Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £562, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 420 391 359
Rank change year-on-year -29 -32 +79
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 258 177 213
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.54% 0.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.59% 0.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 124 168
10th Percentile £453 £420 £463
25th Percentile £500 £500 £515
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £562 £550 £628
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% -12.35% +9.13%
75th Percentile £638 £703 £878
90th Percentile £750 £779 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £525 £544
% change year-on-year +9.52% -3.45% -5.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £51.25
Median hourly rate - - £52.50
75th Percentile - - £53.75
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £52.50

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 50,390 30,066 35,884
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,936 18,964 22,304
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,743 1,564 1,744
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.07 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.60 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 11 September 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 16 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 11 September 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 -95 175 £563 -2.17% 76
UK excluding London -56 102 £575 +9.52% 40
London -81 82 £550 -15.38% 48
Work from Home -99 64 £555 -7.50% 108
North of England -45 46 £650 +23.81% 4
North West -21 25 £575 +21.05%
Midlands -41 20 £513 +7.89% 12
Scotland -5 18 £475 -0.21% 4
North East -35 12 £650 +2.36% 1
West Midlands -46 11 £475 - 9
East Midlands -7 9 £550 - 3
Yorkshire -44 9 £625 +19.05% 3
South West -47 9 £525 -4.55% 4
South East -59 5 £600 +9.09% 8
East of England -29 4 £503 -4.29% 4
Wales - 2 £750 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 11 September 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 93 (36.05%) AWS
1 93 (36.05%) CI/CD
2 92 (35.66%) Agile
2 92 (35.66%) Security Cleared
3 78 (30.23%) SC Cleared
4 73 (28.29%) Java
5 64 (24.81%) DevOps
6 61 (23.64%) Azure
7 60 (23.26%) Microservices
8 59 (22.87%) Docker
8 59 (22.87%) Technical Leadership
9 57 (22.09%) Mentoring
10 50 (19.38%) SQL
11 45 (17.44%) JavaScript
12 44 (17.05%) Git
12 44 (17.05%) REST
12 44 (17.05%) Spring
12 44 (17.05%) Spring Boot
13 43 (16.67%) Node.js
14 40 (15.50%) Containerisation
14 40 (15.50%) Kubernetes
15 38 (14.73%) .NET
16 37 (14.34%) Code Quality
16 37 (14.34%) Full-Stack Development
17 36 (13.95%) Software Engineering
18 35 (13.57%) C#
19 32 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
20 31 (12.02%) Microsoft
21 30 (11.63%) BPSS Clearance
22 29 (11.24%) Test Automation

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 9 (3.49%) Confluence
1 9 (3.49%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.94%) IIS
3 4 (1.55%) Oracle Workflow
3 4 (1.55%) SAS
4 3 (1.16%) CMS
5 2 (0.78%) ThingWorx
6 1 (0.39%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.39%) nginx
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.39%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.39%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.16%) Remedy AR System
2 3 (1.16%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.39%) IntelliMatch
4 1 (0.39%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 93 (36.05%) AWS
2 61 (23.64%) Azure
3 25 (9.69%) Serverless
4 19 (7.36%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (5.04%) GitHub
5 13 (5.04%) Power Platform
6 11 (4.26%) GCP
7 9 (3.49%) Power Automate
8 8 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (2.71%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
9 7 (2.71%) SaaS
9 7 (2.71%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 6 (2.33%) Azure Functions
11 5 (1.94%) Amazon Cognito
11 5 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (1.55%) Azure Key Vault
12 4 (1.55%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (1.55%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.94%) HTTP
2 2 (0.78%) CTI
2 2 (0.78%) MQTT
3 1 (0.39%) DNS
3 1 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (9.69%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (7.75%) SQL Server
3 14 (5.43%) MongoDB
4 10 (3.88%) Relational Database
5 8 (3.10%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (2.33%) Oracle Database
6 6 (2.33%) Redis
7 5 (1.94%) MS Access
7 5 (1.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.55%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.55%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.55%) Metadata
8 4 (1.55%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.78%) Couchbase
9 2 (0.78%) GIS
9 2 (0.78%) Power BI
9 2 (0.78%) SAS Data Integration Studio
10 1 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.39%) Oracle Database 10g
10 1 (0.39%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 44 (17.05%) Git
2 27 (10.47%) Jenkins
3 20 (7.75%) Maven
4 16 (6.20%) JIRA
5 14 (5.43%) GitLab
6 13 (5.04%) JUnit
7 7 (2.71%) Mockito
7 7 (2.71%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (2.71%) SonarQube
8 6 (2.33%) GoCD
8 6 (2.33%) Gradle
9 5 (1.94%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (1.55%) JProfiler
10 4 (1.55%) Visual Studio
11 3 (1.16%) PVCS
11 3 (1.16%) Subversion
12 2 (0.78%) IntelliJ
12 2 (0.78%) MSI
12 2 (0.78%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.78%) tSQLt
General
1 74 (28.68%) Public Sector
2 46 (17.83%) Social Skills
3 30 (11.63%) Finance
4 14 (5.43%) Banking
5 13 (5.04%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (2.33%) Military
7 5 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.94%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.55%) Legal
8 4 (1.55%) Legal Technology
8 4 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.16%) Retail
9 3 (1.16%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.78%) Local Government
11 1 (0.39%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.39%) Front Office
11 1 (0.39%) Games
11 1 (0.39%) Law
11 1 (0.39%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (17.05%) REST
1 44 (17.05%) Spring
1 44 (17.05%) Spring Boot
2 43 (16.67%) Node.js
3 38 (14.73%) .NET
4 27 (10.47%) Terraform
5 25 (9.69%) React
6 23 (8.91%) HTML
7 21 (8.14%) Kafka
8 20 (7.75%) RESTful
9 17 (6.59%) AngularJS
10 15 (5.81%) CSS
10 15 (5.81%) SOAP
11 13 (5.04%) XML
12 10 (3.88%) HTML5
12 10 (3.88%) JPA
12 10 (3.88%) Vue
12 10 (3.88%) Web Services
13 9 (3.49%) Jest
13 9 (3.49%) Nunjucks
Miscellaneous
1 24 (9.30%) Cloud Native
2 14 (5.43%) Product Ownership
3 13 (5.04%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (3.88%) LIMS
6 8 (3.10%) Legacy Applications
6 8 (3.10%) Management Information System
7 7 (2.71%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.94%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.94%) Replication
8 5 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.94%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.55%) NHS
10 3 (1.16%) CMDB
10 3 (1.16%) Derivative
10 3 (1.16%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.16%) Taxonomies
11 2 (0.78%) Industrial Internet of Things
Operating Systems
1 12 (4.65%) Windows
2 4 (1.55%) Android
2 4 (1.55%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.16%) Linux
4 2 (0.78%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.78%) Unix
5 1 (0.39%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.39%) Solaris
5 1 (0.39%) VMS
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (36.05%) CI/CD
2 92 (35.66%) Agile
3 64 (24.81%) DevOps
4 60 (23.26%) Microservices
5 59 (22.87%) Technical Leadership
6 57 (22.09%) Mentoring
7 40 (15.50%) Containerisation
8 37 (14.34%) Code Quality
8 37 (14.34%) Full-Stack Development
9 36 (13.95%) Software Engineering
10 32 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
11 29 (11.24%) Test Automation
12 28 (10.85%) Front End Development
13 26 (10.08%) Continuous Improvement
13 26 (10.08%) Event-Driven
13 26 (10.08%) Infrastructure as Code
14 25 (9.69%) Scrum
15 23 (8.91%) Data Modelling
15 23 (8.91%) TDD
16 21 (8.14%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 73 (28.29%) Java
2 50 (19.38%) SQL
3 45 (17.44%) JavaScript
4 35 (13.57%) C#
5 23 (8.91%) TypeScript
6 21 (8.14%) Python
7 13 (5.04%) T-SQL
8 9 (3.49%) PL/SQL
9 7 (2.71%) Apex Code
9 7 (2.71%) Bicep
10 5 (1.94%) Ruby
10 5 (1.94%) Scala
10 5 (1.94%) VB.NET
10 5 (1.94%) VBA
11 4 (1.55%) Kotlin
11 4 (1.55%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.55%) XPath
12 3 (1.16%) ABAP
12 3 (1.16%) VBScript
13 1 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 92 (35.66%) Security Cleared
2 78 (30.23%) SC Cleared
3 30 (11.63%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (1.16%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.78%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.78%) AWS Certified Developer
6 2 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (0.78%) Degree
6 2 (0.78%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (9.30%) Accessibility
2 19 (7.36%) QA
3 9 (3.49%) WCAG
4 5 (1.94%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 5 (1.94%) GDPR
4 5 (1.94%) GMP
4 5 (1.94%) GxP
4 5 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 3 (1.16%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.16%) NCSC
6 1 (0.39%) ISO 15022
6 1 (0.39%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 59 (22.87%) Docker
2 1 (0.39%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 1 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 40 (15.50%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.33%) Ansible
3 5 (1.94%) Grafana
3 5 (1.94%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.78%) Kibana
5 1 (0.39%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (12.02%) Microsoft
2 25 (9.69%) Oracle
3 11 (4.26%) Salesforce
4 7 (2.71%) Informatica
5 6 (2.33%) IBM
6 4 (1.55%) Blue Prism
7 3 (1.16%) BMC
7 3 (1.16%) Guidewire
7 3 (1.16%) OpenAI
7 3 (1.16%) Remedy
7 3 (1.16%) SAP
7 3 (1.16%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.78%) Adobe
8 2 (0.78%) DataFlux
8 2 (0.78%) Kepware
8 2 (0.78%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.39%) Databricks
9 1 (0.39%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.39%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.39%) Splunk