Lead Contracts in the UK excluding London

Leader
UK > UK excluding London

The median Leader daily rate in the UK excluding London is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 May 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
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 31 28 36
Rank change year-on-year -3 +8 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 686 1,183 1,270
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.37% 5.72% 5.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.83% 6.17% 5.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 702 873
10th Percentile £313 £363 £363
25th Percentile £438 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £570
Median % change year-on-year - -3.51% +9.62%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £760
UK median daily rate £575 £575 £600
% change year-on-year - -4.17% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 92 51
10th Percentile £41.43 £15.17 £20.86
25th Percentile £59.25 £26.75 £38.13
Median hourly rate £76.25 £65.00 £57.99
Median % change year-on-year +17.31% +12.09% +65.69%
75th Percentile £92.50 £72.88 £65.75
90th Percentile £99.59 £75.25 £69.50
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £60.00 £52.97
% change year-on-year +16.67% +13.27% +51.34%

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 11,771 19,161 22,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 92.57% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,545 11,699 15,818
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 836 2,248 1,160
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.79 £15.75 £18.08
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.22% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.71% -19.07% +94.45%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Lead in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the UK excluding London

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Lead in the UK excluding London

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the UK excluding London

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Lead in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the UK excluding London

Lead
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Lead in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Lead in the UK excluding London

Lead
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 within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 3 May 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
North of England -14 166 £525 -9.79% 469
South East -5 154 £575 +4.55% 607
Midlands -6 110 £521 -5.27% 247
North West -12 97 £528 -10.59% 305
South West -22 85 £638 +17.24% 226
Scotland -12 84 £550 +10.00% 87
West Midlands -5 81 £525 -9.68% 150
East of England +14 68 £550 -3.08% 177
Yorkshire -16 52 £516 -10.26% 123
East Midlands +10 27 £425 +102.38% 83
Wales +15 19 £305 -46.41% 55
North East +3 19 £550 +6.54% 46
Northern Ireland -22 1 £525 -10.64% 29
Lead
UK

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 3 May 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 UK excluding London region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 236 (34.40%) Social Skills
2 178 (25.95%) Agile
3 141 (20.55%) Finance
4 122 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
6 103 (15.01%) Security Cleared
7 86 (12.54%) SAP
8 83 (12.10%) Project Management
9 82 (11.95%) DevOps
10 81 (11.81%) SC Cleared
11 74 (10.79%) AWS
11 74 (10.79%) Public Sector
12 71 (10.35%) Roadmaps
13 70 (10.20%) Mentoring
13 70 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
14 67 (9.77%) Azure
15 62 (9.04%) SQL
15 62 (9.04%) Continuous Improvement
16 61 (8.89%) Oracle
16 61 (8.89%) Migration
17 60 (8.75%) Change Management
17 60 (8.75%) Analytics
18 56 (8.16%) CI/CD
19 52 (7.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 50 (7.29%) JIRA
20 50 (7.29%) Decision-Making
21 49 (7.14%) Java
22 48 (7.00%) Technical Leadership
23 45 (6.56%) Project Delivery
23 45 (6.56%) ITIL

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 17 (2.48%) Confluence
2 9 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.73%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.58%) Apache
5 3 (0.44%) Camunda
5 3 (0.44%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.29%) Apache Solr
6 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.29%) nginx
6 2 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.29%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.15%) CMS
7 1 (0.15%) IIS
7 1 (0.15%) Liferay
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Service Bus
7 1 (0.15%) SAS
7 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.15%) TPMS
Applications
1 17 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (1.17%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.15%) Adobe Captivate
5 1 (0.15%) CATIA
5 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.15%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 41 (5.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.46%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.87%) Kondor
4 5 (0.73%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.73%) SAP CO
4 5 (0.73%) SAP ERP
4 5 (0.73%) SAP FI
4 5 (0.73%) SAP FI/CO
5 4 (0.58%) SAP ECC
5 4 (0.58%) SAP IBP
5 4 (0.58%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 4 (0.58%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.44%) Finacle
6 3 (0.44%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.29%) BASE24
7 2 (0.29%) Maximo
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.29%) SAP GTS
7 2 (0.29%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 74 (10.79%) AWS
2 67 (9.77%) Azure
3 33 (4.81%) Power Platform
4 17 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (2.33%) Serverless
6 15 (2.19%) GCP
6 15 (2.19%) SaaS
7 14 (2.04%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.75%) OCI
9 11 (1.60%) Microsoft 365
9 11 (1.60%) PowerApps
9 11 (1.60%) SuccessFactors
10 10 (1.46%) GitHub
11 7 (1.02%) Amazon S3
11 7 (1.02%) Dynamics 365
11 7 (1.02%) PaaS
12 6 (0.87%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 6 (0.87%) Snowflake
13 5 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.73%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.48%) Firewall
2 10 (1.46%) DHCP
2 10 (1.46%) DNS
3 7 (1.02%) TCP/IP
4 6 (0.87%) VLAN
4 6 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
5 5 (0.73%) VPN
6 4 (0.58%) Intrusion Detection
7 3 (0.44%) Network Security
7 3 (0.44%) WAN
8 2 (0.29%) ATM
8 2 (0.29%) DMZ
8 2 (0.29%) Internet
8 2 (0.29%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.29%) SSL
8 2 (0.29%) VoIP
9 1 (0.15%) 3G
9 1 (0.15%) 802.11
9 1 (0.15%) MPLS
9 1 (0.15%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.92%) Power BI
2 18 (2.62%) MongoDB
3 13 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (1.90%) Metadata
4 12 (1.75%) Oracle Database
4 12 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (1.31%) MySQL
6 8 (1.17%) SQL Server
6 8 (1.17%) Tableau
7 7 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (1.02%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
8 6 (0.87%) DynamoDB
8 6 (0.87%) Electronic Patient Records
9 5 (0.73%) Data Lake
9 5 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (0.73%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.44%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.44%) RDBMS
10 3 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 50 (7.29%) JIRA
2 17 (2.48%) GitLab
2 17 (2.48%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.90%) Git
3 13 (1.90%) Selenium
4 10 (1.46%) Cucumber
5 8 (1.17%) JUnit
6 7 (1.02%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.87%) JMeter
7 6 (0.87%) Maven
8 5 (0.73%) LoadRunner
8 5 (0.73%) NeoLoad
9 4 (0.58%) Mockito
10 3 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
10 3 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
10 3 (0.44%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.44%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.29%) CA Gen
11 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 236 (34.40%) Social Skills
2 141 (20.55%) Finance
3 74 (10.79%) Public Sector
4 70 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (4.23%) Pharmaceutical
6 27 (3.94%) Banking
6 27 (3.94%) Influencing Skills
7 26 (3.79%) Presentation Skills
8 23 (3.35%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.92%) Legal
10 17 (2.48%) Telecoms
11 16 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (2.19%) Marketing
13 11 (1.60%) Law
14 9 (1.31%) Electronics
14 9 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
15 7 (1.02%) Retail
16 6 (0.87%) Billing
17 4 (0.58%) Aerospace
18 3 (0.44%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.64%) Oracle Fusion
2 24 (3.50%) Spring Boot
3 19 (2.77%) Spring
4 16 (2.33%) Node.js
5 15 (2.19%) Kafka
6 14 (2.04%) .NET
7 12 (1.75%) CSS
7 12 (1.75%) React
7 12 (1.75%) RESTful
8 11 (1.60%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.46%) HTML
9 10 (1.46%) SOAP
10 7 (1.02%) Web Services
11 6 (0.87%) REST
12 5 (0.73%) .NET Framework
12 5 (0.73%) LDAP
12 5 (0.73%) Lightning Web Components
12 5 (0.73%) Middleware
12 5 (0.73%) Swagger
13 4 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.52%) Product Ownership
2 28 (4.08%) Management Information System
3 21 (3.06%) Data Centre
4 20 (2.92%) Life Science
5 18 (2.62%) EPoS
6 16 (2.33%) Onboarding
6 16 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
7 15 (2.19%) NHS
8 13 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
10 9 (1.31%) Public Cloud
10 9 (1.31%) Security Posture
11 8 (1.17%) PMI
12 6 (0.87%) Data Protection Act
13 5 (0.73%) Cloud Native
13 5 (0.73%) FMCG
13 5 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
13 5 (0.73%) Virtual Team
14 4 (0.58%) Enterprise Storage
14 4 (0.58%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 38 (5.54%) Linux
2 30 (4.37%) Windows
3 11 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (1.17%) Unix
4 8 (1.17%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.58%) Windows 10
5 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (0.44%) CentOS
7 1 (0.15%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 178 (25.95%) Agile
2 122 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
3 108 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
4 83 (12.10%) Project Management
5 82 (11.95%) DevOps
6 71 (10.35%) Roadmaps
7 70 (10.20%) Mentoring
8 62 (9.04%) Continuous Improvement
9 61 (8.89%) Migration
10 60 (8.75%) Analytics
10 60 (8.75%) Change Management
11 56 (8.16%) CI/CD
12 52 (7.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 50 (7.29%) Decision-Making
14 48 (7.00%) Technical Leadership
15 45 (6.56%) ITIL
15 45 (6.56%) Project Delivery
16 41 (5.98%) Cybersecurity
17 40 (5.83%) ERP
18 38 (5.54%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 62 (9.04%) SQL
2 49 (7.14%) Java
3 42 (6.12%) Python
4 31 (4.52%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.33%) TypeScript
6 12 (1.75%) PL/SQL
7 11 (1.60%) PowerShell
8 9 (1.31%) C#
9 7 (1.02%) Shell Script
10 6 (0.87%) Bash
11 5 (0.73%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.58%) COBOL
13 3 (0.44%) ABAP
13 3 (0.44%) MATLAB
14 2 (0.29%) Bicep
14 2 (0.29%) C++
14 2 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.29%) Go
14 2 (0.29%) R
14 2 (0.29%) XPath
Qualifications
1 103 (15.01%) Security Cleared
2 81 (11.81%) SC Cleared
3 44 (6.41%) Degree
4 22 (3.21%) DV Cleared
5 17 (2.48%) Master's Degree
5 17 (2.48%) PMI Certification
6 15 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (1.46%) ISTQB
7 10 (1.46%) PMP
8 9 (1.31%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.02%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.58%) APMG
10 4 (0.58%) HNC
10 4 (0.58%) HND
10 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.44%) CISSP
11 3 (0.44%) ISEB
11 3 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.44%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.10%) QA
2 33 (4.81%) PMO
3 24 (3.50%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.60%) NIST
5 10 (1.46%) SLA
6 8 (1.17%) Accessibility
6 8 (1.17%) Def Stans
6 8 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.87%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.87%) GDPR
8 4 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 4 (0.58%) NCSC
9 3 (0.44%) GRC
9 3 (0.44%) GxP
9 3 (0.44%) NIST 800
9 3 (0.44%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.29%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
11 1 (0.15%) IFRS
System Software
1 21 (3.06%) Docker
2 18 (2.62%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.44%) vSphere
5 2 (0.29%) Postfix
5 2 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.29%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.15%) Apache ZooKeeper
6 1 (0.15%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 43 (6.27%) Terraform
2 24 (3.50%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.90%) Ansible
4 6 (0.87%) Grafana
4 6 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.73%) Packer
5 5 (0.73%) Puppet
6 4 (0.58%) NetBackup
6 4 (0.58%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.44%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.29%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.15%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.15%) Consul
9 1 (0.15%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.15%) Istio
9 1 (0.15%) linkerd
9 1 (0.15%) Rancher
9 1 (0.15%) vRealize
9 1 (0.15%) VxRail
Vendors
1 86 (12.54%) SAP
2 61 (8.89%) Oracle
3 44 (6.41%) Microsoft
4 22 (3.21%) VMware
5 17 (2.48%) Google
6 16 (2.33%) ServiceNow
7 13 (1.90%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.46%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.31%) Databricks
9 9 (1.31%) Dell
10 8 (1.17%) Ariba
10 8 (1.17%) MuleSoft
10 8 (1.17%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.02%) HP
12 6 (0.87%) Adobe
12 6 (0.87%) CyberArk
13 5 (0.73%) Cisco
13 5 (0.73%) IBM
14 4 (0.58%) 3PAR
14 4 (0.58%) Splunk