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 11 June 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
11 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 29 37
Rank change year-on-year -6 +8 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 715 1,145 1,204
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.38% 5.39% 5.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.88% 5.83% 5.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 631 818
10th Percentile £312 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £752
UK median daily rate £575 £575 £600
% change year-on-year - -4.17% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 109 49
10th Percentile £32.43 £15.00 £20.65
25th Percentile £50.00 £20.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £46.87 £55.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.35% -15.28% +31.73%
75th Percentile £86.50 £72.50 £65.75
90th Percentile £91.90 £75.25 £72.19
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £43.13 £55.00
% change year-on-year +62.29% -21.58% +16.03%

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 12,163 19,645 21,399
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.59% 92.46% 94.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,654 11,729 14,863
10th Percentile £216 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £591 £600
90th Percentile £650 £682 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £539
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.64% +2.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 910 2,508 1,094
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.63 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.95 £15.91 £18.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -5.88% +112.50%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.11 £75.50
UK median hourly rate £27.64 £37.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -26.29% -16.67% +80.00%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 -7 188 £525 -9.79% 670
South East -7 147 £550 - 1,007
South West -7 111 £625 +11.11% 253
North West -7 111 £525 -10.26% 388
Midlands -12 106 £524 -4.73% 281
West Midlands -8 80 £525 -6.67% 164
Scotland -13 77 £525 +5.00% 144
East of England +17 69 £560 +9.27% 215
Yorkshire -5 66 £500 -13.04% 202
East Midlands -7 23 £450 +46.34% 107
Wales +11 16 £305 -45.45% 55
North East 0 13 £565 +6.10% 85
Northern Ireland -23 2 £558 -3.04% 42
Lead
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 June 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.

1 251 (35.10%) Social Skills
2 188 (26.29%) Agile
3 138 (19.30%) Finance
4 127 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
5 114 (15.94%) Security Cleared
6 108 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
7 101 (14.13%) DevOps
8 95 (13.29%) SC Cleared
9 86 (12.03%) Mentoring
10 85 (11.89%) SAP
11 81 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
12 80 (11.19%) Azure
13 77 (10.77%) AWS
14 76 (10.63%) SQL
14 76 (10.63%) Migration
15 71 (9.93%) Project Management
16 65 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
17 64 (8.95%) Analytics
18 63 (8.81%) Microsoft
19 61 (8.53%) Oracle
19 61 (8.53%) Public Sector
19 61 (8.53%) CI/CD
20 60 (8.39%) Decision-Making
21 57 (7.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 57 (7.97%) Java
22 53 (7.41%) Degree
23 52 (7.27%) Project Delivery
24 50 (6.99%) Technical Leadership
24 50 (6.99%) Roadmaps
25 49 (6.85%) Risk Management

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 20 (2.80%) Confluence
2 8 (1.12%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.42%) CMS
5 2 (0.28%) Apache
5 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.28%) Camunda
5 2 (0.28%) IBM Domino
5 2 (0.28%) JBoss
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Service Bus
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.14%) Drupal
6 1 (0.14%) IIS
6 1 (0.14%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
6 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.70%) Adobe Captivate
6 4 (0.56%) Maya
6 4 (0.56%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.28%) Simulink
7 2 (0.28%) Trello
8 1 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.14%) CATIA
8 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 41 (5.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.96%) Oracle EBS
3 7 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.98%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.70%) Primavera
4 5 (0.70%) SAP CO
4 5 (0.70%) SAP FI
4 5 (0.70%) SAP FI/CO
4 5 (0.70%) SAP IBP
5 4 (0.56%) SAP ECC
5 4 (0.56%) SAP ERP
5 4 (0.56%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 4 (0.56%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.42%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.28%) BASE24
7 2 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.28%) Kondor
7 2 (0.28%) Maximo
7 2 (0.28%) SAP CRM
7 2 (0.28%) SAP GTS
Cloud Services
1 80 (11.19%) Azure
2 77 (10.77%) AWS
3 43 (6.01%) Power Platform
4 22 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (2.80%) Serverless
6 19 (2.66%) GitHub
7 18 (2.52%) Entra ID
8 17 (2.38%) SaaS
9 15 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (2.10%) OCI
9 15 (2.10%) PowerApps
10 14 (1.96%) GCP
11 13 (1.82%) Amazon S3
11 13 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
12 10 (1.40%) Amazon SQS
12 10 (1.40%) SuccessFactors
13 9 (1.26%) Snowflake
14 8 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
14 8 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
15 7 (0.98%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.80%) Firewall
2 8 (1.12%) DNS
3 7 (0.98%) DHCP
3 7 (0.98%) TCP/IP
4 6 (0.84%) Intrusion Detection
4 6 (0.84%) VPN
5 5 (0.70%) SSL
5 5 (0.70%) VLAN
5 5 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.42%) Network Security
7 2 (0.28%) ATM
7 2 (0.28%) DMZ
7 2 (0.28%) Ethernet
7 2 (0.28%) Internet
8 1 (0.14%) 3G
8 1 (0.14%) HTTP
8 1 (0.14%) MPLS
8 1 (0.14%) SAN
8 1 (0.14%) SDH
8 1 (0.14%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (3.22%) Power BI
2 18 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (2.38%) MongoDB
4 15 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (1.96%) Amazon RDS
5 14 (1.96%) Oracle Database
6 12 (1.68%) DynamoDB
7 10 (1.40%) Amazon Aurora
7 10 (1.40%) Metadata
8 9 (1.26%) Tableau
9 8 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 8 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
10 7 (0.98%) Data Lake
10 7 (0.98%) RDBMS
10 7 (0.98%) Relational Database
11 6 (0.84%) SQL Server
12 5 (0.70%) MySQL
13 4 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
13 4 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 4 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 47 (6.57%) JIRA
2 22 (3.08%) Jenkins
3 19 (2.66%) Git
4 15 (2.10%) JUnit
5 14 (1.96%) GitLab
6 10 (1.40%) Selenium
7 7 (0.98%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.98%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.84%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.84%) JMeter
8 6 (0.84%) Maven
8 6 (0.84%) Mockito
9 5 (0.70%) LoadRunner
9 5 (0.70%) NeoLoad
10 4 (0.56%) Postman
11 3 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
11 3 (0.42%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
12 2 (0.28%) MSTest
12 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
General
1 251 (35.10%) Social Skills
2 138 (19.30%) Finance
3 81 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 35 (4.90%) Banking
6 34 (4.76%) Pharmaceutical
7 24 (3.36%) Influencing Skills
8 23 (3.22%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.80%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (2.38%) Telecoms
11 16 (2.24%) Legal
12 15 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (2.10%) Marketing
13 13 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (1.54%) Retail
15 10 (1.40%) Automotive
16 9 (1.26%) Electronics
17 7 (0.98%) Aerospace
17 7 (0.98%) Military
18 6 (0.84%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.92%) Spring
2 27 (3.78%) Spring Boot
3 20 (2.80%) Oracle Fusion
4 19 (2.66%) Node.js
4 19 (2.66%) SOAP
5 18 (2.52%) .NET
6 16 (2.24%) CSS
6 16 (2.24%) React
7 15 (2.10%) REST
8 14 (1.96%) HTML
9 12 (1.68%) AngularJS
9 12 (1.68%) Kafka
10 11 (1.54%) Web Services
11 10 (1.40%) Middleware
11 10 (1.40%) RESTful
12 8 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
12 8 (1.12%) OAuth
13 7 (0.98%) .NET Core
13 7 (0.98%) ActiveMQ
13 7 (0.98%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 34 (4.76%) Product Ownership
2 29 (4.06%) Management Information System
3 20 (2.80%) Data Centre
3 20 (2.80%) Life Science
4 19 (2.66%) EPoS
5 16 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
6 12 (1.68%) NHS
6 12 (1.68%) Onboarding
7 10 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (1.26%) Security Posture
9 8 (1.12%) Cloud Native
10 6 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.70%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.70%) FMCG
11 5 (0.70%) Operational Technology
11 5 (0.70%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (0.56%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 31 (4.34%) Windows
2 30 (4.20%) Linux
3 11 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.12%) Unix
5 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.28%) VMS
6 2 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.14%) AIX
7 1 (0.14%) Android
7 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.14%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (26.29%) Agile
2 127 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
3 108 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 101 (14.13%) DevOps
5 86 (12.03%) Mentoring
6 76 (10.63%) Migration
7 71 (9.93%) Project Management
8 65 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
9 64 (8.95%) Analytics
10 61 (8.53%) CI/CD
11 60 (8.39%) Decision-Making
12 57 (7.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 52 (7.27%) Project Delivery
14 50 (6.99%) Roadmaps
14 50 (6.99%) Technical Leadership
15 49 (6.85%) Risk Management
16 47 (6.57%) Change Management
17 46 (6.43%) Scrum
18 42 (5.87%) Business Intelligence
19 41 (5.73%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.63%) SQL
2 57 (7.97%) Java
3 40 (5.59%) Python
4 25 (3.50%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.24%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.96%) PL/SQL
7 13 (1.82%) C#
8 12 (1.68%) TypeScript
9 6 (0.84%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.70%) C++
10 5 (0.70%) R
11 4 (0.56%) Bash
11 4 (0.56%) Bicep
12 3 (0.42%) ABAP
12 3 (0.42%) COBOL
12 3 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.42%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.42%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.42%) Objective-C
12 3 (0.42%) Swift
Qualifications
1 114 (15.94%) Security Cleared
2 95 (13.29%) SC Cleared
3 53 (7.41%) Degree
4 23 (3.22%) DV Cleared
5 17 (2.38%) Master's Degree
6 15 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.40%) AWS Certification
8 10 (1.40%) PMI Certification
9 8 (1.12%) PMP
10 4 (0.56%) APMG
10 4 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.56%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.56%) CISSP
10 4 (0.56%) HNC
10 4 (0.56%) HND
10 4 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.42%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.42%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.76%) Data Quality
2 33 (4.62%) QA
3 26 (3.64%) PMO
4 19 (2.66%) NIST
5 13 (1.82%) GDPR
6 9 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (1.12%) Def Stans
8 7 (0.98%) NCSC
8 7 (0.98%) SLA
9 6 (0.84%) Accessibility
9 6 (0.84%) NIST 800
10 5 (0.70%) Disclosure Scotland
10 5 (0.70%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.56%) GxP
11 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.42%) GRC
12 3 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.42%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.28%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 29 (4.06%) Docker
2 18 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.42%) Firmware
6 2 (0.28%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.28%) Postfix
6 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.28%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 41 (5.73%) Terraform
2 24 (3.36%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.54%) Ansible
4 10 (1.40%) Grafana
5 9 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.98%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.98%) Puppet
6 7 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.56%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.42%) SCCM
9 2 (0.28%) Data Guard
9 2 (0.28%) Dell DRAC
9 2 (0.28%) Kustomize
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.28%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.14%) Istio
10 1 (0.14%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.14%) Kiali
10 1 (0.14%) vRealize
10 1 (0.14%) VxRail
Vendors
1 85 (11.89%) SAP
2 63 (8.81%) Microsoft
3 61 (8.53%) Oracle
4 23 (3.22%) ServiceNow
5 20 (2.80%) VMware
6 15 (2.10%) Google
7 11 (1.54%) Adobe
7 11 (1.54%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.40%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.26%) Databricks
10 8 (1.12%) Dell
10 8 (1.12%) MuleSoft
10 8 (1.12%) Splunk
11 7 (0.98%) Ariba
11 7 (0.98%) HP
11 7 (0.98%) Red Hat
12 6 (0.84%) CyberArk
13 5 (0.70%) Autodesk
13 5 (0.70%) IBM
13 5 (0.70%) Informatica