Lead Software Engineer Contracts in London

Lead Software Engineer
England > London

The median Lead Software Engineer daily rate in London is £800, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 360 311 465
Rank change year-on-year -49 +154 +86
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Software Engineer 15 65 8
As % of all contract jobs advertised in London 0.11% 0.40% 0.033%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.12% 0.42% 0.035%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 65 4
10th Percentile £613 £563 £475
25th Percentile £672 £725 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £800 £825 £508
Median % change year-on-year -3.03% +62.56% -27.50%
75th Percentile £850 £888 £512
90th Percentile - - £514
England median daily rate £738 £825 £600
% change year-on-year -10.61% +37.50% -14.29%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in 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 London with a recognized job title 12,674 15,337 22,789
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.96% 94.20% 94.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,579 10,876 16,694
10th Percentile £326 £346 £356
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £675 £688 £700
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 199 243
10th Percentile £17.98 £17.80 £18.55
25th Percentile £22.86 £22.00 £23.88
Median hourly rate £29.54 £33.07 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.69% -11.81% +12.78%
75th Percentile £50.50 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £72.50 £80.00
England median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year -42.22% +4.65% +67.45%

Lead Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Job postings that featured Lead Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in London.

Job vacancy trend for Lead Software Engineer in London

Lead Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead Software Engineer in London.

Daily rate trend for Lead Software Engineer in London

Lead Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Software Engineer in London over the 6 months to 4 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Software Engineer in London

Lead Software Engineer
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Software Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 4 August 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
Central London - 2 £769 - 1
Lead Software Engineer
England

Lead Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 4 August 2025, Lead Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the London region featuring Lead Software Engineer in the job title.

1 15 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 11 (73.33%) Agile
2 11 (73.33%) Java
2 11 (73.33%) Finance
2 11 (73.33%) AWS
3 10 (66.67%) Node.js
3 10 (66.67%) Python
4 9 (60.00%) JavaScript
4 9 (60.00%) Go
4 9 (60.00%) TypeScript
4 9 (60.00%) React
5 8 (53.33%) GraphQL
5 8 (53.33%) Redux
5 8 (53.33%) Kafka
5 8 (53.33%) Portfolio Management
5 8 (53.33%) Front Office
5 8 (53.33%) Fixed Income
5 8 (53.33%) Investment Management
5 8 (53.33%) Order Management
6 6 (40.00%) Full-Stack Development
7 3 (20.00%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (20.00%) Serverless
7 3 (20.00%) Azure
8 2 (13.33%) SC Cleared
8 2 (13.33%) Security Cleared
8 2 (13.33%) Scrum
8 2 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
8 2 (13.33%) Linux
8 2 (13.33%) CI/CD
8 2 (13.33%) Amazon ECS

Lead Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Cloud Services
1 11 (73.33%) AWS
2 3 (20.00%) Azure
2 3 (20.00%) Serverless
3 2 (13.33%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (6.67%) AWS CloudFormation
4 1 (6.67%) Azure Functions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (20.00%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (6.67%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 1 (6.67%) Git
1 1 (6.67%) JIRA
1 1 (6.67%) Storybook
General
1 11 (73.33%) Finance
2 8 (53.33%) Front Office
3 1 (6.67%) Advertising
3 1 (6.67%) Financial Institution
3 1 (6.67%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (66.67%) Node.js
2 9 (60.00%) React
3 8 (53.33%) GraphQL
3 8 (53.33%) Kafka
3 8 (53.33%) Redux
4 1 (6.67%) NestJS
4 1 (6.67%) Swagger
4 1 (6.67%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (6.67%) TypeORM
Miscellaneous
1 8 (53.33%) Fixed Income
2 1 (6.67%) Distributed Computing
2 1 (6.67%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 2 (13.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 11 (73.33%) Agile
3 8 (53.33%) Investment Management
3 8 (53.33%) Order Management
3 8 (53.33%) Portfolio Management
4 6 (40.00%) Full-Stack Development
5 2 (13.33%) CI/CD
5 2 (13.33%) Scrum
5 2 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 1 (6.67%) Change Management
6 1 (6.67%) Computer Science
6 1 (6.67%) High Availability
6 1 (6.67%) Information Architecture
6 1 (6.67%) Infrastructure Management
6 1 (6.67%) Kanban
6 1 (6.67%) OO
6 1 (6.67%) OOD
6 1 (6.67%) Process Improvement
6 1 (6.67%) Software Testing
6 1 (6.67%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 11 (73.33%) Java
2 10 (66.67%) Python
3 9 (60.00%) Go
3 9 (60.00%) JavaScript
3 9 (60.00%) TypeScript
4 1 (6.67%) C++
Qualifications
1 2 (13.33%) SC Cleared
1 2 (13.33%) Security Cleared
2 1 (6.67%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (6.67%) Degree
2 1 (6.67%) Master's Degree
System Software
1 1 (6.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (13.33%) Terraform
2 1 (6.67%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (6.67%) Oracle