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 8 July 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 420 357 407
Rank change year-on-year -63 +50 +68
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 249 192 193
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.60% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.52% 0.65% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 140 149
10th Percentile £453 £415 £400
25th Percentile £525 £502 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £569 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.10% -12.50% +8.33%
75th Percentile £750 £728 £888
90th Percentile £838 £800 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +9.52% -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
% change year-on-year - - -16.00%

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 48,237 29,379 40,107
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.96% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,223 18,754 25,817
10th Percentile £325 £287 £285
25th Percentile £417 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,243 1,333 2,768
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.44 £16.62
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.57% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +1.07%

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 8 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 8 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 -71 195 £575 -4.17% 62
London -69 98 £725 +7.41% 29
UK excluding London -76 94 £575 +9.52% 39
Work from Home -64 83 £725 +20.83% 35
North of England -52 48 £575 +9.52% 11
North West -29 28 £572 +8.95% 5
Midlands -57 17 £550 +8.47% 9
North East -26 12 £650 +2.36% 3
South West -36 9 £525 -19.85% 4
East Midlands -7 8 £476 - 4
Scotland -17 8 £563 +81.16% 2
Yorkshire -45 8 £561 +6.90% 3
South East -60 8 £625 +13.64% 10
West Midlands -63 8 £575 +13.40% 5
East of England -22 4 £540 +2.86% 2
Wales - 1 £750 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 110 (44.18%) AWS
2 108 (43.37%) Agile
3 88 (35.34%) Java
4 75 (30.12%) Azure
5 74 (29.72%) CI/CD
6 72 (28.92%) Security Cleared
7 70 (28.11%) Node.js
8 64 (25.70%) JavaScript
8 64 (25.70%) Mentoring
8 64 (25.70%) Software Engineering
9 61 (24.50%) SC Cleared
10 59 (23.69%) React
11 58 (23.29%) DevOps
11 58 (23.29%) TypeScript
12 54 (21.69%) Docker
13 52 (20.88%) Microservices
14 49 (19.68%) Full-Stack Development
14 49 (19.68%) Technical Leadership
15 46 (18.47%) Python
16 44 (17.67%) Kubernetes
17 43 (17.27%) Redux
18 42 (16.87%) Containerisation
19 40 (16.06%) Spring
20 38 (15.26%) Spring Boot
21 37 (14.86%) SQL
22 36 (14.46%) Investment Management
22 36 (14.46%) Portfolio Management
23 35 (14.06%) PostgreSQL
23 35 (14.06%) REST
24 33 (13.25%) Kafka

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 (2.81%) Confluence
2 4 (1.61%) IIS
2 4 (1.61%) SAS
3 3 (1.20%) CMS
3 3 (1.20%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.20%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.80%) Appian
4 2 (0.80%) JBoss
4 2 (0.80%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.80%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.80%) ThingWorx
4 2 (0.80%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) nginx
5 1 (0.40%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.20%) Remedy AR System
1 3 (1.20%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.40%) IntelliMatch
2 1 (0.40%) Magento
2 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.40%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 110 (44.18%) AWS
2 75 (30.12%) Azure
3 31 (12.45%) GCP
4 16 (6.43%) GitHub
5 15 (6.02%) Serverless
6 12 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (4.02%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (3.21%) Power Platform
9 6 (2.41%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (2.41%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 5 (2.01%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.01%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (2.01%) Azure AKS
10 5 (2.01%) Azure Service Bus
10 5 (2.01%) Power Automate
10 5 (2.01%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.61%) Amazon Cognito
11 4 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
12 3 (1.20%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.20%) HTTP
2 2 (0.80%) MQTT
3 1 (0.40%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (14.06%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (4.02%) Relational Database
2 10 (4.02%) SQL Server
3 7 (2.81%) MongoDB
3 7 (2.81%) Oracle Database
4 5 (2.01%) Oracle Reports
4 5 (2.01%) Redis
5 4 (1.61%) Geospatial Data
6 3 (1.20%) Data Hub
6 3 (1.20%) DocumentDB
6 3 (1.20%) Metadata
6 3 (1.20%) Power BI
7 2 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.80%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.80%) GIS
7 2 (0.80%) MS Access
7 2 (0.80%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.80%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 2 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 22 (8.84%) Git
2 18 (7.23%) Jenkins
3 15 (6.02%) JIRA
4 12 (4.82%) Maven
5 11 (4.42%) GitLab
6 10 (4.02%) JUnit
7 6 (2.41%) Mockito
8 5 (2.01%) Oracle Forms
9 4 (1.61%) Gradle
10 3 (1.20%) GoCD
10 3 (1.20%) PVCS
10 3 (1.20%) SpecFlow
10 3 (1.20%) Storybook
10 3 (1.20%) Subversion
11 2 (0.80%) MSI
11 2 (0.80%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.80%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.40%) Bundler
12 1 (0.40%) Leiningen
12 1 (0.40%) Liquibase
General
1 65 (26.10%) Finance
2 57 (22.89%) Public Sector
3 37 (14.86%) Front Office
4 28 (11.24%) Social Skills
5 12 (4.82%) Banking
6 11 (4.42%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.01%) Investment Banking
7 5 (2.01%) Military
7 5 (2.01%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.80%) Marketing
10 1 (0.40%) Games
10 1 (0.40%) Law
10 1 (0.40%) Local Government
10 1 (0.40%) Police
10 1 (0.40%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (28.11%) Node.js
2 59 (23.69%) React
3 43 (17.27%) Redux
4 40 (16.06%) Spring
5 38 (15.26%) Spring Boot
6 35 (14.06%) REST
7 33 (13.25%) Kafka
8 31 (12.45%) .NET
9 27 (10.84%) GraphQL
10 18 (7.23%) RESTful
11 16 (6.43%) AngularJS
12 10 (4.02%) SOAP
13 9 (3.61%) HTML
13 9 (3.61%) Vue
14 8 (3.21%) JPA
15 7 (2.81%) Django
15 7 (2.81%) Hibernate
15 7 (2.81%) Jest
15 7 (2.81%) Nunjucks
15 7 (2.81%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 38 (15.26%) Fixed Income
2 21 (8.43%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.63%) Derivative
4 16 (6.43%) Equities
5 13 (5.22%) Product Ownership
6 12 (4.82%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (4.42%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (4.02%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (2.01%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.61%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.61%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.20%) CMDB
11 3 (1.20%) Credit Risk
11 3 (1.20%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (1.20%) Mobile App
11 3 (1.20%) NHS
12 2 (0.80%) Client/Server
12 2 (0.80%) LIMS
12 2 (0.80%) Management Information System
12 2 (0.80%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 9 (3.61%) Android
2 8 (3.21%) Apple iOS
2 8 (3.21%) Windows
3 4 (1.61%) Linux
4 2 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.40%) Solaris
5 1 (0.40%) VMS
5 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (43.37%) Agile
2 74 (29.72%) CI/CD
3 64 (25.70%) Mentoring
3 64 (25.70%) Software Engineering
4 58 (23.29%) DevOps
5 52 (20.88%) Microservices
6 49 (19.68%) Full-Stack Development
6 49 (19.68%) Technical Leadership
7 42 (16.87%) Containerisation
8 36 (14.46%) Investment Management
8 36 (14.46%) Portfolio Management
9 27 (10.84%) Code Quality
10 24 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
11 23 (9.24%) Infrastructure as Code
12 21 (8.43%) Event-Driven
12 21 (8.43%) Test Automation
13 20 (8.03%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (8.03%) Order Management
14 18 (7.23%) Line Management
14 18 (7.23%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 88 (35.34%) Java
2 64 (25.70%) JavaScript
3 58 (23.29%) TypeScript
4 46 (18.47%) Python
5 37 (14.86%) SQL
6 27 (10.84%) C#
7 20 (8.03%) Go
8 8 (3.21%) Kotlin
8 8 (3.21%) T-SQL
9 7 (2.81%) Bicep
9 7 (2.81%) Swift
10 6 (2.41%) Apex Code
10 6 (2.41%) PL/SQL
11 3 (1.20%) Ruby
11 3 (1.20%) Scala
11 3 (1.20%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.80%) ABAP
12 2 (0.80%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.80%) VBA
12 2 (0.80%) XPath
Qualifications
1 72 (28.92%) Security Cleared
2 61 (24.50%) SC Cleared
3 24 (9.64%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.80%) DV Cleared
4 2 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.40%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.40%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.43%) Accessibility
1 16 (6.43%) QA
2 4 (1.61%) WCAG
3 3 (1.20%) NCSC
4 2 (0.80%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 2 (0.80%) GDPR
4 2 (0.80%) GMP
4 2 (0.80%) GxP
4 2 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 1 (0.40%) SLA
System Software
1 54 (21.69%) Docker
2 1 (0.40%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 44 (17.67%) Kubernetes
2 24 (9.64%) Terraform
3 4 (1.61%) Grafana
4 3 (1.20%) Ansible
4 3 (1.20%) Kibana
5 1 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 28 (11.24%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.02%) Oracle
3 9 (3.61%) Salesforce
4 7 (2.81%) Informatica
5 5 (2.01%) IBM
6 4 (1.61%) Blue Prism
7 3 (1.20%) BMC
7 3 (1.20%) Remedy
7 3 (1.20%) SAP
8 2 (0.80%) Adobe
8 2 (0.80%) Anaplan
8 2 (0.80%) DataFlux
8 2 (0.80%) Guidewire
8 2 (0.80%) Kepware
8 2 (0.80%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.80%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.80%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.40%) Genesys
9 1 (0.40%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.40%) Liquidlogic