Kubernetes
3 6 (5.41%) SCCM
4 5 (4.50%) Terraform
5 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (1.80%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.80%) Puppet
5 2 (1.80%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.90%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 10 (9.01%) Oracle
1 10 (9.01%) VMware
2 9 (8.11%) Arista
3 7 (6.31%) Citrix
3 7 (6.31%) Red Hat
4 5 (4.50%) Microsoft
5 4 (3.60%) Reuters
6 3 (2.70%) BiZZdesign
6 3 (2.70%) GoldenSource
7 2 (1.80%) Dataiku
7 2 (1.80%) ServiceNow
8 1 (0.90%) Altiris
8 1 (0.90%) Anaplan
8 1 (0.90%) Apple
8 1 (0.90%) Atlassian
8 1 (0.90%) Bloomberg
8 1 (0.90%) Charles River
8 1 (0.90%) Google
8 1 (0.90%) Portware
8 1 (0.90%) Vertica