Lead Contracts in the South West

Leader
England > South West

The median Leader daily rate in the South West is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 August 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
16 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 23 20 37
Rank change year-on-year -3 +17 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 114 190 161
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 5.99% 6.82% 4.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.73% 7.38% 5.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 86 106
10th Percentile £435 £281 £444
25th Percentile £550 £400 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £550 £625
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -12.00% +10.62%
75th Percentile £675 £660 £700
90th Percentile £729 £775 £769
England median daily rate £575 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -4.17% - +1.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 35 10
10th Percentile £43.88 £12.50 £32.04
25th Percentile £61.25 £58.13 £52.19
Median hourly rate £77.50 £70.00 £60.25
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% +16.18% +43.45%
75th Percentile £83.75 £72.50 £92.38
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.00 £101.25
England median hourly rate £71.25 £47.50 £51.00
% change year-on-year +50.00% -6.86% +5.27%

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 1,693 2,573 3,168
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 88.92% 92.35% 95.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 978 1,669 2,217
10th Percentile £225 £249 £300
25th Percentile £363 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% +2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £614 £638
90th Percentile £700 £700 £718
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 327 268
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.19 £17.64
25th Percentile £18.13 £40.00 £35.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -61.31% +4.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £72.50 £75.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £41.65
% change year-on-year -44.11% +8.04% +62.19%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the South West

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

Daily rate trend for Lead in the South West

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the South West over the 6 months to 16 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the South West

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the South West

Lead
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Lead in the South West over the 6 months to 16 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Lead in the South West

Lead
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 within the South West region over the 6 months to 16 August 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 -16 41 £575 +6.98% 62
Wiltshire +24 30 £569 -12.50% 8
Somerset -2 24 £650 +100.00% 23
Gloucestershire +2 9 £650 +26.83% 50
Dorset +1 6 £505 -18.88% 14
Devon +3 2 - - 4
Lead
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 August 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 South West region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 55 (48.25%) Security Cleared
2 47 (41.23%) SC Cleared
3 33 (28.95%) Social Skills
4 30 (26.32%) Finance
5 28 (24.56%) Agile
6 26 (22.81%) Public Sector
7 20 (17.54%) Mentoring
8 19 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 17 (14.91%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (14.04%) Collaborative Working
10 16 (14.04%) Project Delivery
11 15 (13.16%) Azure
11 15 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
12 14 (12.28%) AWS
12 14 (12.28%) DevOps
12 14 (12.28%) Systems Engineering
12 14 (12.28%) Decision-Making
12 14 (12.28%) Business Strategy
13 13 (11.40%) Management Information System
14 12 (10.53%) Risk Management
14 12 (10.53%) Enterprise Architecture
14 12 (10.53%) Contract Negotiation
14 12 (10.53%) Target Operating Model
15 11 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
15 11 (9.65%) Migration
15 11 (9.65%) Oracle
15 11 (9.65%) Project Management
16 10 (8.77%) Microsoft
16 10 (8.77%) Business Intelligence
16 10 (8.77%) Validation

Lead 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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (1.75%) Confluence
2 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
2 1 (0.88%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (4.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (3.51%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (3.51%) Primavera
2 2 (1.75%) BASE24
2 2 (1.75%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.88%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.88%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 15 (13.16%) Azure
2 14 (12.28%) AWS
3 5 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (3.51%) Power Platform
5 3 (2.63%) GitHub
5 3 (2.63%) Snowflake
6 2 (1.75%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.88%) Amazon Cognito
7 1 (0.88%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (0.88%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (0.88%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.88%) AWS Control Tower
7 1 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.88%) Boomi
7 1 (0.88%) dbt
7 1 (0.88%) GCP
7 1 (0.88%) OneDrive
7 1 (0.88%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.75%) ATM
1 2 (1.75%) DNS
2 1 (0.88%) DHCP
2 1 (0.88%) HTTP
2 1 (0.88%) LAN
2 1 (0.88%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.88%) VoIP
2 1 (0.88%) VPN
2 1 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (6.14%) Oracle Database
2 4 (3.51%) Metadata
2 4 (3.51%) Power BI
3 2 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (1.75%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.75%) NonStop SQL
3 2 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (1.75%) Redis
3 2 (1.75%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.88%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.88%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.88%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.88%) RDBMS
4 1 (0.88%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 5 (4.39%) Jenkins
2 4 (3.51%) Cucumber
2 4 (3.51%) Cypress.io
2 4 (3.51%) JIRA
3 3 (2.63%) GitLab
4 1 (0.88%) Git
4 1 (0.88%) Pa11y
4 1 (0.88%) VersaTest
General
1 33 (28.95%) Social Skills
2 30 (26.32%) Finance
3 26 (22.81%) Public Sector
4 10 (8.77%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (7.89%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (7.89%) Telecoms
6 8 (7.02%) Marketing
7 6 (5.26%) Electronics
7 6 (5.26%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.63%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.75%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.75%) Banking
9 2 (1.75%) Local Government
9 2 (1.75%) Retail
9 2 (1.75%) Tech for Good
10 1 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.88%) Military
10 1 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.39%) .NET
2 4 (3.51%) OAuth
3 3 (2.63%) .NET Core
3 3 (2.63%) Middleware
3 3 (2.63%) Node.js
3 3 (2.63%) OAuth2
3 3 (2.63%) SOAP
3 3 (2.63%) Spring
3 3 (2.63%) Spring Boot
3 3 (2.63%) Spring Security
4 2 (1.75%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.75%) Hugging Face
4 2 (1.75%) PyTorch
4 2 (1.75%) React
4 2 (1.75%) RESTful
4 2 (1.75%) Web Services
5 1 (0.88%) Kafka
5 1 (0.88%) OpenID
5 1 (0.88%) REST
5 1 (0.88%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (11.40%) Management Information System
2 6 (5.26%) Hybrid Cloud
3 5 (4.39%) Product Ownership
4 4 (3.51%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (3.51%) Operational Technology
4 4 (3.51%) Private Cloud
5 3 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 2 (1.75%) EMV
6 2 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.88%) Credit Risk
7 1 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.88%) Marketing Technology
7 1 (0.88%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.88%) PKI
7 1 (0.88%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 9 (7.89%) Windows
2 6 (5.26%) Linux
3 1 (0.88%) Android
3 1 (0.88%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.88%) CentOS
3 1 (0.88%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.88%) Unix
3 1 (0.88%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (24.56%) Agile
2 20 (17.54%) Mentoring
3 19 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 17 (14.91%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (14.04%) Collaborative Working
5 16 (14.04%) Project Delivery
6 15 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
7 14 (12.28%) Business Strategy
7 14 (12.28%) Decision-Making
7 14 (12.28%) DevOps
7 14 (12.28%) Systems Engineering
8 12 (10.53%) Contract Negotiation
8 12 (10.53%) Enterprise Architecture
8 12 (10.53%) Risk Management
8 12 (10.53%) Target Operating Model
9 11 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
9 11 (9.65%) Migration
9 11 (9.65%) Project Management
10 10 (8.77%) Business Intelligence
10 10 (8.77%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 7 (6.14%) Java
1 7 (6.14%) Python
1 7 (6.14%) SQL
2 5 (4.39%) JavaScript
2 5 (4.39%) PowerShell
3 3 (2.63%) C#
4 2 (1.75%) COBOL
4 2 (1.75%) TypeScript
5 1 (0.88%) Perl
5 1 (0.88%) Ruby
5 1 (0.88%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 55 (48.25%) Security Cleared
2 47 (41.23%) SC Cleared
3 8 (7.02%) Degree
3 8 (7.02%) DV Cleared
4 4 (3.51%) AWS Certification
4 4 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.75%) SAFe Agilist
6 1 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.88%) CISM
6 1 (0.88%) CISSP
6 1 (0.88%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.88%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.88%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (8.77%) PMO
2 9 (7.89%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.63%) NCSC
3 3 (2.63%) NIST
4 2 (1.75%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.75%) P3O
5 1 (0.88%) CRD IV
5 1 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.88%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.88%) GDPR
5 1 (0.88%) GRC
5 1 (0.88%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.88%) IFRS
5 1 (0.88%) IFRS 9
5 1 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.88%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.88%) SLA
5 1 (0.88%) WCAG
System Software
1 2 (1.75%) Docker
2 1 (0.88%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (6.14%) Terraform
2 6 (5.26%) Data Guard
2 6 (5.26%) Oracle RMAN
3 4 (3.51%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.75%) Grafana
4 2 (1.75%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 2 (1.75%) Puppet
5 1 (0.88%) Ansible
5 1 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (9.65%) Oracle
2 10 (8.77%) Microsoft
3 8 (7.02%) SAP
4 3 (2.63%) IFS
5 2 (1.75%) HP
5 2 (1.75%) MuleSoft
5 2 (1.75%) NVIDIA
5 2 (1.75%) Pega
6 1 (0.88%) Dell
6 1 (0.88%) IBM
6 1 (0.88%) Intel
6 1 (0.88%) Liquidlogic
6 1 (0.88%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.88%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.88%) SnapLogic
6 1 (0.88%) VMware
6 1 (0.88%) Workday