Lead Contracts in the Midlands

Leader
England > Midlands

The median Leader daily rate in the Midlands is £521, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 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
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 26 34
Rank change year-on-year 0 +8 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 112 142 196
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Midlands 5.85% 5.15% 5.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.49% 5.61% 6.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 96 142
10th Percentile £293 £253 £410
25th Percentile £406 £413 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £550 £555
Median % change year-on-year -5.27% -0.90% +5.71%
75th Percentile £594 £675 £694
90th Percentile £718 £775 £743
England median daily rate £585 £585 £600
% change year-on-year - -2.50% +2.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 8 1
10th Percentile - £22.68 -
25th Percentile - £27.63 £22.00
Median hourly rate £59.00 £39.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.28% +62.50% +40.02%
75th Percentile - £51.25 £26.00
90th Percentile - £62.88 -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £62.02 £55.00
% change year-on-year +12.87% +12.76% +57.14%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the Midlands. 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 Midlands with a recognized job title 1,725 2,532 3,256
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.13% 91.84% 94.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,147 1,707 2,290
10th Percentile £200 £213 £223
25th Percentile £356 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +3.26%
75th Percentile £552 £588 £588
90th Percentile £638 £688 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 213 128
10th Percentile £12.62 £11.84 £12.35
25th Percentile £14.00 £14.27 £15.21
Median hourly rate £18.82 £19.59 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.94% -2.05% +16.33%
75th Percentile £28.18 £35.00 £28.88
90th Percentile £35.58 £54.60 £61.50
England median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
% change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the Midlands

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead in the Midlands.

Daily rate trend for Lead in the Midlands

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the Midlands over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the Midlands

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Midlands

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Lead in the Midlands.

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the Midlands

Lead
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
West Midlands -2 83 £525 -11.76% 124
East Midlands +7 27 £425 +102.38% 63
Lead
England

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Midlands

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Lead 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 Midlands region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 47 (41.96%) Social Skills
2 35 (31.25%) Agile
3 30 (26.79%) Finance
4 27 (24.11%) Problem-Solving
5 24 (21.43%) SQL
6 23 (20.54%) Azure
7 21 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
8 20 (17.86%) Power Platform
9 18 (16.07%) Analytical Skills
10 17 (15.18%) DevOps
10 17 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
11 16 (14.29%) Project Management
12 15 (13.39%) QA
12 15 (13.39%) Decision-Making
13 14 (12.50%) Test Strategy
14 13 (11.61%) Business Intelligence
14 13 (11.61%) Oracle
14 13 (11.61%) Data Modelling
14 13 (11.61%) Change Management
15 12 (10.71%) Migration
15 12 (10.71%) Power BI
16 11 (9.82%) Roadmaps
16 11 (9.82%) Risk Management
16 11 (9.82%) Workflow
17 10 (8.93%) Scrum
17 10 (8.93%) ERP
17 10 (8.93%) Process Improvement
17 10 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 10 (8.93%) AWS
17 10 (8.93%) Technical Leadership

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Midlands 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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (1.79%) Confluence
2 1 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.89%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (3.57%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (2.68%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.89%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.89%) Dynamics AX
1 1 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.89%) Oracle Receivables
1 1 (0.89%) SAP Oil and Gas
1 1 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.89%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 23 (20.54%) Azure
2 20 (17.86%) Power Platform
3 10 (8.93%) AWS
4 8 (7.14%) PowerApps
5 4 (3.57%) Entra ID
5 4 (3.57%) SaaS
6 3 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (2.68%) GCP
6 3 (2.68%) Snowflake
7 2 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.79%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.79%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (1.79%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (1.79%) BrowserStack
7 2 (1.79%) OCI
7 2 (1.79%) Serverless
8 1 (0.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.89%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.89%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.89%) NetScaler
1 1 (0.89%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (10.71%) Power BI
2 6 (5.36%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (4.46%) SQL Server
4 4 (3.57%) Oracle Database
5 3 (2.68%) DynamoDB
6 2 (1.79%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (1.79%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.79%) IDMS
6 2 (1.79%) Metadata
6 2 (1.79%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.89%) Big Data
7 1 (0.89%) BusinessObjects
7 1 (0.89%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.89%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.89%) Power Query
7 1 (0.89%) SAP Data Services
7 1 (0.89%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (8.04%) JIRA
2 3 (2.68%) Git
2 3 (2.68%) Oracle Forms
2 3 (2.68%) Selenium
3 2 (1.79%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 2 (1.79%) Bitbucket
3 2 (1.79%) CA Gen
3 2 (1.79%) Cypress.io
3 2 (1.79%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.79%) JMeter
3 2 (1.79%) JUnit
3 2 (1.79%) Maven
3 2 (1.79%) Mockito
3 2 (1.79%) Postman
3 2 (1.79%) SoapUI
4 1 (0.89%) Bitbucket Server
4 1 (0.89%) jMock
4 1 (0.89%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.89%) SpecFlow
4 1 (0.89%) Zephyr
General
1 47 (41.96%) Social Skills
2 30 (26.79%) Finance
3 18 (16.07%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (8.93%) Public Sector
5 9 (8.04%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (7.14%) Law
7 7 (6.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (3.57%) Legal
8 4 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (3.57%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.79%) Local Government
10 1 (0.89%) Advertising
10 1 (0.89%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.89%) Banking
10 1 (0.89%) Games
10 1 (0.89%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.25%) .NET
2 6 (5.36%) Oracle Fusion
3 4 (3.57%) AngularJS
3 4 (3.57%) LDAP
4 3 (2.68%) SOAP
4 3 (2.68%) Spring
5 2 (1.79%) .NET Core
5 2 (1.79%) .NET Framework
5 2 (1.79%) ActiveMQ
5 2 (1.79%) Entity Framework
5 2 (1.79%) Hibernate
5 2 (1.79%) JPA
5 2 (1.79%) JSON
5 2 (1.79%) OLE
5 2 (1.79%) REST
5 2 (1.79%) RESTful
5 2 (1.79%) Spring Boot
5 2 (1.79%) Spring Cloud
5 2 (1.79%) Web Services
5 2 (1.79%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 7 (6.25%) Legacy Systems
2 6 (5.36%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (4.46%) Data Centre
3 5 (4.46%) Management Information System
3 5 (4.46%) Security Posture
4 4 (3.57%) Product Ownership
5 3 (2.68%) EPoS
5 3 (2.68%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.79%) PMI
7 1 (0.89%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.89%) Online Games
7 1 (0.89%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.89%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.89%) Social Media
7 1 (0.89%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 9 (8.04%) Windows
2 6 (5.36%) Linux
3 2 (1.79%) Unix
4 1 (0.89%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (31.25%) Agile
2 27 (24.11%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
4 17 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
4 17 (15.18%) DevOps
5 16 (14.29%) Project Management
6 15 (13.39%) Decision-Making
7 14 (12.50%) Test Strategy
8 13 (11.61%) Business Intelligence
8 13 (11.61%) Change Management
8 13 (11.61%) Data Modelling
9 12 (10.71%) Migration
10 11 (9.82%) Risk Management
10 11 (9.82%) Roadmaps
10 11 (9.82%) Workflow
11 10 (8.93%) ERP
11 10 (8.93%) Process Improvement
11 10 (8.93%) Scrum
11 10 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 10 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 24 (21.43%) SQL
2 8 (7.14%) Python
3 5 (4.46%) Java
4 3 (2.68%) C#
5 2 (1.79%) COBOL
5 2 (1.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 2 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.89%) Apex Code
6 1 (0.89%) Bash
6 1 (0.89%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.89%) Perl
6 1 (0.89%) R
Qualifications
1 8 (7.14%) Degree
2 6 (5.36%) Security Cleared
3 4 (3.57%) HNC
3 4 (3.57%) HND
3 4 (3.57%) SC Cleared
4 3 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.68%) ISTQB
4 3 (2.68%) PMI Certification
5 2 (1.79%) AWS Certification
5 2 (1.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 2 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.79%) ISEB
5 2 (1.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.89%) ACCA
6 1 (0.89%) CIMA
6 1 (0.89%) CIPFA
6 1 (0.89%) MBA
6 1 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.89%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (0.89%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (13.39%) QA
2 7 (6.25%) PMO
3 5 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 5 (4.46%) SLA
4 2 (1.79%) GDPR
4 2 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.89%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.89%) NIST
5 1 (0.89%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (6.25%) Active Directory
2 6 (5.36%) Docker
3 3 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.79%) Postfix
4 2 (1.79%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 5 (4.46%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.57%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (1.79%) Grafana
3 2 (1.79%) Prometheus
3 2 (1.79%) Terraform
4 1 (0.89%) Ansible
Vendors
1 13 (11.61%) Oracle
2 8 (7.14%) Microsoft
3 7 (6.25%) SAP
4 6 (5.36%) Atlassian
5 4 (3.57%) CyberArk
5 4 (3.57%) ServiceNow
6 3 (2.68%) VMware
7 2 (1.79%) Broadcom
7 2 (1.79%) Databricks
7 2 (1.79%) Google
7 2 (1.79%) Nintex
7 2 (1.79%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.79%) Siemens
8 1 (0.89%) Adobe
8 1 (0.89%) Civica
8 1 (0.89%) Concur
8 1 (0.89%) Dell
8 1 (0.89%) HP
8 1 (0.89%) IBM
8 1 (0.89%) Jaspersoft