Lead Contract Job Trends in England

Leader
UK > England

The median Leader daily rate in England is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 27 30
Rank change year-on-year -1 +3 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 2,084 1,979 2,199
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.63% 6.83% 5.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.26% 7.35% 6.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,352 1,243 1,514
10th Percentile £363 £400 £413
25th Percentile £463 £495 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £590
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +1.69% -1.67%
75th Percentile £675 £694 £700
90th Percentile £775 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £550 £590 £575
% change year-on-year -6.78% +2.61% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 62 56
10th Percentile £18.25 £23.82 £28.21
25th Percentile £38.77 £26.29 -
Median hourly rate £45.46 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -1.56% - +30.08%
75th Percentile £71.25 £60.63 £66.37
90th Percentile £82.93 £74.88 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +8.27% - +28.28%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 28,706 26,921 34,873
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 92.92% 93.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,309 16,785 23,966
10th Percentile £291 £300 £288
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,763 853 1,358
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.73 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.25 £19.50
Median hourly rate £26.78 £36.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.61% -20.00% +38.46%
75th Percentile £60.68 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.90 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.50 £34.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -25.00% -23.60% +48.33%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Lead job vacancy trend in England

Lead
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in England over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in England

Lead
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England

Lead
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Lead in England over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Lead in England

Lead
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the England region over the 6 months to 19 December 2025. 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
London -3 991 £600 - 492
South East +12 313 £563 -6.25% 528
North of England -1 306 £519 -1.14% 426
Midlands -12 184 £473 -5.50% 338
North West +6 156 £508 - 202
South West +7 151 £538 -2.27% 233
West Midlands -15 132 £500 -4.76% 194
Yorkshire -16 110 £500 -5.21% 189
East of England -28 64 £525 +15.64% 267
East Midlands -6 52 £442 -0.34% 125
North East +6 44 £531 -5.97% 37
South Coast - 1 £625 -
Lead
UK

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 19 December 2025, Lead 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 England region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 475 (22.79%) Agile
2 391 (18.76%) Security Cleared
3 358 (17.18%) Stakeholder Management
4 353 (16.94%) Azure
5 332 (15.93%) AWS
6 309 (14.83%) SC Cleared
7 272 (13.05%) DevOps
8 266 (12.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 260 (12.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 258 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
11 233 (11.18%) Migration
12 219 (10.51%) CI/CD
13 208 (9.98%) Microsoft
14 206 (9.88%) Mentoring
15 202 (9.69%) Python
16 194 (9.31%) Oracle
16 194 (9.31%) SQL
17 170 (8.16%) Java
18 169 (8.11%) SAP
19 166 (7.97%) ITIL
20 163 (7.82%) Technical Leadership
21 162 (7.77%) AI
22 160 (7.68%) Degree
23 152 (7.29%) Terraform
24 149 (7.15%) Change Management
25 148 (7.10%) Business Intelligence
26 146 (7.01%) Decision-Making
27 144 (6.91%) Analytics
28 143 (6.86%) Roadmaps
29 140 (6.72%) Project Management

Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 58 (2.78%) Confluence
2 30 (1.44%) SharePoint
3 15 (0.72%) CMS
4 14 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.53%) Apache
6 6 (0.29%) Anypoint
6 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.24%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 4 (0.19%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.14%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.096%) Mule
10 2 (0.096%) Mule ESB
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.096%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.096%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.096%) WildFly
10 2 (0.096%) WordPress
Applications
1 41 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.24%) Adobe XD
6 5 (0.24%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.24%) Sketch
6 5 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.14%) Siemens NX
8 2 (0.096%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.096%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.096%) Blender
8 2 (0.096%) Maya
8 2 (0.096%) Trello
9 1 (0.048%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.048%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.048%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.048%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 79 (3.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 58 (2.78%) Oracle EBS
3 20 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (0.72%) SAP CO
4 15 (0.72%) SAP FI
5 14 (0.67%) SAP FI/CO
6 11 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
7 8 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Manufacturing
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Payroll
8 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.29%) SAP MDG
8 6 (0.29%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.24%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
9 5 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.24%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 353 (16.94%) Azure
2 332 (15.93%) AWS
3 130 (6.24%) Power Platform
4 106 (5.09%) GCP
5 78 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
6 68 (3.26%) GitHub
7 63 (3.02%) Serverless
8 52 (2.50%) OCI
9 48 (2.30%) Entra ID
10 47 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
11 43 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
12 40 (1.92%) SaaS
13 38 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
14 37 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
15 35 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
16 33 (1.58%) Amazon S3
17 30 (1.44%) Snowflake
18 28 (1.34%) Power Automate
19 27 (1.30%) Amazon ECS
19 27 (1.30%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.10%) Firewall
2 21 (1.01%) DNS
3 17 (0.82%) Network Security
4 16 (0.77%) WAN
5 15 (0.72%) VPN
6 13 (0.62%) LAN
6 13 (0.62%) SD-WAN
7 7 (0.34%) TCP/IP
7 7 (0.34%) VoIP
8 6 (0.29%) Internet
8 6 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.24%) SSL
9 5 (0.24%) VLAN
9 5 (0.24%) Wireless
10 4 (0.19%) Broadband
10 4 (0.19%) Cisco IPT
10 4 (0.19%) DHCP
10 4 (0.19%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.14%) MVNO
11 3 (0.14%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (4.99%) Power BI
2 45 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
3 44 (2.11%) MongoDB
4 33 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.25%) Metadata
6 25 (1.20%) SQL Server
7 24 (1.15%) Tableau
8 23 (1.10%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 20 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
11 19 (0.91%) Relational Database
12 18 (0.86%) Big Data
12 18 (0.86%) DynamoDB
13 17 (0.82%) NoSQL
14 12 (0.58%) SAP HANA
15 11 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
16 10 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 9 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
17 9 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
17 9 (0.43%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 134 (6.43%) JIRA
2 82 (3.93%) Jenkins
3 61 (2.93%) GitLab
4 42 (2.02%) Selenium
5 39 (1.87%) Git
6 24 (1.15%) Postman
7 18 (0.86%) REST Assured
8 17 (0.82%) Cypress.io
9 16 (0.77%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.62%) CircleCI
10 13 (0.62%) JUnit
10 13 (0.62%) SonarQube
11 11 (0.53%) TestRail
12 8 (0.38%) Maven
13 7 (0.34%) Mockito
14 6 (0.29%) Storybook
15 5 (0.24%) Bitbucket
15 5 (0.24%) Liquibase
15 5 (0.24%) Snyk
15 5 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 607 (29.13%) Social Skills
2 435 (20.87%) Finance
3 281 (13.48%) Public Sector
4 170 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (5.09%) Banking
6 69 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
7 57 (2.74%) Manufacturing
8 51 (2.45%) Marketing
9 50 (2.40%) Retail
10 40 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 36 (1.73%) Legal
12 34 (1.63%) Telecoms
13 32 (1.54%) Local Government
14 30 (1.44%) Pharmaceutical
15 29 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (1.34%) Military
17 24 (1.15%) Front Office
18 22 (1.06%) Law
19 21 (1.01%) Aerospace
19 21 (1.01%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.45%) Kafka
2 63 (3.02%) React
3 57 (2.74%) .NET
3 57 (2.74%) Node.js
4 56 (2.69%) Oracle Fusion
4 56 (2.69%) REST
5 45 (2.16%) Spring
6 43 (2.06%) Spring Boot
7 36 (1.73%) RESTful
8 31 (1.49%) SOAP
9 30 (1.44%) HTML
10 27 (1.30%) AngularJS
11 25 (1.20%) CSS
11 25 (1.20%) Playwright
12 23 (1.10%) GraphQL
13 22 (1.06%) OAuth
13 22 (1.06%) PySpark
13 22 (1.06%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.86%) LangChain
14 18 (0.86%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 80 (3.84%) Cloud Native
1 80 (3.84%) Product Ownership
2 56 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
3 46 (2.21%) Onboarding
4 38 (1.82%) Data Structures
5 29 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
6 27 (1.30%) Management Information System
6 27 (1.30%) Virtual Team
7 24 (1.15%) Data Centre
8 22 (1.06%) NHS
9 21 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
11 18 (0.86%) Algorithms
12 17 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
12 17 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
14 14 (0.67%) Mobile App
15 13 (0.62%) Distributed Systems
15 13 (0.62%) Fixed Income
15 13 (0.62%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 60 (2.88%) Windows
2 45 (2.16%) Linux
3 19 (0.91%) Unix
4 12 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 11 (0.53%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.48%) Android
6 10 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.38%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.29%) CentOS
9 5 (0.24%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.24%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.096%) AIX
10 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.048%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 475 (22.79%) Agile
2 358 (17.18%) Stakeholder Management
3 272 (13.05%) DevOps
4 266 (12.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 260 (12.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 258 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
7 233 (11.18%) Migration
8 219 (10.51%) CI/CD
9 206 (9.88%) Mentoring
10 166 (7.97%) ITIL
11 163 (7.82%) Technical Leadership
12 162 (7.77%) AI
13 149 (7.15%) Change Management
14 148 (7.10%) Business Intelligence
15 146 (7.01%) Decision-Making
16 144 (6.91%) Analytics
17 143 (6.86%) Roadmaps
18 140 (6.72%) Project Management
19 135 (6.48%) Data Migration
19 135 (6.48%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 202 (9.69%) Python
2 194 (9.31%) SQL
3 170 (8.16%) Java
4 75 (3.60%) JavaScript
5 53 (2.54%) TypeScript
6 38 (1.82%) C#
7 37 (1.78%) PowerShell
8 32 (1.54%) Bash
9 26 (1.25%) Go
10 12 (0.58%) Bicep
11 10 (0.48%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.43%) PHP
12 9 (0.43%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.34%) Apex Code
13 7 (0.34%) Korn
13 7 (0.34%) R
14 6 (0.29%) Ruby
15 5 (0.24%) ABAP
15 5 (0.24%) C++
15 5 (0.24%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 391 (18.76%) Security Cleared
2 309 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 160 (7.68%) Degree
4 43 (2.06%) DV Cleared
5 40 (1.92%) Master's Degree
6 34 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (1.54%) CISSP
8 28 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
9 27 (1.30%) CISM
10 24 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
11 21 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 17 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (0.82%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 16 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.77%) PhD
13 16 (0.77%) PMP
14 14 (0.67%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.58%) CCNP
15 12 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (6.57%) QA
2 94 (4.51%) GDPR
3 91 (4.37%) Data Quality
4 64 (3.07%) PMO
5 57 (2.74%) Accessibility
6 45 (2.16%) NIST
7 43 (2.06%) SLA
8 40 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 29 (1.39%) NCSC
10 20 (0.96%) GRC
11 17 (0.82%) JSP 440
12 16 (0.77%) COBIT
13 14 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.53%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.48%) WCAG
17 9 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.43%) PCI DSS
18 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
19 7 (0.34%) GxP
System Software
1 86 (4.13%) Docker
2 38 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.43%) Firmware
5 6 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.19%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.096%) IAG
8 2 (0.096%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.096%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.096%) vSphere
9 1 (0.048%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 152 (7.29%) Terraform
2 94 (4.51%) Kubernetes
3 37 (1.78%) Ansible
4 23 (1.10%) Grafana
4 23 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 14 (0.67%) SCCM
6 13 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (0.58%) HP ALM
8 11 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 10 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.38%) Argo
10 8 (0.38%) Packer
11 7 (0.34%) QRadar
12 4 (0.19%) CloudHub
12 4 (0.19%) CSIRT
12 4 (0.19%) Istio
13 2 (0.096%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (0.096%) CASB
13 2 (0.096%) CEMLI
13 2 (0.096%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 208 (9.98%) Microsoft
2 194 (9.31%) Oracle
3 169 (8.11%) SAP
4 67 (3.21%) Google
5 60 (2.88%) Salesforce
6 56 (2.69%) Databricks
7 54 (2.59%) ServiceNow
8 29 (1.39%) Workday
9 25 (1.20%) Splunk
10 24 (1.15%) MuleSoft
10 24 (1.15%) VMware
11 19 (0.91%) Adobe
12 18 (0.86%) Palo Alto
13 16 (0.77%) Citrix
13 16 (0.77%) Guidewire
14 14 (0.67%) Pega
15 13 (0.62%) Cisco
15 13 (0.62%) Conga
15 13 (0.62%) CyberArk
16 12 (0.58%) HP