Lead Developer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Lead Developer
Central London > City of London

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the City of London is £675, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 March 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 109 120
Rank change year-on-year -18 +11 +41
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 3 14 5
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.15% 0.77% 0.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.15% 0.83% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 14 4
10th Percentile £593 £479 -
25th Percentile £619 £538 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £608 £625
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -2.80% -1.96%
75th Percentile £731 £734 £777
90th Percentile £758 £960 £824
Central London median daily rate £675 £670 £750
% change year-on-year +0.75% -10.67% +17.65%

All Contract IT Job Roles
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the City of London with a recognized job title 1,943 1,680 2,215
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.14% 92.87% 94.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,332 1,060 1,584
10th Percentile £350 £360 £340
25th Percentile £439 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £575 £556
Median % change year-on-year -6.09% +3.51% -6.05%
75th Percentile £671 £688 £685
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 9 18
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £15.73
25th Percentile £19.11 £24.66 £19.18
Median hourly rate £34.25 £32.50 £23.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.38% +39.78% -33.57%
75th Percentile £51.00 £112.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £59.72 £127.10 £49.20
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £32.50 £27.81
% change year-on-year -19.66% +16.86% -20.54%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Lead Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Lead Developer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the City of London

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer in the City of London over the 6 months to 15 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Developer in the City of London

Lead Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the City of London

Lead Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 15 March 2026, Lead Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the City of London region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 3 (100.00%) Python
2 2 (66.67%) AWS
2 2 (66.67%) Azure
2 2 (66.67%) Software Engineering
2 2 (66.67%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (33.33%) AI
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon Bedrock
3 1 (33.33%) Amazon SageMaker
3 1 (33.33%) Ansible
3 1 (33.33%) Azure AI
3 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (33.33%) Configuration Management
3 1 (33.33%) Containerisation
3 1 (33.33%) Data Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Data Ingestion
3 1 (33.33%) Data Science
3 1 (33.33%) DBS Check
3 1 (33.33%) Decision-Making
3 1 (33.33%) Degree
3 1 (33.33%) DevOps
3 1 (33.33%) Docker
3 1 (33.33%) DV Cleared
3 1 (33.33%) Foundry
3 1 (33.33%) GCP
3 1 (33.33%) Generative AI
3 1 (33.33%) GitLab
3 1 (33.33%) Go
3 1 (33.33%) Infrastructure as Code

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 1 (33.33%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 2 (66.67%) AWS
1 2 (66.67%) Azure
2 1 (33.33%) Amazon Bedrock
2 1 (33.33%) Amazon SageMaker
2 1 (33.33%) Azure AI
2 1 (33.33%) GCP
2 1 (33.33%) OpenShift
2 1 (33.33%) Power Platform
2 1 (33.33%) Vertex AI
Development Applications
1 1 (33.33%) GitLab
General
1 1 (33.33%) Banking
1 1 (33.33%) Finance
1 1 (33.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
1 1 (33.33%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 1 (33.33%) Low-Code
1 1 (33.33%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (66.67%) Software Engineering
1 2 (66.67%) Technical Leadership
2 1 (33.33%) AI
2 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
2 1 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 1 (33.33%) Configuration Management
2 1 (33.33%) Containerisation
2 1 (33.33%) Data Engineering
2 1 (33.33%) Data Ingestion
2 1 (33.33%) Data Science
2 1 (33.33%) Decision-Making
2 1 (33.33%) DevOps
2 1 (33.33%) Generative AI
2 1 (33.33%) Infrastructure as Code
2 1 (33.33%) Knowledge Transfer
2 1 (33.33%) Machine Learning
2 1 (33.33%) Test Automation
2 1 (33.33%) User Research
2 1 (33.33%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 3 (100.00%) Python
2 1 (33.33%) Go
2 1 (33.33%) Java
Qualifications
1 1 (33.33%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (33.33%) DBS Check
1 1 (33.33%) Degree
1 1 (33.33%) DV Cleared
1 1 (33.33%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 1 (33.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (33.33%) Ansible
1 1 (33.33%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (33.33%) Foundry