Lead Software Developer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Lead Software Developer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Software Developer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £695, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 398 352 405
Rank change year-on-year -46 +53 +89
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Software Developer 11 2 6
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.061% 0.013% 0.031%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.067% 0.014% 0.033%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 2 4
10th Percentile £574 £241 -
25th Percentile £666 £282 £207
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £695 £358 £209
Median % change year-on-year +94.31% +71.54% -61.74%
75th Percentile £703 £439 £283
90th Percentile - £484 £413
UK median daily rate £695 £683 £488
% change year-on-year +1.83% +40.00% -22.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,342 13,889 18,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.08% 92.35% 93.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,051 8,287 11,933
10th Percentile £210 £213 £213
25th Percentile £366 £363 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,641 813 1,199
10th Percentile £13.85 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.48 £20.24 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £33.52 £45.00
% change year-on-year -24.97% -25.51% +50.00%

Lead Software Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Lead Software Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Lead Software Developer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Lead Software Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Software Developer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Software Developer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Software Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Software Developer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Software Developer in the UK excluding London

Lead Software Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Software Developer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Software Developer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Software Developer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Software Developer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 17 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
Yorkshire - 7 £695 -
North of England - 7 £695 - 8
Scotland - 2 £600 -
South East - 1 - - 6
South West - 1 - - 5
Lead Software Developer
UK

Lead Software Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 17 December 2025, Lead Software Developer 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 UK excluding London region featuring Lead Software Developer in the job title.

1 7 (63.64%) Degree
1 7 (63.64%) Mentoring
1 7 (63.64%) TDD
1 7 (63.64%) TypeScript
2 6 (54.55%) Clean Code
2 6 (54.55%) Computer Science
2 6 (54.55%) Computer Science Degree
2 6 (54.55%) Performance Optimisation
2 6 (54.55%) Problem-Solving
2 6 (54.55%) Software Engineering
2 6 (54.55%) SOLID
3 4 (36.36%) Agile
3 4 (36.36%) Design Patterns
3 4 (36.36%) JavaScript
4 3 (27.27%) Java
4 3 (27.27%) Spring Boot
4 3 (27.27%) Subversion
5 2 (18.18%) Apache
5 2 (18.18%) AWS
5 2 (18.18%) Cybersecurity
5 2 (18.18%) Git
5 2 (18.18%) JIRA
5 2 (18.18%) Migration
5 2 (18.18%) PL/SQL
5 2 (18.18%) Relational Database
5 2 (18.18%) Security Cleared
5 2 (18.18%) SOAP
5 2 (18.18%) Spring
5 2 (18.18%) Spring Security
5 2 (18.18%) Spring Web Flow

Lead Software Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 2 (18.18%) Apache
1 2 (18.18%) Tomcat
Business Applications
1 1 (9.09%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 2 (18.18%) AWS
2 1 (9.09%) Azure
2 1 (9.09%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 1 (9.09%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (18.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (27.27%) Subversion
2 2 (18.18%) Git
2 2 (18.18%) JIRA
General
1 6 (54.55%) Social Skills
2 3 (27.27%) Public Sector
3 1 (9.09%) Aerospace
3 1 (9.09%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (9.09%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (27.27%) Spring Boot
2 2 (18.18%) SOAP
2 2 (18.18%) Spring
2 2 (18.18%) Spring Security
2 2 (18.18%) Spring Web Flow
2 2 (18.18%) Thymeleaf
2 2 (18.18%) Web Services
2 2 (18.18%) XML
3 1 (9.09%) HTML
3 1 (9.09%) Jest
3 1 (9.09%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 6 (54.55%) Algorithms
1 6 (54.55%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1 (9.09%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (63.64%) Mentoring
1 7 (63.64%) TDD
2 6 (54.55%) Clean Code
2 6 (54.55%) Computer Science
2 6 (54.55%) Performance Optimisation
2 6 (54.55%) Problem-Solving
2 6 (54.55%) Software Engineering
2 6 (54.55%) SOLID
3 4 (36.36%) Agile
3 4 (36.36%) Design Patterns
4 2 (18.18%) Cybersecurity
4 2 (18.18%) Migration
4 2 (18.18%) System Testing
4 2 (18.18%) User Acceptance Testing
5 1 (9.09%) BDD
5 1 (9.09%) Microservices
5 1 (9.09%) The Twelve-Factor App
5 1 (9.09%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 7 (63.64%) TypeScript
2 4 (36.36%) JavaScript
3 3 (27.27%) Java
4 2 (18.18%) PL/SQL
4 2 (18.18%) SQL
5 1 (9.09%) C
5 1 (9.09%) C++
5 1 (9.09%) PowerShell
5 1 (9.09%) Python
Qualifications
1 7 (63.64%) Degree
2 6 (54.55%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (18.18%) Security Cleared
4 1 (9.09%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (9.09%) PhD
4 1 (9.09%) SC Cleared
System Software
1 1 (9.09%) Docker
Vendors
1 1 (9.09%) Dell
1 1 (9.09%) MuleSoft
1 1 (9.09%) Oracle