Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 June 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 441 356 409
Rank change year-on-year -85 +53 +59
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 209 173 182
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.42% 0.59% 0.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.46% 0.64% 0.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 122 143
10th Percentile £418 £419 £453
25th Percentile £513 £509 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -11.54% +8.33%
75th Percentile £769 £687 £881
90th Percentile £838 £750 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £574 £525 £600
% change year-on-year +9.24% -12.50% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £72.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 45,686 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,799 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,044 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.65 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.43% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 10 June 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 15 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 10 June 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 -91 168 £575 -4.17% 78
London -77 82 £700 +6.06% 17
UK excluding London -71 78 £574 +9.24% 62
Work from Home -57 73 £725 +20.83% 40
North of England -45 48 £575 +9.52% 20
North West -20 26 £570 -5.00% 14
Midlands -60 15 £513 +1.07% 13
North East -10 14 £650 +2.36% 3
Yorkshire -58 8 £561 +6.90% 3
East Midlands - 8 £476 - 3
South West -24 6 £525 -29.05% 5
West Midlands -58 6 £475 -6.32% 10
South East -67 6 £625 +13.64% 13
East of England -23 2 - - 11
Scotland -24 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 10 June 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 (44.50%) Agile
2 86 (41.15%) AWS
3 73 (34.93%) Java
4 67 (32.06%) Node.js
5 63 (30.14%) Azure
6 61 (29.19%) JavaScript
6 61 (29.19%) Software Engineering
7 58 (27.75%) React
8 55 (26.32%) CI/CD
9 54 (25.84%) Mentoring
9 54 (25.84%) TypeScript
10 46 (22.01%) DevOps
11 45 (21.53%) Python
12 44 (21.05%) Full-Stack Development
13 42 (20.10%) Docker
14 40 (19.14%) Security Cleared
15 38 (18.18%) Redux
16 37 (17.70%) Microservices
16 37 (17.70%) Technical Leadership
17 36 (17.22%) Investment Management
17 36 (17.22%) Portfolio Management
17 36 (17.22%) SC Cleared
18 34 (16.27%) Containerisation
19 32 (15.31%) Kafka
19 32 (15.31%) Kubernetes
19 32 (15.31%) Spring
20 31 (14.83%) Spring Boot
21 30 (14.35%) GCP
21 30 (14.35%) PostgreSQL
22 26 (12.44%) GraphQL

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 4 (1.91%) Confluence
1 4 (1.91%) SAS
2 3 (1.44%) Tomcat
3 2 (0.96%) Appian
3 2 (0.96%) CMS
3 2 (0.96%) IIS
3 2 (0.96%) JBoss
3 2 (0.96%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (0.96%) ThingWorx
3 2 (0.96%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.48%) Apache
4 1 (0.48%) nginx
4 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.48%) Magento
2 1 (0.48%) Remedy AR System
2 1 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.48%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 86 (41.15%) AWS
2 63 (30.14%) Azure
3 30 (14.35%) GCP
4 11 (5.26%) GitHub
5 10 (4.78%) Serverless
6 7 (3.35%) GitHub Actions
6 7 (3.35%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.87%) Amazon SQS
7 6 (2.87%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (2.87%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 5 (2.39%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.91%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (1.91%) Azure AKS
9 4 (1.91%) Azure Logic Apps
9 4 (1.91%) Power Automate
9 4 (1.91%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.44%) Amazon ECR
10 3 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.96%) MQTT
2 1 (0.48%) DNS
2 1 (0.48%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (14.35%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (3.83%) Relational Database
3 7 (3.35%) SQL Server
4 4 (1.91%) Data Hub
4 4 (1.91%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.44%) DocumentDB
5 3 (1.44%) Geospatial Data
5 3 (1.44%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.44%) Power BI
6 2 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.96%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.96%) GIS
6 2 (0.96%) MySQL
6 2 (0.96%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.96%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.48%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (4.78%) Jenkins
2 9 (4.31%) Git
2 9 (4.31%) JIRA
3 8 (3.83%) GitLab
4 5 (2.39%) JUnit
5 4 (1.91%) Mockito
6 3 (1.44%) Maven
7 2 (0.96%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.96%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.48%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.48%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.48%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.48%) Gradle
8 1 (0.48%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.48%) Mocha
8 1 (0.48%) PVCS
8 1 (0.48%) Selenium
8 1 (0.48%) Storybook
8 1 (0.48%) Vite
8 1 (0.48%) webpack
General
1 56 (26.79%) Finance
2 46 (22.01%) Public Sector
3 37 (17.70%) Front Office
4 23 (11.00%) Social Skills
5 7 (3.35%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.44%) Banking
7 3 (1.44%) Military
7 3 (1.44%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.48%) Games
9 1 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.48%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.48%) Local Government
9 1 (0.48%) Marketing
9 1 (0.48%) Police
9 1 (0.48%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (32.06%) Node.js
2 58 (27.75%) React
3 38 (18.18%) Redux
4 32 (15.31%) Kafka
4 32 (15.31%) Spring
5 31 (14.83%) Spring Boot
6 26 (12.44%) GraphQL
7 24 (11.48%) REST
8 22 (10.53%) .NET
9 15 (7.18%) RESTful
9 15 (7.18%) Vue
10 13 (6.22%) AngularJS
11 7 (3.35%) Nunjucks
12 6 (2.87%) Flutter
12 6 (2.87%) Lightning Web Components
12 6 (2.87%) SOAP
13 5 (2.39%) Django
13 5 (2.39%) OAuth
13 5 (2.39%) OpenID
14 4 (1.91%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 37 (17.70%) Fixed Income
2 16 (7.66%) Cloud Native
2 16 (7.66%) Derivative
2 16 (7.66%) Equities
3 10 (4.78%) Product Ownership
4 8 (3.83%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (3.35%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.91%) Virtual Team
7 3 (1.44%) Credit Risk
7 3 (1.44%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.44%) NHS
7 3 (1.44%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.96%) Client/Server
8 2 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.96%) Industrial Internet of Things
8 2 (0.96%) N-Tier
8 2 (0.96%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.96%) SCADA
9 1 (0.48%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.78%) Android
2 9 (4.31%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.91%) Linux
4 3 (1.44%) Windows
5 1 (0.48%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.48%) Solaris
5 1 (0.48%) VMS
5 1 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (44.50%) Agile
2 61 (29.19%) Software Engineering
3 55 (26.32%) CI/CD
4 54 (25.84%) Mentoring
5 46 (22.01%) DevOps
6 44 (21.05%) Full-Stack Development
7 37 (17.70%) Microservices
7 37 (17.70%) Technical Leadership
8 36 (17.22%) Investment Management
8 36 (17.22%) Portfolio Management
9 34 (16.27%) Containerisation
10 23 (11.00%) Code Quality
11 20 (9.57%) Order Management
12 19 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
13 18 (8.61%) Infrastructure as Code
13 18 (8.61%) Line Management
14 17 (8.13%) Test Automation
15 16 (7.66%) Asset Management
15 16 (7.66%) Fintech
16 15 (7.18%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 73 (34.93%) Java
2 61 (29.19%) JavaScript
3 54 (25.84%) TypeScript
4 45 (21.53%) Python
5 21 (10.05%) C#
5 21 (10.05%) Go
5 21 (10.05%) SQL
6 10 (4.78%) Kotlin
7 8 (3.83%) Swift
8 6 (2.87%) Apex Code
9 5 (2.39%) Bicep
9 5 (2.39%) T-SQL
10 3 (1.44%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.44%) Scala
11 2 (0.96%) ABAP
11 2 (0.96%) Dart
11 2 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.96%) Ruby
12 1 (0.48%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 40 (19.14%) Security Cleared
2 36 (17.22%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.57%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.48%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.48%) Degree
5 1 (0.48%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.74%) Accessibility
1 12 (5.74%) QA
2 2 (0.96%) NCSC
2 2 (0.96%) WCAG
3 1 (0.48%) GDPR
3 1 (0.48%) SLA
System Software
1 42 (20.10%) Docker
2 1 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 32 (15.31%) Kubernetes
2 20 (9.57%) Terraform
3 4 (1.91%) Grafana
4 1 (0.48%) Kibana
4 1 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
4 1 (0.48%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.31%) Salesforce
3 7 (3.35%) Informatica
4 5 (2.39%) Oracle
5 4 (1.91%) IBM
6 3 (1.44%) Adobe
6 3 (1.44%) Anaplan
6 3 (1.44%) Blue Prism
6 3 (1.44%) SAP
7 2 (0.96%) DataFlux
7 2 (0.96%) Kepware
8 1 (0.48%) Ariba
8 1 (0.48%) BMC
8 1 (0.48%) ESRI
8 1 (0.48%) Google
8 1 (0.48%) Guidewire
8 1 (0.48%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.48%) Jaspersoft
8 1 (0.48%) Remedy
8 1 (0.48%) VMware