Commodities houses often produce, store or distribute the products themselves, so they employ a whole range of people in non-financial roles. However, here we only look at the financial jobs related to their trading activities, such as commodities broker jobs.

The focus of the commodities trading houses is to deal in raw materials. Investment banks, meanwhile, largely create and trade commodity derivative products, such as over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives or commodity futures. Derivative products are an important way for farming cooperatives and other producers to protect against a poor farming year or negative price fluctuations and for investment banking clients to hedge against their exposures.

Despite these disparities, jobs in commodities generally fall into the following categories:

<b>Trading:</b> Commodities traders have a particular area of expertise, that falls into one of the product types above. , Through the buying and selling of either raw commodities or commodity derivatives, commodities traders manage a trading portfolio on behalf of either their company or client. They also perform regular market analysis and research to make informative trading decisions and be expected to take both a long-term and short-term view of the market. Traders working with the physical products also have to consider issues such as shipping, storage and stock levels as well as how pricing exposure is managed using derivative products.

<b>Sales:</b> Investment banks are the many employers of sales staff. A sales job in commodities is largely about developing relationships with clients such as commodities producers, who want to use derivative products to manage their price exposure, or simply consumers. Commodities sales staff need good analytical skills to keep up with the latest movements in the commodities markets and have the ability to explain the rationale for trading decisions and strategies to clients. Other tasks of commodities salespeople include developing pitches, writing reports and compiling presentations for clients.

<b>Structuring:</b> . For a junior role, most banks will only recruit people with a Masters degree in a highly mathematical subject, usually physics or quantitative analytics as this role involves a high degree of statistical analysis. As the name suggests a structuring job involves creating commodities structured products to offer clients, as well as performing statistical analysis to track their performance. Examples of these products include commodity-linked notes or baskets of commodities. Depending on the organisation, structuring roles can also encompass creating customised solutions to a client's (usually a corporate) commodities hedging needs.