Lead Developer Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Lead Developer
North West > Manchester

The median Lead Developer daily rate in Manchester is £553, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025.

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

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 85 81 100
Rank change year-on-year -4 +19 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 6 2 6
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.53% 0.17% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.58% 0.19% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 2 6
10th Percentile £404 £600 £425
25th Percentile £474 £601 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £553 £602 £510
Median % change year-on-year -8.22% +18.04% -18.40%
75th Percentile £605 £605 £559
90th Percentile £650 £605 £597
North West median daily rate £525 £602 £494
% change year-on-year -12.79% +21.92% -21.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 1,038 1,074 1,497
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 93.96% 93.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 688 633 1,097
10th Percentile £302 £313 £300
25th Percentile £375 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £575 £584
90th Percentile £664 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 43 58
10th Percentile £17.17 £15.92 £15.42
25th Percentile £19.07 £21.25 £17.20
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +66.67% -2.50%
75th Percentile £30.07 £44.38 £49.75
90th Percentile £53.30 £65.00 £68.50
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £25.30 £35.00
% change year-on-year +17.00% -27.71% +74.43%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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 Manchester.

Lead Developer job vacancy trend in Manchester

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in Manchester

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer in Manchester over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Developer in Manchester

Lead Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in Manchester

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

For the 6 months to 13 December 2025, 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 Manchester region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 3 (50.00%) Java
1 3 (50.00%) Microservices
2 2 (33.33%) Azure
2 2 (33.33%) Data Protection
3 1 (16.67%) .NET
3 1 (16.67%) AngularJS
3 1 (16.67%) AWS
3 1 (16.67%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (16.67%) C#
3 1 (16.67%) Configuration Management
3 1 (16.67%) Continuous Deployment
3 1 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
3 1 (16.67%) Data Cleansing
3 1 (16.67%) Data Extraction
3 1 (16.67%) Data Integration
3 1 (16.67%) Data Transformation
3 1 (16.67%) ETL
3 1 (16.67%) Kafka
3 1 (16.67%) Linux
3 1 (16.67%) Mac OS X
3 1 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 1 (16.67%) Pair Programming
3 1 (16.67%) Parallel Processing
3 1 (16.67%) Performance Optimisation
3 1 (16.67%) PHP
3 1 (16.67%) React
3 1 (16.67%) Software Engineering
3 1 (16.67%) Spring
3 1 (16.67%) Spring Boot
3 1 (16.67%) SQL Server

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (33.33%) Azure
2 1 (16.67%) AWS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (16.67%) SQL Server
1 1 (16.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
General
1 1 (16.67%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (16.67%) .NET
1 1 (16.67%) AngularJS
1 1 (16.67%) Kafka
1 1 (16.67%) React
1 1 (16.67%) Spring
1 1 (16.67%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 2 (33.33%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (16.67%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (16.67%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (16.67%) Linux
1 1 (16.67%) Mac OS X
1 1 (16.67%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Microservices
2 2 (33.33%) Data Protection
3 1 (16.67%) Configuration Management
3 1 (16.67%) Continuous Deployment
3 1 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
3 1 (16.67%) Data Cleansing
3 1 (16.67%) Data Extraction
3 1 (16.67%) Data Integration
3 1 (16.67%) Data Transformation
3 1 (16.67%) ETL
3 1 (16.67%) Pair Programming
3 1 (16.67%) Parallel Processing
3 1 (16.67%) Performance Optimisation
3 1 (16.67%) Software Engineering
3 1 (16.67%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (16.67%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 3 (50.00%) Java
2 1 (16.67%) C#
2 1 (16.67%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) BPSS Clearance
Vendors
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft
1 1 (16.67%) Virgin Media
1 1 (16.67%) Wonderware