Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 437 332 440
Rank change year-on-year -105 +108 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 177 195 163
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.42% 0.66% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.46% 0.71% 0.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 140 127
10th Percentile £413 £450 £385
25th Percentile £508 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £600
75th Percentile £778 £699 £738
90th Percentile £850 £801 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £570 £550 £600
% change year-on-year +3.64% -8.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £96.21 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £102.00 -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 38,836 27,659 41,539
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.95% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,338 17,830 27,237
10th Percentile £310 £294 £270
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 872 2,505
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.81 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.95 £33.75 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% +3.24% -20.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +3.08% -1.20% -17.30%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Lead Developer job vacancy trend in the UK

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Lead Developer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer over the 6 months to 9 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Developer in the UK

Lead Developer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Lead Developer
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 9 March 2026. 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
England -103 140 £600 -4.00% 103
Work from Home -23 77 £700 +16.67% 70
London -72 77 £750 +15.38% 24
UK excluding London -79 63 £570 +3.64% 95
North of England -35 39 £572 -0.52% 24
North West -14 19 £570 -15.56% 18
Yorkshire -54 13 £695 +32.38% 3
Midlands -56 9 £529 -1.58% 17
West Midlands -50 8 £508 -11.65% 11
North East -5 7 £575 +21.05% 3
South East -56 7 £525 -16.83% 22
Scotland -3 3 £424 +36.47% 4
East of England - 3 £550 - 11
South West -28 2 £688 -7.09% 12

Lead Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 March 2026, Lead 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 featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 71 (40.11%) Agile
1 71 (40.11%) AWS
2 68 (38.42%) Java
3 60 (33.90%) Node.js
4 58 (32.77%) React
5 57 (32.20%) TypeScript
6 55 (31.07%) Azure
7 52 (29.38%) Python
8 51 (28.81%) JavaScript
9 50 (28.25%) Software Engineering
10 48 (27.12%) Mentoring
11 44 (24.86%) CI/CD
12 37 (20.90%) Redux
13 36 (20.34%) Full-Stack Development
13 36 (20.34%) Investment Management
13 36 (20.34%) Portfolio Management
14 32 (18.08%) DevOps
14 32 (18.08%) Docker
14 32 (18.08%) Kafka
15 28 (15.82%) GCP
15 28 (15.82%) GraphQL
15 28 (15.82%) Microservices
15 28 (15.82%) PostgreSQL
16 26 (14.69%) Containerisation
16 26 (14.69%) Security Cleared
17 24 (13.56%) Spring
18 23 (12.99%) SC Cleared
18 23 (12.99%) Spring Boot
18 23 (12.99%) SQL
18 23 (12.99%) Technical Leadership

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 8 (4.52%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.69%) ArcGIS
3 2 (1.13%) Appian
3 2 (1.13%) Confluence
3 2 (1.13%) IIS
3 2 (1.13%) JBoss
3 2 (1.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (1.13%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.13%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.56%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) CMS
4 1 (0.56%) LiveLink
Applications
1 2 (1.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Magento
1 1 (0.56%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 71 (40.11%) AWS
2 55 (31.07%) Azure
3 28 (15.82%) GCP
4 15 (8.47%) GitHub
5 12 (6.78%) GitHub Actions
5 12 (6.78%) Power Platform
6 10 (5.65%) Serverless
7 8 (4.52%) Amazon Bedrock
8 7 (3.95%) Amazon SQS
9 6 (3.39%) Azure AI
9 6 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (2.82%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (2.82%) Azure AKS
10 5 (2.82%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (2.82%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (2.26%) Amazon ECR
11 4 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
12 3 (1.69%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (1.69%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (15.82%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (4.52%) Relational Database
3 6 (3.39%) SQL Server
4 4 (2.26%) DynamoDB
4 4 (2.26%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.69%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (1.69%) Data Hub
5 3 (1.69%) Geospatial Data
5 3 (1.69%) GIS
5 3 (1.69%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.69%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.69%) Power BI
6 2 (1.13%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.13%) DocumentDB
6 2 (1.13%) EDRMS
6 2 (1.13%) MySQL
7 1 (0.56%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.56%) Redis
7 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.91%) Jenkins
2 9 (5.08%) GitLab
3 8 (4.52%) Git
4 7 (3.95%) JUnit
5 6 (3.39%) Mockito
6 5 (2.82%) JIRA
7 4 (2.26%) Maven
8 3 (1.69%) Gradle
9 2 (1.13%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.13%) CircleCI
9 2 (1.13%) Cypress.io
9 2 (1.13%) Liquibase
9 2 (1.13%) Selenium
9 2 (1.13%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.56%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.56%) Mocha
10 1 (0.56%) SpecFlow
10 1 (0.56%) Storybook
10 1 (0.56%) Vite
10 1 (0.56%) Xcode
General
1 43 (24.29%) Finance
2 36 (20.34%) Front Office
3 28 (15.82%) Public Sector
4 27 (15.25%) Social Skills
5 12 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (1.69%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.13%) Retail
8 1 (0.56%) Banking
8 1 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.56%) Local Government
8 1 (0.56%) Marketing
8 1 (0.56%) Military
8 1 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (33.90%) Node.js
2 58 (32.77%) React
3 37 (20.90%) Redux
4 32 (18.08%) Kafka
5 28 (15.82%) GraphQL
6 24 (13.56%) Spring
7 23 (12.99%) Spring Boot
8 16 (9.04%) REST
9 14 (7.91%) AngularJS
10 12 (6.78%) Vue
11 11 (6.21%) RESTful
12 10 (5.65%) .NET
13 8 (4.52%) LangChain
13 8 (4.52%) OAuth
14 6 (3.39%) Flutter
14 6 (3.39%) OAuth2
15 5 (2.82%) OpenID
16 4 (2.26%) .NET Core
16 4 (2.26%) SOAP
16 4 (2.26%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 36 (20.34%) Fixed Income
2 16 (9.04%) Cloud Native
2 16 (9.04%) Derivative
2 16 (9.04%) Equities
3 13 (7.34%) Product Ownership
4 8 (4.52%) Low-Code
5 6 (3.39%) Data Structures
6 5 (2.82%) Credit Risk
6 5 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.26%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.13%) Client/Server
9 2 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (1.13%) N-Tier
9 2 (1.13%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.13%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.13%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.56%) Animation
10 1 (0.56%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.08%) Apple iOS
2 8 (4.52%) Android
3 6 (3.39%) Linux
4 2 (1.13%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.13%) Unix
4 2 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (40.11%) Agile
2 50 (28.25%) Software Engineering
3 48 (27.12%) Mentoring
4 44 (24.86%) CI/CD
5 36 (20.34%) Full-Stack Development
5 36 (20.34%) Investment Management
5 36 (20.34%) Portfolio Management
6 32 (18.08%) DevOps
7 28 (15.82%) Microservices
8 26 (14.69%) Containerisation
9 23 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
10 22 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
11 20 (11.30%) Order Management
12 16 (9.04%) Asset Management
12 16 (9.04%) Fintech
12 16 (9.04%) Line Management
12 16 (9.04%) Test Automation
13 15 (8.47%) Infrastructure as Code
14 14 (7.91%) Event-Driven
15 13 (7.34%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 68 (38.42%) Java
2 57 (32.20%) TypeScript
3 52 (29.38%) Python
4 51 (28.81%) JavaScript
5 23 (12.99%) SQL
6 22 (12.43%) Go
7 14 (7.91%) C#
8 9 (5.08%) Kotlin
8 9 (5.08%) Swift
9 2 (1.13%) Bicep
9 2 (1.13%) Dart
9 2 (1.13%) Objective-C
9 2 (1.13%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.56%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.56%) C++
10 1 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.56%) R
10 1 (0.56%) Ruby
10 1 (0.56%) Scala
10 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 26 (14.69%) Security Cleared
2 23 (12.99%) SC Cleared
3 16 (9.04%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (5.08%) Degree
5 7 (3.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.13%) DBS Check
7 2 (1.13%) DV Cleared
7 2 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.26%) Accessibility
1 4 (2.26%) QA
2 1 (0.56%) GDPR
2 1 (0.56%) SLA
2 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (18.08%) Docker
Systems Management
1 21 (11.86%) Kubernetes
2 15 (8.47%) Terraform
3 3 (1.69%) Grafana
4 2 (1.13%) Ansible
5 1 (0.56%) HP Fortify
5 1 (0.56%) Kibana
Vendors
1 21 (11.86%) Microsoft
2 6 (3.39%) Foundry
3 5 (2.82%) Oracle
4 3 (1.69%) Adobe
4 3 (1.69%) Anaplan
4 3 (1.69%) ESRI
4 3 (1.69%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.13%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.56%) Apple
6 1 (0.56%) Ariba
6 1 (0.56%) Databricks
6 1 (0.56%) Google
6 1 (0.56%) Jaspersoft
6 1 (0.56%) Liquidlogic
6 1 (0.56%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.56%) SAP
6 1 (0.56%) Virgin Media