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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 486 291 355
Rank change year-on-year -195 +64 +49
Contract jobs citing Hedge funds 106 254 263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.83% 0.59%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.78% 2.52% 1.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 212 236
10th Percentile £425 £540 £400
25th Percentile £463 £638 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £738 £700
Median % change year-on-year -8.47% +5.36% +16.67%
75th Percentile £825 £938 £800
90th Percentile £1,000 - £919
UK excluding London median daily rate £674 - £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 13,545 10,063 13,663
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.68% 33.03% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,552 6,048 8,790
10th Percentile £273 £264 £258
25th Percentile £402 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £768 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 657 309 824
10th Percentile £15.25 £18.51 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.59 £16.63
Median hourly rate £30.11 £34.50 £32.31
Median % change year-on-year -12.74% +6.79% +43.68%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £34.21
% change year-on-year -7.69% -5.00% +55.50%

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 17 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 17 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 -202 104 £688 -6.78% 116
London -152 99 £700 -5.08% 101
Work from Home -142 30 £750 -6.25% 30
UK excluding London - 5 £674 - 40
Yorkshire - 3 £673 - 3
North of England - 3 £673 - 16
Midlands - 2 £975 -
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 10 (9.43%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (6.60%) Apache Spark
3 6 (5.66%) Apache
4 5 (4.72%) Confluence
5 2 (1.89%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (1.89%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.94%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.94%) Fidessa
2 1 (0.94%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 35 (33.02%) AWS
2 11 (10.38%) Azure
3 8 (7.55%) Snowflake
4 6 (5.66%) dbt
4 6 (5.66%) GCP
5 4 (3.77%) Amazon EC2
6 2 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.89%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (1.89%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (1.89%) GitHub
6 2 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.89%) Power Platform
6 2 (1.89%) SaaS
7 1 (0.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 1 (0.94%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (0.94%) Azure Service Bus
7 1 (0.94%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.94%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (6.60%) WebEx
2 6 (5.66%) Network Security
3 2 (1.89%) Reverse Proxy
4 1 (0.94%) DHCP
4 1 (0.94%) DNS
4 1 (0.94%) IP Telephony
4 1 (0.94%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.94%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.66%) Amazon Athena
1 6 (5.66%) Apache Arrow
1 6 (5.66%) Apache Iceberg
1 6 (5.66%) Apache Ignite
1 6 (5.66%) Data Lake
1 6 (5.66%) Dremio
2 5 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.83%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (1.89%) MongoDB
4 2 (1.89%) NoSQL
4 2 (1.89%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.89%) Power BI
4 2 (1.89%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.94%) Big Data
5 1 (0.94%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 12 (11.32%) Git
2 10 (9.43%) JIRA
3 5 (4.72%) GitLab
4 2 (1.89%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.94%) Oracle Forms
General
1 79 (74.53%) Finance
2 39 (36.79%) Banking
3 31 (29.25%) Front Office
3 31 (29.25%) Social Skills
4 27 (25.47%) Investment Banking
5 20 (18.87%) Financial Institution
6 9 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (2.83%) Advertising
8 2 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.89%) Retail Banking
8 2 (1.89%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.94%) Back Office
9 1 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 31 (29.25%) Developer
2 21 (19.81%) Python Developer
2 21 (19.81%) Python Engineer
3 19 (17.92%) AWS Engineer
4 13 (12.26%) Senior
5 9 (8.49%) RAD Developer
6 8 (7.55%) Analyst
6 8 (7.55%) Automation Engineer
6 8 (7.55%) AWS Developer
6 8 (7.55%) IP Network Engineer
6 8 (7.55%) JavaScript Developer
6 8 (7.55%) Network Engineer
6 8 (7.55%) Switch Engineer
7 7 (6.60%) Java Engineer
8 6 (5.66%) AWS Software Engineer
8 6 (5.66%) Business Analyst
8 6 (5.66%) Java Software Engineer
8 6 (5.66%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 6 (5.66%) Python Software Engineer
8 6 (5.66%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (24.53%) NumPy
2 25 (23.58%) Pandas
3 16 (15.09%) SciPy
4 14 (13.21%) REST
5 11 (10.38%) AngularJS
5 11 (10.38%) React
6 9 (8.49%) COM
7 8 (7.55%) FastAPI
7 8 (7.55%) Flask
7 8 (7.55%) Polars
7 8 (7.55%) Vue
8 6 (5.66%) Dask
8 6 (5.66%) gRPC
8 6 (5.66%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (3.77%) .NET
9 4 (3.77%) Web Services
10 3 (2.83%) CSS
10 3 (2.83%) JNI
10 3 (2.83%) Kafka
10 3 (2.83%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 33 (31.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 24 (22.64%) Equities
3 16 (15.09%) Derivative
4 13 (12.26%) Fixed Income
5 7 (6.60%) Cloud Native
6 6 (5.66%) Distributed Computing
6 6 (5.66%) Pricing Data
7 4 (3.77%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.89%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.89%) Data Fabric
8 2 (1.89%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.89%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.89%) Video Conferencing
9 1 (0.94%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.94%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.94%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 21 (19.81%) Linux
2 11 (10.38%) Windows
3 5 (4.72%) CentOS
3 5 (4.72%) Unix
3 5 (4.72%) Windows 10
4 4 (3.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (2.83%) Mac OS
5 3 (2.83%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.89%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (28.30%) Software Engineering
2 21 (19.81%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (17.92%) CI/CD
3 19 (17.92%) Mathematics
4 17 (16.04%) Analytics
4 17 (16.04%) Risk Management
5 15 (14.15%) Agile
6 13 (12.26%) Computer Science
6 13 (12.26%) Data Analysis
7 10 (9.43%) Clean Code
7 10 (9.43%) Data Engineering
7 10 (9.43%) Data Pipeline
8 9 (8.49%) AI
8 9 (8.49%) Asset Management
8 9 (8.49%) Physics
8 9 (8.49%) Pricing Analytics
8 9 (8.49%) Prototyping
8 9 (8.49%) Rapid Prototyping
8 9 (8.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 9 (8.49%) Systematic Trading
Programming Languages
1 64 (60.38%) Python
2 24 (22.64%) Java
2 24 (22.64%) SQL
3 17 (16.04%) JavaScript
4 14 (13.21%) C#
5 10 (9.43%) C++
5 10 (9.43%) VBA
6 9 (8.49%) PowerShell
7 8 (7.55%) Rust
8 6 (5.66%) TypeScript
9 4 (3.77%) Bash
9 4 (3.77%) Shell Script
10 3 (2.83%) C
10 3 (2.83%) Perl
11 1 (0.94%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 15 (14.15%) Degree
2 8 (7.55%) Master's Degree
3 6 (5.66%) PhD
4 5 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (2.83%) CISM
5 3 (2.83%) CISSP
5 3 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
6 2 (1.89%) CEH
6 2 (1.89%) RHCE
6 2 (1.89%) RHCSA
6 2 (1.89%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.66%) NIST
2 5 (4.72%) QA
3 4 (3.77%) MiFID
4 2 (1.89%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.89%) Dodd-Frank
4 2 (1.89%) EMIR
4 2 (1.89%) GRC
4 2 (1.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.94%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.94%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 15 (14.15%) Docker
2 5 (4.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.89%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.89%) KVM
4 1 (0.94%) Firmware
4 1 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.94%) vSphere
4 1 (0.94%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 12 (11.32%) Ansible
2 10 (9.43%) Kubernetes
3 5 (4.72%) Terraform
4 3 (2.83%) SCCM
5 2 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (1.89%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 2 (1.89%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.89%) Puppet
5 2 (1.89%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.94%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 8 (7.55%) Arista
1 8 (7.55%) Oracle
2 7 (6.60%) Red Hat
2 7 (6.60%) VMware
3 5 (4.72%) BiZZdesign
3 5 (4.72%) Citrix
3 5 (4.72%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.77%) Reuters
5 3 (2.83%) GoldenSource
6 2 (1.89%) Dataiku
6 2 (1.89%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.94%) Altiris
7 1 (0.94%) Apple
7 1 (0.94%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.94%) Bloomberg
7 1 (0.94%) Charles River
7 1 (0.94%) Cisco
7 1 (0.94%) Google
7 1 (0.94%) Portware