Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £570, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 428 374 381
Rank change year-on-year -54 +7 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 255 183 199
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.56% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.52% 0.61% 0.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 132 150
10th Percentile £458 £413 £400
25th Percentile £513 £500 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £550 £638
Median % change year-on-year +3.64% -13.73% +10.87%
75th Percentile £750 £720 £888
90th Percentile £838 £750 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £572 £525 £531
% change year-on-year +8.95% -1.18% -7.61%
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 49,168 30,000 36,945
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.47% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,645 19,092 23,906
10th Percentile £331 £284 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £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 3,387 1,467 2,179
10th Percentile £15.37 £13.72 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £67.86 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 -89 185 £575 +0.08% 71
London -48 104 £700 +3.70% 32
Work from Home -55 83 £725 +20.83% 33
UK excluding London -62 83 £572 +8.95% 45
North of England -49 42 £576 +9.70% 21
North West -40 21 £574 +9.24% 11
Scotland -10 12 £377 -12.33% 3
Midlands -54 12 £550 +15.79% 8
North East -33 11 £650 +2.36% 5
South West -39 10 £525 -4.55% 3
Yorkshire -53 10 £561 +6.90% 5
East Midlands -7 8 £476 - 3
South East -67 4 £600 +9.09% 7
West Midlands -68 4 £575 +21.05% 5
East of England -17 3 £530 +0.95% 1
Wales - 2 £750 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 31 July 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.

1 116 (45.49%) AWS
2 115 (45.10%) Agile
3 86 (33.73%) Java
3 86 (33.73%) Security Cleared
4 80 (31.37%) CI/CD
5 77 (30.20%) Node.js
6 74 (29.02%) Azure
7 73 (28.63%) SC Cleared
8 70 (27.45%) JavaScript
9 66 (25.88%) Mentoring
10 64 (25.10%) Software Engineering
11 61 (23.92%) DevOps
12 60 (23.53%) React
13 55 (21.57%) TypeScript
14 54 (21.18%) Microservices
15 53 (20.78%) Technical Leadership
16 52 (20.39%) Full-Stack Development
17 51 (20.00%) Docker
18 47 (18.43%) Python
19 43 (16.86%) SQL
20 42 (16.47%) Redux
21 41 (16.08%) Kubernetes
22 39 (15.29%) REST
23 38 (14.90%) Containerisation
24 37 (14.51%) Kafka
24 37 (14.51%) Spring
24 37 (14.51%) Spring Boot
25 36 (14.12%) .NET
25 36 (14.12%) Investment Management
25 36 (14.12%) Portfolio Management

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 7 (2.75%) Confluence
2 6 (2.35%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.96%) IIS
4 4 (1.57%) SAS
5 3 (1.18%) CMS
5 3 (1.18%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.78%) ThingWorx
7 1 (0.39%) nginx
7 1 (0.39%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.39%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.18%) Remedy AR System
1 3 (1.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.39%) IntelliMatch
2 1 (0.39%) Magento
2 1 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.39%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 116 (45.49%) AWS
2 74 (29.02%) Azure
3 29 (11.37%) GCP
4 16 (6.27%) Azure DevOps
4 16 (6.27%) Serverless
5 15 (5.88%) GitHub
6 9 (3.53%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (3.14%) Power Platform
8 6 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (2.35%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 5 (1.96%) Amazon Cognito
9 5 (1.96%) Amazon S3
9 5 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
9 5 (1.96%) Power Automate
9 5 (1.96%) PowerApps
10 4 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (1.57%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.57%) Azure Key Vault
11 3 (1.18%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (1.18%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.57%) HTTP
2 2 (0.78%) CTI
2 2 (0.78%) MQTT
3 1 (0.39%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (14.12%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (5.49%) SQL Server
3 11 (4.31%) MongoDB
4 7 (2.75%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (2.35%) Oracle Database
5 6 (2.35%) Redis
5 6 (2.35%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.96%) MS Access
6 5 (1.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (1.57%) DynamoDB
7 4 (1.57%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.57%) Metadata
8 2 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.78%) GIS
8 2 (0.78%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.78%) Power BI
8 2 (0.78%) SAS Data Integration Studio
9 1 (0.39%) Couchbase
9 1 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.39%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 32 (12.55%) Git
2 25 (9.80%) Jenkins
3 16 (6.27%) Maven
4 14 (5.49%) JIRA
5 12 (4.71%) GitLab
6 11 (4.31%) JUnit
7 7 (2.75%) Gradle
8 6 (2.35%) GoCD
8 6 (2.35%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (1.96%) Mockito
9 5 (1.96%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (1.57%) JProfiler
10 4 (1.57%) Visual Studio
11 3 (1.18%) PVCS
11 3 (1.18%) SonarQube
11 3 (1.18%) Subversion
12 2 (0.78%) MSI
12 2 (0.78%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.78%) Storybook
13 1 (0.39%) IntelliJ
General
1 64 (25.10%) Finance
2 62 (24.31%) Public Sector
3 37 (14.51%) Front Office
4 27 (10.59%) Social Skills
5 12 (4.71%) Banking
6 7 (2.75%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.96%) Investment Banking
7 5 (1.96%) Military
8 3 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.18%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.78%) Local Government
9 2 (0.78%) Marketing
9 2 (0.78%) Retail
10 1 (0.39%) Games
10 1 (0.39%) Law
10 1 (0.39%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (30.20%) Node.js
2 60 (23.53%) React
3 42 (16.47%) Redux
4 39 (15.29%) REST
5 37 (14.51%) Kafka
5 37 (14.51%) Spring
5 37 (14.51%) Spring Boot
6 36 (14.12%) .NET
7 24 (9.41%) GraphQL
8 18 (7.06%) AngularJS
9 17 (6.67%) HTML
10 16 (6.27%) RESTful
11 10 (3.92%) SOAP
11 10 (3.92%) Vue
12 9 (3.53%) CSS
12 9 (3.53%) XML
13 8 (3.14%) HTML5
13 8 (3.14%) Jest
13 8 (3.14%) Nunjucks
13 8 (3.14%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 38 (14.90%) Fixed Income
2 20 (7.84%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.45%) Derivative
4 16 (6.27%) Equities
5 14 (5.49%) Product Ownership
6 12 (4.71%) Distributed Systems
6 12 (4.71%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (3.92%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (2.35%) Legacy Applications
9 5 (1.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 5 (1.96%) LIMS
9 5 (1.96%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.96%) Replication
10 4 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
10 4 (1.57%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.57%) NHS
10 4 (1.57%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.18%) CMDB
11 3 (1.18%) Mobile App
12 2 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.31%) Windows
2 6 (2.35%) Android
3 4 (1.57%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.18%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.39%) Linux
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
1 115 (45.10%) Agile
2 80 (31.37%) CI/CD
3 66 (25.88%) Mentoring
4 64 (25.10%) Software Engineering
5 61 (23.92%) DevOps
6 54 (21.18%) Microservices
7 53 (20.78%) Technical Leadership
8 52 (20.39%) Full-Stack Development
9 38 (14.90%) Containerisation
10 36 (14.12%) Investment Management
10 36 (14.12%) Portfolio Management
11 27 (10.59%) Code Quality
12 26 (10.20%) Infrastructure as Code
13 25 (9.80%) Problem-Solving
14 24 (9.41%) Event-Driven
15 22 (8.63%) Scrum
16 21 (8.24%) Order Management
17 20 (7.84%) Test Automation
18 19 (7.45%) Continuous Improvement
18 19 (7.45%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 86 (33.73%) Java
2 70 (27.45%) JavaScript
3 55 (21.57%) TypeScript
4 47 (18.43%) Python
5 43 (16.86%) SQL
6 30 (11.76%) C#
7 20 (7.84%) Go
8 11 (4.31%) T-SQL
9 9 (3.53%) PL/SQL
10 7 (2.75%) Bicep
11 6 (2.35%) Apex Code
11 6 (2.35%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.35%) Ruby
12 5 (1.96%) VB.NET
12 5 (1.96%) VBA
13 4 (1.57%) Scala
13 4 (1.57%) XPath
14 3 (1.18%) Swift
14 3 (1.18%) VBScript
15 2 (0.78%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 86 (33.73%) Security Cleared
2 73 (28.63%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.20%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.78%) AWS Certification
4 2 (0.78%) AWS Certified Developer
4 2 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 2 (0.78%) DV Cleared
4 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.39%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.39%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.45%) Accessibility
2 18 (7.06%) QA
3 4 (1.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 4 (1.57%) GMP
3 4 (1.57%) GxP
3 4 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 17025
3 4 (1.57%) WCAG
4 3 (1.18%) GDPR
4 3 (1.18%) NCSC
System Software
1 51 (20.00%) 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 41 (16.08%) Kubernetes
2 26 (10.20%) Terraform
3 6 (2.35%) Ansible
4 3 (1.18%) Grafana
5 2 (0.78%) Kibana
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.39%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 29 (11.37%) Microsoft
2 22 (8.63%) Oracle
3 10 (3.92%) Salesforce
4 7 (2.75%) Informatica
5 5 (1.96%) IBM
6 4 (1.57%) Blue Prism
7 3 (1.18%) BMC
7 3 (1.18%) Remedy
7 3 (1.18%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.78%) Adobe
8 2 (0.78%) DataFlux
8 2 (0.78%) Guidewire
8 2 (0.78%) Kepware
8 2 (0.78%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.78%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.78%) SAP
9 1 (0.39%) Genesys
9 1 (0.39%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.39%) Jaspersoft
9 1 (0.39%) Red Hat