Lead Developer Contract Job Trends in the South West

Lead Developer
England > South West

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the South West is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 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
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 113 133 143
Rank change year-on-year +20 +10 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 9 7 12
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 0.46% 0.26% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.29% 0.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 5 6
10th Percentile £528 £523 £506
25th Percentile £531 £538 £555
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £563 £625
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% -10.00% +6.38%
75th Percentile £569 £613 £670
90th Percentile £573 £635 £681
England median daily rate £558 £640 £600
% change year-on-year -12.89% +6.67% +3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £52.50 -
England median hourly rate - £52.50 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 West with a recognized job title 1,761 2,454 3,096
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.21% 92.60% 95.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,017 1,483 2,111
10th Percentile £225 £225 £300
25th Percentile £363 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -4.65% +2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £713
England median daily rate £508 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 259 281
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.41 £18.28
25th Percentile £18.19 £40.00 £40.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £67.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -62.74% +12.50% +9.09%
75th Percentile £63.75 £72.50 £70.66
90th Percentile £68.53 £75.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -45.54% +2.62% +73.08%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead Developer in the South West

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Lead Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Lead Developer
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 19 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
Bristol +8 6 £550 -2.22% 8
Wiltshire +14 2 - - 1
Gloucestershire - 1 £550 - 3
Lead Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 West region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 7 (77.78%) Mentoring
2 6 (66.67%) Agile
3 4 (44.44%) PowerShell
3 4 (44.44%) Azure
3 4 (44.44%) Terraform
3 4 (44.44%) Public Sector
4 3 (33.33%) Project Delivery
4 3 (33.33%) Deployment Automation
4 3 (33.33%) Service-Level Objective
4 3 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (33.33%) .NET Core
4 3 (33.33%) Product Ownership
4 3 (33.33%) Continuous Delivery
4 3 (33.33%) OWASP
4 3 (33.33%) DevOps
4 3 (33.33%) SOLID
4 3 (33.33%) Marketing
4 3 (33.33%) Digital Marketing
4 3 (33.33%) Security Cleared
4 3 (33.33%) BDD
4 3 (33.33%) TDD
4 3 (33.33%) Pair Programming
4 3 (33.33%) Programme Management
4 3 (33.33%) Manufacturing
4 3 (33.33%) Electronics
4 3 (33.33%) Telecoms
4 3 (33.33%) Finance
4 3 (33.33%) Business Intelligence
4 3 (33.33%) Microsoft
4 3 (33.33%) C#

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West 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:

Business Applications
1 2 (22.22%) BASE24
2 1 (11.11%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 4 (44.44%) Azure
2 3 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (11.11%) AWS
3 1 (11.11%) Boomi
3 1 (11.11%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 2 (22.22%) ATM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (22.22%) NonStop SQL
2 1 (11.11%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (11.11%) Jenkins
1 1 (11.11%) VersaTest
General
1 4 (44.44%) Public Sector
2 3 (33.33%) Electronics
2 3 (33.33%) Finance
2 3 (33.33%) Manufacturing
2 3 (33.33%) Marketing
2 3 (33.33%) Telecoms
3 1 (11.11%) Aerospace
3 1 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (33.33%) .NET
1 3 (33.33%) .NET Core
2 1 (11.11%) Node.js
2 1 (11.11%) React
Miscellaneous
1 3 (33.33%) Product Ownership
2 2 (22.22%) EMV
3 1 (11.11%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (77.78%) Mentoring
2 6 (66.67%) Agile
3 3 (33.33%) BDD
3 3 (33.33%) Business Intelligence
3 3 (33.33%) Continuous Delivery
3 3 (33.33%) Deployment Automation
3 3 (33.33%) DevOps
3 3 (33.33%) Digital Marketing
3 3 (33.33%) OO
3 3 (33.33%) OWASP
3 3 (33.33%) Pair Programming
3 3 (33.33%) Programme Management
3 3 (33.33%) Project Delivery
3 3 (33.33%) Service-Level Objective
3 3 (33.33%) SOLID
3 3 (33.33%) TDD
4 2 (22.22%) Migration
4 2 (22.22%) Regulatory Change
4 2 (22.22%) Scrum
5 1 (11.11%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 4 (44.44%) PowerShell
2 3 (33.33%) C#
2 3 (33.33%) SQL
3 2 (22.22%) COBOL
3 2 (22.22%) Python
4 1 (11.11%) JavaScript
4 1 (11.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 3 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 2 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 1 (11.11%) DV Cleared
System Software
1 1 (11.11%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (44.44%) Terraform
2 1 (11.11%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (33.33%) Microsoft
1 3 (33.33%) SAP
2 2 (22.22%) HP
3 1 (11.11%) Dell
3 1 (11.11%) MuleSoft
3 1 (11.11%) Oracle