Lead Contracts in the UK excluding London

Leader
UK > UK excluding London

The median Leader daily rate in the UK excluding London is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 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
9 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 29 36
Rank change year-on-year -6 +7 0
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 710 1,138 1,204
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.38% 5.40% 5.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.86% 5.84% 5.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 463 628 816
10th Percentile £312 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% -2.22% +7.14%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £753
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 £85.25 £72.50 £65.75
90th Percentile £90.32 £75.25 £72.19
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £43.13 £55.00
% change year-on-year +56.49% -21.58% +16.28%

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 12,109 19,476 21,428
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.68% 92.43% 94.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,617 11,646 14,878
10th Percentile £213 £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 £683 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 899 2,475 1,093
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.53 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.95 £15.86 £18.03
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 £74.22 £75.40
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £37.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -25.33% -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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -5 190 £525 -9.79% 676
South East -2 148 £550 - 1,064
North West -5 112 £525 -10.26% 389
Midlands -14 108 £524 -4.73% 299
South West -9 106 £625 +11.11% 297
West Midlands -7 81 £525 -6.67% 178
Scotland -15 73 £510 +2.00% 148
East of England +22 68 £555 +8.29% 215
Yorkshire -10 66 £500 -13.04% 205
East Midlands -6 24 £450 +46.34% 112
Wales +10 16 £305 -45.45% 67
North East +2 14 £558 +4.69% 87
Northern Ireland -23 2 £558 -3.04% 45
Lead
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 250 (35.21%) Social Skills
2 187 (26.34%) Agile
3 139 (19.58%) Finance
4 125 (17.61%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (15.21%) Security Cleared
6 106 (14.93%) Stakeholder Management
7 100 (14.08%) DevOps
8 89 (12.54%) SC Cleared
9 88 (12.39%) SAP
10 84 (11.83%) Mentoring
11 80 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
12 77 (10.85%) SQL
12 77 (10.85%) Migration
12 77 (10.85%) AWS
13 76 (10.70%) Azure
14 73 (10.28%) Project Management
15 65 (9.15%) Analytics
16 63 (8.87%) Decision-Making
17 61 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
17 61 (8.59%) Microsoft
18 60 (8.45%) Oracle
19 59 (8.31%) Public Sector
20 58 (8.17%) CI/CD
21 57 (8.03%) Java
22 56 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
23 52 (7.32%) Degree
24 51 (7.18%) Roadmaps
25 50 (7.04%) Project Delivery
25 50 (7.04%) Technical Leadership
26 49 (6.90%) Change 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 (2.82%) Confluence
2 8 (1.13%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.85%) 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%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAS
6 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
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 42 (5.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.97%) Oracle EBS
3 7 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.99%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.85%) SAP IBP
5 5 (0.70%) SAP CO
5 5 (0.70%) SAP FI
5 5 (0.70%) SAP FI/CO
6 4 (0.56%) Primavera
6 4 (0.56%) SAP ECC
6 4 (0.56%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.56%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 4 (0.56%) Teamcenter
7 3 (0.42%) SAP SD
8 2 (0.28%) BASE24
8 2 (0.28%) Finacle
8 2 (0.28%) Kondor
8 2 (0.28%) Maximo
8 2 (0.28%) SAP CRM
8 2 (0.28%) SAP GTS
Cloud Services
1 77 (10.85%) AWS
2 76 (10.70%) Azure
3 42 (5.92%) Power Platform
4 20 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (2.82%) Serverless
5 19 (2.68%) GitHub
6 18 (2.54%) Entra ID
7 17 (2.39%) SaaS
8 15 (2.11%) OCI
8 15 (2.11%) PowerApps
9 14 (1.97%) GCP
10 13 (1.83%) Amazon S3
10 13 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 13 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
11 10 (1.41%) Amazon SQS
11 10 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
12 9 (1.27%) Snowflake
13 8 (1.13%) Amazon ECS
13 8 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (0.99%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.54%) Firewall
2 8 (1.13%) DNS
3 7 (0.99%) DHCP
3 7 (0.99%) TCP/IP
4 6 (0.85%) Intrusion Detection
5 5 (0.70%) SSL
5 5 (0.70%) VLAN
5 5 (0.70%) VPN
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%) 2G
8 1 (0.14%) 3G
8 1 (0.14%) HTTP
8 1 (0.14%) MPLS
8 1 (0.14%) SAN
8 1 (0.14%) SNA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (3.38%) Power BI
2 19 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (2.39%) MongoDB
4 15 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (1.97%) Amazon RDS
6 12 (1.69%) DynamoDB
6 12 (1.69%) Oracle Database
7 11 (1.55%) Metadata
8 10 (1.41%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (1.27%) Tableau
10 8 (1.13%) Data Lake
10 8 (1.13%) NoSQL
10 8 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
11 7 (0.99%) RDBMS
11 7 (0.99%) Relational Database
12 5 (0.70%) MySQL
12 5 (0.70%) SQL Server
13 4 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 4 (0.56%) Electronic Patient Records
13 4 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 48 (6.76%) JIRA
2 22 (3.10%) Jenkins
3 18 (2.54%) Git
4 15 (2.11%) GitLab
5 13 (1.83%) JUnit
6 8 (1.13%) Selenium
7 7 (0.99%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.99%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.85%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.85%) JMeter
8 6 (0.85%) Maven
8 6 (0.85%) Mockito
9 5 (0.70%) LoadRunner
9 5 (0.70%) NeoLoad
10 3 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
10 3 (0.42%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.28%) Postman
11 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
12 1 (0.14%) Jaeger
General
1 250 (35.21%) Social Skills
2 139 (19.58%) Finance
3 80 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 35 (4.93%) Banking
6 34 (4.79%) Pharmaceutical
7 26 (3.66%) Manufacturing
8 25 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.96%) Presentation Skills
10 18 (2.54%) Telecoms
11 17 (2.39%) Legal
12 15 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (2.11%) Marketing
13 13 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (1.55%) Retail
15 10 (1.41%) Automotive
16 9 (1.27%) Electronics
17 7 (0.99%) Aerospace
18 6 (0.85%) Billing
18 6 (0.85%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.94%) Spring
2 27 (3.80%) Spring Boot
3 21 (2.96%) Oracle Fusion
4 19 (2.68%) SOAP
5 18 (2.54%) .NET
5 18 (2.54%) Node.js
6 15 (2.11%) CSS
6 15 (2.11%) React
6 15 (2.11%) REST
7 13 (1.83%) HTML
8 12 (1.69%) AngularJS
8 12 (1.69%) Kafka
9 11 (1.55%) Web Services
10 10 (1.41%) Middleware
10 10 (1.41%) RESTful
11 8 (1.13%) Elastic Stack
11 8 (1.13%) OAuth
12 7 (0.99%) .NET Core
12 7 (0.99%) ActiveMQ
13 6 (0.85%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 33 (4.65%) Product Ownership
2 28 (3.94%) Management Information System
3 20 (2.82%) Data Centre
3 20 (2.82%) Life Science
4 19 (2.68%) EPoS
5 16 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
6 12 (1.69%) NHS
7 11 (1.55%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (1.27%) Cloud Native
9 9 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (1.27%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.70%) Data Structures
10 5 (0.70%) FMCG
10 5 (0.70%) Operational Technology
10 5 (0.70%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (0.56%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (0.56%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 30 (4.23%) Linux
2 27 (3.80%) Windows
3 9 (1.27%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.13%) 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%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (26.34%) Agile
2 125 (17.61%) Problem-Solving
3 106 (14.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 100 (14.08%) DevOps
5 84 (11.83%) Mentoring
6 77 (10.85%) Migration
7 73 (10.28%) Project Management
8 65 (9.15%) Analytics
9 63 (8.87%) Decision-Making
10 61 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
11 58 (8.17%) CI/CD
12 56 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 51 (7.18%) Roadmaps
14 50 (7.04%) Project Delivery
14 50 (7.04%) Technical Leadership
15 49 (6.90%) Change Management
16 45 (6.34%) Risk Management
17 44 (6.20%) Scrum
18 43 (6.06%) Business Intelligence
18 43 (6.06%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 77 (10.85%) SQL
2 57 (8.03%) Java
3 41 (5.77%) Python
4 25 (3.52%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.25%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.97%) PL/SQL
7 13 (1.83%) C#
8 12 (1.69%) TypeScript
9 6 (0.85%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.70%) C++
10 5 (0.70%) R
11 4 (0.56%) ABAP
11 4 (0.56%) Bash
11 4 (0.56%) Bicep
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
1 108 (15.21%) Security Cleared
2 89 (12.54%) SC Cleared
3 52 (7.32%) Degree
4 23 (3.24%) DV Cleared
5 17 (2.39%) Master's Degree
6 15 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.55%) PMI Certification
9 10 (1.41%) AWS Certification
10 8 (1.13%) PMP
11 5 (0.70%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.56%) APMG
12 4 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.56%) CISSP
12 4 (0.56%) HNC
12 4 (0.56%) HND
12 4 (0.56%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.42%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.93%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.51%) QA
3 26 (3.66%) PMO
4 18 (2.54%) NIST
5 13 (1.83%) GDPR
6 9 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (1.13%) Def Stans
7 8 (1.13%) SLA
8 6 (0.85%) Accessibility
8 6 (0.85%) NCSC
9 5 (0.70%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.56%) GxP
10 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 4 (0.56%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.42%) GRC
11 3 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.42%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.28%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 29 (4.08%) Docker
2 16 (2.25%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.28%) Firmware
5 2 (0.28%) Postfix
5 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.28%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 42 (5.92%) Terraform
2 25 (3.52%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.55%) Ansible
4 10 (1.41%) Grafana
5 7 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (0.99%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.99%) Puppet
5 7 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.56%) NetBackup
7 2 (0.28%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.28%) Kustomize
7 2 (0.28%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.14%) Control-M
8 1 (0.14%) Istio
8 1 (0.14%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.14%) Kiali
8 1 (0.14%) SCCM
8 1 (0.14%) vRealize
8 1 (0.14%) VxRail
Vendors
1 88 (12.39%) SAP
2 61 (8.59%) Microsoft
3 60 (8.45%) Oracle
4 23 (3.24%) ServiceNow
5 20 (2.82%) VMware
6 14 (1.97%) Google
7 11 (1.55%) Adobe
7 11 (1.55%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.41%) Atlassian
8 10 (1.41%) Databricks
9 8 (1.13%) Dell
9 8 (1.13%) MuleSoft
9 8 (1.13%) Splunk
10 7 (0.99%) Ariba
10 7 (0.99%) HP
10 7 (0.99%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.85%) CyberArk
12 5 (0.70%) Autodesk
12 5 (0.70%) IBM
12 5 (0.70%) Informatica