DeFi Job Trends

Decentralised Finance (DeFi)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring DeFi skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 638 676 728
Rank change year-on-year +38 +52 +257
Permanent jobs citing DeFi 13 36 9
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.022% 0.067% 0.016%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.027% 0.074% 0.018%
Number of salaries quoted 11 15 9
10th Percentile £100,000 £67,000 £61,500
25th Percentile £120,000 £83,750 £80,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £230,000 £130,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year +76.92% +30.00% -
75th Percentile - £145,000 £117,500
90th Percentile - £169,000 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary - £25,000 -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

DeFi falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 48,315 48,345 50,335
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.00% 90.62% 89.96%
Number of salaries quoted 28,473 23,469 38,401
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £78,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%

DeFi
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing DeFi relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

DeFi job vacancy trend in the UK

DeFi
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DeFi.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DeFi

DeFi
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing DeFi over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Salary histogram for DeFi in the UK

DeFi
Top 6 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing DeFi within the UK over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Work from Home +67 8 £230,000 +73.58% 18
England +41 6 £103,750 -20.19% 96
London +25 4 £103,750 -20.19% 16
UK excluding London +67 2 - - 86
North of England +29 2 - - 16
North West +29 2 - - 5

DeFi
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 7 (53.85%) Ethereum
Cloud Services
1 7 (53.85%) AWS
1 7 (53.85%) Azure
2 2 (15.38%) Figma
3 1 (7.69%) IaaS
3 1 (7.69%) PaaS
3 1 (7.69%) SaaS
3 1 (7.69%) SuccessFactors
General
1 10 (76.92%) Finance
2 7 (53.85%) Banking
3 2 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (7.69%) Front Office
4 1 (7.69%) Legal
4 1 (7.69%) Presentation Skills
4 1 (7.69%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 7 (53.85%) Rust Engineer
2 2 (15.38%) Business Development Manager
2 2 (15.38%) Business Manager
2 2 (15.38%) Development Manager
3 1 (7.69%) Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Enterprise Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Quantitative Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Rust Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Systems Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (53.85%) Smart Contracts
1 7 (53.85%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 9 (69.23%) Blockchain
2 8 (61.54%) Hedge funds
3 7 (53.85%) Web3
4 2 (15.38%) Bitcoin
4 2 (15.38%) Data Centre
5 1 (7.69%) Algorithms
5 1 (7.69%) State Machine
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (61.54%) Computer Science
1 8 (61.54%) Low Latency
1 8 (61.54%) Ultra-Low Latency
2 7 (53.85%) Design Patterns
2 7 (53.85%) Problem-Solving
2 7 (53.85%) Software Engineering
2 7 (53.85%) Workflow
3 3 (23.08%) Business Development
3 3 (23.08%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (15.38%) Prototyping
4 2 (15.38%) Service Design
4 2 (15.38%) Strategic Thinking
4 2 (15.38%) User Experience
4 2 (15.38%) UX Design
5 1 (7.69%) Backtesting
5 1 (7.69%) Compliance Management
5 1 (7.69%) High-Frequency Trading
5 1 (7.69%) Model Validation
5 1 (7.69%) Situational Awareness
5 1 (7.69%) Spend Analysis
Programming Languages
1 8 (61.54%) Rust
2 7 (53.85%) Go
2 7 (53.85%) TypeScript
3 1 (7.69%) C++
Qualifications
1 10 (76.92%) Degree
2 7 (53.85%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (7.69%) Master's Degree
Vendors
1 1 (7.69%) Ariba
1 1 (7.69%) SAP
1 1 (7.69%) Workday