Lead Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Lead Developer
England > South East

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the South East is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 September 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
26 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 161 168 203
Rank change year-on-year +7 +35 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 5 17 12
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 0.14% 0.38% 0.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.41% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 8 8
10th Percentile £533 £470 £493
25th Percentile £544 - £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £556 - £559
90th Percentile £568 £541 £588
England median daily rate £575 £650 £600
% change year-on-year -11.54% +8.33% +4.35%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. 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 South East with a recognized job title 3,169 4,170 5,295
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.67% 92.26% 94.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,052 2,480 3,575
10th Percentile £204 £245 £210
25th Percentile £363 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +1.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £613
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
England median daily rate £510 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -2.86% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 286 253
10th Percentile £13.25 £16.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £15.50 £28.13 £21.05
Median hourly rate £25.15 £58.17 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.77% +16.35% +105.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £75.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £71.50 £80.00 £75.67
England median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -44.11% - +73.08%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead Developer in the South East

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the South East

Lead Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the South East

Lead Developer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Developer within the South East region over the 6 months to 26 September 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
Surrey +6 4 £550 +10.00% 5
Thames Valley - 1 £550 - 11
Berkshire - 1 £550 - 6
Lead Developer
England

Lead Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 26 September 2025, Lead Developer 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 South East region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 4 (80.00%) Azure
1 4 (80.00%) DevOps
2 3 (60.00%) SDLC
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
2 3 (60.00%) TDD
2 3 (60.00%) C#
2 3 (60.00%) .NET
2 3 (60.00%) Azure Logic Apps
2 3 (60.00%) Azure DevOps
2 3 (60.00%) CI/CD
2 3 (60.00%) Technology Transformation
3 1 (20.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 1 (20.00%) NestJS
3 1 (20.00%) Full-Stack Development
3 1 (20.00%) Onboarding
3 1 (20.00%) C
3 1 (20.00%) Linux
3 1 (20.00%) PhD
3 1 (20.00%) C++
3 1 (20.00%) HTML
3 1 (20.00%) JavaScript
3 1 (20.00%) SQL
3 1 (20.00%) Subversion
3 1 (20.00%) Aerospace
3 1 (20.00%) Military
3 1 (20.00%) QA
3 1 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
3 1 (20.00%) Network Security
3 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
3 1 (20.00%) Node.js

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 4 (80.00%) Azure
2 3 (60.00%) Azure DevOps
2 3 (60.00%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) Network Security
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Subversion
General
1 1 (20.00%) Aerospace
1 1 (20.00%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (60.00%) .NET
2 1 (20.00%) AngularJS
2 1 (20.00%) HTML
2 1 (20.00%) NestJS
2 1 (20.00%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Cloud Native
1 1 (20.00%) Enterprise Software
1 1 (20.00%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (20.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (80.00%) DevOps
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
2 3 (60.00%) CI/CD
2 3 (60.00%) SDLC
2 3 (60.00%) TDD
2 3 (60.00%) Technology Transformation
3 1 (20.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 1 (20.00%) Full-Stack Development
3 1 (20.00%) Functional Testing
3 1 (20.00%) Mentoring
3 1 (20.00%) Microservices
3 1 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 3 (60.00%) C#
2 1 (20.00%) C
2 1 (20.00%) C++
2 1 (20.00%) JavaScript
2 1 (20.00%) SQL
2 1 (20.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (20.00%) Degree
1 1 (20.00%) PhD
1 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) QA