Lead Contract Job Trends in Scotland

Leader
UK > Scotland

The median Leader daily rate in Scotland is £475, 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 44 44 36
Rank change year-on-year 0 -8 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 71 80 133
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 4.63% 4.75% 5.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.16% 5.19% 5.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 48 89
10th Percentile £400 £397 £397
25th Percentile £413 £469 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £569 £525
Median % change year-on-year -16.52% +8.38% -
75th Percentile £639 £688 £601
90th Percentile £734 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £550 £590 £575
% change year-on-year -6.78% +2.61% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - £24.08
25th Percentile - - £25.90
Median hourly rate - - £28.94
75th Percentile - - £31.97
90th Percentile - - £33.79
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +8.27% - +28.28%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Scotland

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Scotland. 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 Scotland with a recognized job title 1,377 1,540 2,236
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.77% 91.39% 94.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 812 932 1,386
10th Percentile £213 £204 £240
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +0.89% -7.69% +2.63%
75th Percentile £543 £538 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 45 57
10th Percentile £16.62 £13.23 £12.21
25th Percentile £19.63 £16.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £24.09 £23.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% +17.95% +10.05%
75th Percentile £43.30 £24.18 £60.00
90th Percentile £63.60 £32.05 £67.00
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 Scotland

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

Lead job vacancy trend in Scotland

Lead
Daily Rate Trend in Scotland

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Scotland

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in Scotland

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

Daily rate histogram for Lead in Scotland

Lead
Hourly Rate Trend in Scotland

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Scotland

Lead
Contract Job Locations in Scotland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the Scotland 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
Glasgow +10 35 £447 -18.73% 29
Edinburgh -8 27 £500 -13.04% 31
Perthshire +2 3 £633 +10.00%
South Lanarkshire - 2 £602 - 1
Moray - 1 - -
Fife - 1 £43 - 1
Lead
UK

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

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 Scotland region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 26 (36.62%) AWS
2 20 (28.17%) Agile
3 15 (21.13%) CI/CD
3 15 (21.13%) TypeScript
4 12 (16.90%) GitHub
4 12 (16.90%) Stakeholder Management
5 11 (15.49%) Infrastructure as Code
5 11 (15.49%) Migration
5 11 (15.49%) Security Cleared
6 10 (14.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 10 (14.08%) Cybersecurity
6 10 (14.08%) Degree
6 10 (14.08%) Java
6 10 (14.08%) Kubernetes
6 10 (14.08%) Oracle
6 10 (14.08%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (14.08%) Roadmaps
6 10 (14.08%) Terraform
7 9 (12.68%) Continuous Delivery
7 9 (12.68%) Grafana
7 9 (12.68%) Microsoft
8 8 (11.27%) Continuous Integration
8 8 (11.27%) Domain-Driven Design
8 8 (11.27%) Mentoring
8 8 (11.27%) React
8 8 (11.27%) SC Cleared
8 8 (11.27%) TDD
9 7 (9.86%) Accessibility
9 7 (9.86%) CircleCI
9 7 (9.86%) Data Warehouse

Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Scotland 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 7 (9.86%) WebLogic
2 5 (7.04%) Apache
3 3 (4.23%) Apache Spark
3 3 (4.23%) Confluence
4 2 (2.82%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (2.82%) Tomcat
5 1 (1.41%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 1 (1.41%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (5.63%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (4.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (2.82%) Chatbot
3 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (2.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.41%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (2.82%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.41%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 26 (36.62%) AWS
2 12 (16.90%) GitHub
3 7 (9.86%) GitHub Actions
4 6 (8.45%) Amazon S3
4 6 (8.45%) AWS CloudFormation
4 6 (8.45%) AWS Lambda
4 6 (8.45%) Azure
4 6 (8.45%) Serverless
5 4 (5.63%) Amazon SageMaker
5 4 (5.63%) Power Platform
6 3 (4.23%) OCI
7 2 (2.82%) Amazon Bedrock
7 2 (2.82%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (2.82%) AWS Step Functions
7 2 (2.82%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (1.41%) GCP
8 1 (1.41%) OneDrive
8 1 (1.41%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.82%) DNS
1 2 (2.82%) TCP/IP
2 1 (1.41%) Firewall
2 1 (1.41%) Internet
2 1 (1.41%) Intrusion Detection
2 1 (1.41%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (9.86%) Data Warehouse
1 7 (9.86%) SQL Server
2 5 (7.04%) Data Lake
2 5 (7.04%) Oracle Database
3 4 (5.63%) Amazon Aurora
3 4 (5.63%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (5.63%) Power BI
3 4 (5.63%) Relational Database
4 3 (4.23%) Delta Lake
5 2 (2.82%) Amazon Athena
5 2 (2.82%) Tableau
6 1 (1.41%) Metadata
6 1 (1.41%) MySQL
6 1 (1.41%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 7 (9.86%) CircleCI
1 7 (9.86%) JIRA
2 5 (7.04%) Oracle Forms
3 4 (5.63%) Cypress.io
3 4 (5.63%) Subversion
4 3 (4.23%) Git
4 3 (4.23%) MLflow
5 2 (2.82%) GitLab
5 2 (2.82%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (1.41%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.41%) git-flow
6 1 (1.41%) Selenium
General
1 22 (30.99%) Social Skills
2 18 (25.35%) Finance
3 14 (19.72%) Public Sector
4 7 (9.86%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (9.86%) Banking
5 6 (8.45%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.82%) Retail Banking
7 1 (1.41%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.41%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.41%) Military
7 1 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.41%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (11.27%) React
2 5 (7.04%) Next.js
2 5 (7.04%) Node.js
3 4 (5.63%) AngularJS
3 4 (5.63%) AWS CDK
3 4 (5.63%) CSS
3 4 (5.63%) HTML
3 4 (5.63%) Spring
3 4 (5.63%) Spring Boot
4 3 (4.23%) .NET
4 3 (4.23%) PySpark
5 2 (2.82%) Hugging Face
5 2 (2.82%) LangChain
5 2 (2.82%) OpenID
5 2 (2.82%) SailPoint
5 2 (2.82%) SAML
5 2 (2.82%) SOAP
5 2 (2.82%) Thymeleaf
5 2 (2.82%) Web Services
5 2 (2.82%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (11.27%) Legacy Systems
2 5 (7.04%) Algorithms
3 3 (4.23%) Cloud Native
3 3 (4.23%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (4.23%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.82%) Cyberattack
4 2 (2.82%) FMCG
4 2 (2.82%) PKI
4 2 (2.82%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (2.82%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.41%) Cyber Security Posture
5 1 (1.41%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (1.41%) Digital Media
5 1 (1.41%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.41%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.41%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (8.45%) Windows
2 5 (7.04%) Linux
3 1 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (28.17%) Agile
2 15 (21.13%) CI/CD
3 12 (16.90%) Stakeholder Management
4 11 (15.49%) Infrastructure as Code
4 11 (15.49%) Migration
5 10 (14.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 10 (14.08%) Cybersecurity
5 10 (14.08%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (14.08%) Roadmaps
6 9 (12.68%) Continuous Delivery
7 8 (11.27%) Continuous Integration
7 8 (11.27%) Domain-Driven Design
7 8 (11.27%) Mentoring
7 8 (11.27%) TDD
8 7 (9.86%) DevOps
8 7 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 7 (9.86%) Strategic Roadmap
9 6 (8.45%) Change Management
9 6 (8.45%) Technology Strategy
10 5 (7.04%) AI
Programming Languages
1 15 (21.13%) TypeScript
2 10 (14.08%) Java
3 7 (9.86%) JavaScript
4 6 (8.45%) SQL
5 5 (7.04%) Python
6 2 (2.82%) C++
6 2 (2.82%) PL/SQL
6 2 (2.82%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 11 (15.49%) Security Cleared
2 10 (14.08%) Degree
3 8 (11.27%) SC Cleared
4 3 (4.23%) AWS Certification
4 3 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.82%) CISSP
5 2 (2.82%) CompTIA CySA+
5 2 (2.82%) CompTIA Security+
5 2 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.41%) CBAP
6 1 (1.41%) CCNP
6 1 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.41%) CISM
6 1 (1.41%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.41%) MCSE
6 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.41%) PMI Certification
6 1 (1.41%) PMP
6 1 (1.41%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (9.86%) Accessibility
2 5 (7.04%) Disclosure Scotland
3 3 (4.23%) NIST
3 3 (4.23%) PMO
3 3 (4.23%) QA
4 2 (2.82%) Actionable Recommendations
4 2 (2.82%) COBIT
5 1 (1.41%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.41%) NCSC
5 1 (1.41%) NIST 800
System Software
1 3 (4.23%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 10 (14.08%) Kubernetes
1 10 (14.08%) Terraform
2 9 (12.68%) Grafana
3 7 (9.86%) Prometheus
4 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.82%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.41%) Host Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (1.41%) Nagios
Vendors
1 10 (14.08%) Oracle
2 9 (12.68%) Microsoft
3 3 (4.23%) CyberArk
3 3 (4.23%) Databricks
4 2 (2.82%) Atlassian
4 2 (2.82%) MobileIron
4 2 (2.82%) OpenAI
4 2 (2.82%) Remedy
4 2 (2.82%) Splunk
5 1 (1.41%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.41%) McAfee
5 1 (1.41%) Pega
5 1 (1.41%) Qualys
5 1 (1.41%) SAP
5 1 (1.41%) Thales
5 1 (1.41%) Veeam
5 1 (1.41%) Veracode