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 13 July 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 414 358 404
Rank change year-on-year -56 +46 +59
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 259 195 192
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.60% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.53% 0.65% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 143 146
10th Percentile £458 £420 £404
25th Percentile £520 £500 £527
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -15.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £750 £722 £888
90th Percentile £838 £774 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £574 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +9.24% -4.55% -4.35%
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 48,729 30,023 39,779
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.87% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,502 19,148 25,568
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,285 1,392 2,719
10th Percentile £15.90 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.69 £26.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +64.87% -33.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.25 £63.20
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +6.67%

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 13 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 13 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 -76 199 £575 -2.54% 72
London -58 103 £700 +3.70% 39
UK excluding London -68 93 £574 +9.24% 40
Work from Home -74 85 £725 +20.83% 34
North of England -53 45 £575 +9.52% 19
North West -34 27 £572 +8.95% 7
Midlands -48 17 £550 +8.47% 10
North East -24 11 £650 +2.36% 5
South West -31 11 £525 -19.85% 3
East Midlands -9 8 £476 - 5
Scotland -19 8 £563 +81.16% 2
West Midlands -70 8 £575 +13.40% 5
South East -71 8 £625 +13.64% 5
Yorkshire -58 7 £561 +6.90% 7
East of England -18 4 £540 +2.86% 2
Wales - 1 £750 -

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 (44.79%) AWS
2 113 (43.63%) Agile
3 89 (34.36%) Java
4 82 (31.66%) Security Cleared
5 79 (30.50%) Azure
6 78 (30.12%) CI/CD
7 74 (28.57%) Node.js
8 69 (26.64%) SC Cleared
9 68 (26.25%) JavaScript
10 65 (25.10%) DevOps
11 64 (24.71%) Mentoring
11 64 (24.71%) Software Engineering
12 59 (22.78%) React
13 57 (22.01%) TypeScript
14 54 (20.85%) Docker
15 53 (20.46%) Microservices
16 50 (19.31%) Technical Leadership
17 48 (18.53%) Full-Stack Development
18 46 (17.76%) Python
19 44 (16.99%) Kubernetes
20 43 (16.60%) SQL
21 42 (16.22%) Redux
22 41 (15.83%) Containerisation
23 40 (15.44%) Spring
24 39 (15.06%) REST
24 39 (15.06%) Spring Boot
25 36 (13.90%) Investment Management
25 36 (13.90%) Portfolio Management
25 36 (13.90%) PostgreSQL
26 35 (13.51%) .NET

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 (2.70%) Confluence
1 7 (2.70%) IIS
2 6 (2.32%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.54%) SAS
4 3 (1.16%) CMS
4 3 (1.16%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (1.16%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.77%) Appian
5 2 (0.77%) JBoss
5 2 (0.77%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.77%) ThingWorx
5 2 (0.77%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.39%) Apache
6 1 (0.39%) nginx
6 1 (0.39%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.16%) Remedy AR System
1 3 (1.16%) 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 (44.79%) AWS
2 79 (30.50%) Azure
3 31 (11.97%) GCP
4 17 (6.56%) GitHub
4 17 (6.56%) Serverless
5 16 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.25%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (3.09%) AWS Lambda
7 8 (3.09%) Power Platform
8 7 (2.70%) Amazon S3
9 6 (2.32%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (2.32%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 5 (1.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 5 (1.93%) Amazon Cognito
10 5 (1.93%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (1.93%) Azure AKS
10 5 (1.93%) Azure Service Bus
10 5 (1.93%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.93%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.54%) HTTP
2 2 (0.77%) CTI
2 2 (0.77%) MQTT
3 1 (0.39%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (13.90%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (5.02%) SQL Server
3 10 (3.86%) Relational Database
4 8 (3.09%) MongoDB
4 8 (3.09%) Oracle Database
5 7 (2.70%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (2.32%) Redis
7 5 (1.93%) MS Access
7 5 (1.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.54%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.54%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.54%) Metadata
9 3 (1.16%) Data Hub
9 3 (1.16%) DocumentDB
9 3 (1.16%) Power BI
10 2 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.77%) GIS
10 2 (0.77%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.77%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 29 (11.20%) Git
2 23 (8.88%) Jenkins
3 16 (6.18%) JIRA
4 14 (5.41%) Maven
5 13 (5.02%) GitLab
6 10 (3.86%) JUnit
7 6 (2.32%) Mockito
7 6 (2.32%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (1.93%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (1.54%) Gradle
9 4 (1.54%) Visual Studio
10 3 (1.16%) GoCD
10 3 (1.16%) PVCS
10 3 (1.16%) SonarQube
10 3 (1.16%) SpecFlow
10 3 (1.16%) Storybook
10 3 (1.16%) Subversion
11 2 (0.77%) MSI
12 1 (0.39%) Cypress.io
12 1 (0.39%) IntelliJ
General
1 67 (25.87%) Finance
2 61 (23.55%) Public Sector
3 37 (14.29%) Front Office
4 29 (11.20%) Social Skills
5 12 (4.63%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (4.63%) Banking
6 5 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (1.93%) Investment Banking
6 5 (1.93%) Military
6 5 (1.93%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (0.77%) Marketing
9 1 (0.39%) Games
9 1 (0.39%) Law
9 1 (0.39%) Local Government
9 1 (0.39%) Police
9 1 (0.39%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (28.57%) Node.js
2 59 (22.78%) React
3 42 (16.22%) Redux
4 40 (15.44%) Spring
5 39 (15.06%) REST
5 39 (15.06%) Spring Boot
6 35 (13.51%) .NET
7 34 (13.13%) Kafka
8 26 (10.04%) GraphQL
9 17 (6.56%) AngularJS
9 17 (6.56%) RESTful
10 14 (5.41%) HTML
11 11 (4.25%) SOAP
12 8 (3.09%) Jest
12 8 (3.09%) JPA
12 8 (3.09%) Nunjucks
12 8 (3.09%) OpenAPI
12 8 (3.09%) Vue
12 8 (3.09%) XML
13 7 (2.70%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 38 (14.67%) Fixed Income
2 21 (8.11%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.34%) Derivative
4 16 (6.18%) Equities
5 12 (4.63%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (4.63%) Product Ownership
6 11 (4.25%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (3.86%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.93%) Replication
9 4 (1.54%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.54%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.16%) CMDB
10 3 (1.16%) Credit Risk
10 3 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (1.16%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (1.16%) LIMS
10 3 (1.16%) Management Information System
10 3 (1.16%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.16%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 12 (4.63%) Windows
2 8 (3.09%) Android
3 7 (2.70%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.16%) Linux
4 3 (1.16%) Windows Server
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
1 113 (43.63%) Agile
2 78 (30.12%) CI/CD
3 65 (25.10%) DevOps
4 64 (24.71%) Mentoring
4 64 (24.71%) Software Engineering
5 53 (20.46%) Microservices
6 50 (19.31%) Technical Leadership
7 48 (18.53%) Full-Stack Development
8 41 (15.83%) Containerisation
9 36 (13.90%) Investment Management
9 36 (13.90%) Portfolio Management
10 28 (10.81%) Code Quality
11 25 (9.65%) Infrastructure as Code
11 25 (9.65%) Problem-Solving
12 22 (8.49%) Event-Driven
13 21 (8.11%) Test Automation
14 20 (7.72%) Continuous Improvement
14 20 (7.72%) Order Management
15 18 (6.95%) Line Management
15 18 (6.95%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 89 (34.36%) Java
2 68 (26.25%) JavaScript
3 57 (22.01%) TypeScript
4 46 (17.76%) Python
5 43 (16.60%) SQL
6 31 (11.97%) C#
7 20 (7.72%) Go
8 11 (4.25%) T-SQL
9 9 (3.47%) PL/SQL
10 7 (2.70%) Bicep
10 7 (2.70%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.32%) Apex Code
11 6 (2.32%) Swift
12 5 (1.93%) VB.NET
12 5 (1.93%) VBA
13 4 (1.54%) XPath
14 3 (1.16%) Ruby
14 3 (1.16%) Scala
14 3 (1.16%) Shell Script
14 3 (1.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 82 (31.66%) Security Cleared
2 69 (26.64%) SC Cleared
3 28 (10.81%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.77%) AWS Certification
4 2 (0.77%) AWS Certified Developer
4 2 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 2 (0.77%) DV Cleared
4 2 (0.77%) 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 (7.34%) QA
2 17 (6.56%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.54%) WCAG
4 3 (1.16%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 3 (1.16%) GMP
4 3 (1.16%) GxP
4 3 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 3 (1.16%) NCSC
5 2 (0.77%) GDPR
6 1 (0.39%) SLA
System Software
1 54 (20.85%) 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 44 (16.99%) Kubernetes
2 26 (10.04%) Terraform
3 4 (1.54%) Grafana
4 3 (1.16%) Ansible
4 3 (1.16%) Kibana
5 1 (0.39%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.39%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 29 (11.20%) Microsoft
2 20 (7.72%) Oracle
3 9 (3.47%) Salesforce
4 7 (2.70%) Informatica
5 5 (1.93%) IBM
6 4 (1.54%) Blue Prism
7 3 (1.16%) BMC
7 3 (1.16%) Remedy
7 3 (1.16%) SAP
7 3 (1.16%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.77%) Adobe
8 2 (0.77%) Anaplan
8 2 (0.77%) DataFlux
8 2 (0.77%) Guidewire
8 2 (0.77%) Kepware
8 2 (0.77%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.77%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.39%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.39%) Jaspersoft
9 1 (0.39%) Liquidlogic