Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £564, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 November 2025.

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

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 427 316 432
Rank change year-on-year -111 +116 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 158 232 193
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.63% 0.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.68% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 168 144
10th Percentile £461 £463 £425
25th Percentile £511 £525 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £564 £620 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.07% +3.33% -
75th Percentile £714 £728 £725
90th Percentile £781 £888 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £563 £575
% change year-on-year -2.27% -2.13% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £96.21 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £96.21 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,516 34,282 43,523
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.00% 92.79% 93.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,580 20,693 29,476
10th Percentile £280 £300 £291
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £649
90th Percentile £725 £738 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,925 1,305 1,549
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £56.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £74.37 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £33.54 £44.75
% change year-on-year -25.01% -25.05% +83.48%

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 23 November 2025.

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 23 November 2025. 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 -96 132 £575 -8.00% 77
London -63 74 £650 - 26
Work from Home -14 69 £615 +1.74% 32
UK excluding London -34 57 £550 -2.27% 62
North of England -22 30 £580 +6.67% 13
Yorkshire -26 18 £695 +27.82% 7
Midlands -29 10 £492 -8.56% 18
North West -15 8 £525 -13.08% 4
West Midlands -21 7 £492 -8.56% 15
Scotland -4 6 £447 -20.60% 4
South West -3 5 £550 -1.12% 7
South East -15 5 £550 -15.38% 14
North East -2 4 £565 +18.95% 2
East Midlands - 3 - - 2
East of England -14 1 £550 +51.72% 6

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

For the 6 months to 23 November 2025, 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 74 (46.84%) Java
2 65 (41.14%) Agile
3 58 (36.71%) AWS
4 53 (33.54%) CI/CD
5 44 (27.85%) DevOps
6 43 (27.22%) Microservices
7 42 (26.58%) Azure
8 38 (24.05%) Mentoring
9 36 (22.78%) TDD
10 34 (21.52%) Problem-Solving
10 34 (21.52%) TypeScript
11 33 (20.89%) Docker
12 31 (19.62%) SQL
13 30 (18.99%) JavaScript
14 29 (18.35%) Security Cleared
14 29 (18.35%) Software Engineering
15 28 (17.72%) Spring
15 28 (17.72%) Spring Boot
16 27 (17.09%) Python
16 27 (17.09%) Technical Leadership
17 26 (16.46%) Kafka
18 25 (15.82%) Containerisation
18 25 (15.82%) Node.js
18 25 (15.82%) React
19 24 (15.19%) SC Cleared
20 23 (14.56%) C#
20 23 (14.56%) PostgreSQL
21 21 (13.29%) Terraform
22 19 (12.03%) Jenkins
23 18 (11.39%) .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 6 (3.80%) SharePoint
2 4 (2.53%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.27%) Apache
3 2 (1.27%) Confluence
4 1 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.63%) LiveLink
4 1 (0.63%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (1.27%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.63%) ION Anvil
2 1 (0.63%) Maximo
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.63%) Shopify
2 1 (0.63%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 58 (36.71%) AWS
2 42 (26.58%) Azure
3 15 (9.49%) GCP
4 14 (8.86%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (6.33%) Power Platform
6 8 (5.06%) Serverless
7 7 (4.43%) Amazon Bedrock
7 7 (4.43%) GitHub
8 6 (3.80%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (3.80%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.80%) Cloud Functions
8 6 (3.80%) Cloud Run
9 5 (3.16%) Amazon S3
9 5 (3.16%) Azure AI
9 5 (3.16%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (2.53%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.90%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (1.90%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.63%) Network Security
1 1 (0.63%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (14.56%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (8.86%) Relational Database
3 8 (5.06%) MongoDB
4 7 (4.43%) Redis
4 7 (4.43%) SQL Server
5 6 (3.80%) DynamoDB
5 6 (3.80%) NoSQL
6 3 (1.90%) MySQL
7 2 (1.27%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.27%) EDRMS
7 2 (1.27%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.63%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.63%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.63%) Hasura
8 1 (0.63%) Power BI
8 1 (0.63%) Spark SQL
8 1 (0.63%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (12.03%) Jenkins
2 12 (7.59%) Git
3 10 (6.33%) JUnit
4 7 (4.43%) Mockito
5 6 (3.80%) Gradle
6 5 (3.16%) GitLab
6 5 (3.16%) Liquibase
7 4 (2.53%) JIRA
7 4 (2.53%) SonarQube
8 3 (1.90%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.90%) Subversion
9 2 (1.27%) Artifactory
9 2 (1.27%) CircleCI
9 2 (1.27%) Maven
10 1 (0.63%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.63%) Bundler
10 1 (0.63%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.63%) ESLint
10 1 (0.63%) Karma Test Runner
10 1 (0.63%) webpack
General
1 32 (20.25%) Social Skills
2 27 (17.09%) Public Sector
3 26 (16.46%) Finance
4 16 (10.13%) Banking
5 13 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (6.33%) Front Office
7 6 (3.80%) Investment Banking
7 6 (3.80%) Marketing
8 4 (2.53%) Automotive
9 3 (1.90%) Retail
10 2 (1.27%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.27%) Electronics
10 2 (1.27%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.27%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.27%) Military
10 2 (1.27%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.63%) Law
11 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.63%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (17.72%) Spring
1 28 (17.72%) Spring Boot
2 26 (16.46%) Kafka
3 25 (15.82%) Node.js
3 25 (15.82%) React
4 18 (11.39%) .NET
5 16 (10.13%) RESTful
6 15 (9.49%) GraphQL
7 11 (6.96%) REST
8 10 (6.33%) .NET Core
9 9 (5.70%) Redux
10 8 (5.06%) AngularJS
11 7 (4.43%) ActiveMQ
11 7 (4.43%) HTML
11 7 (4.43%) LangChain
12 6 (3.80%) CSS
12 6 (3.80%) OAuth
12 6 (3.80%) OpenAPI
12 6 (3.80%) Swagger
13 5 (3.16%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.13%) Cloud Native
2 15 (9.49%) Product Ownership
3 10 (6.33%) Fixed Income
4 8 (5.06%) Algorithms
5 7 (4.43%) Data Structures
5 7 (4.43%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (4.43%) Low-Code
6 5 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (3.16%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.90%) Mainframe
7 3 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.27%) Credit Risk
8 2 (1.27%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.27%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.63%) Animation
9 1 (0.63%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.63%) NHS
9 1 (0.63%) PKI
9 1 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.43%) Linux
2 4 (2.53%) Android
2 4 (2.53%) Unix
3 3 (1.90%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.90%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.27%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.63%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (41.14%) Agile
2 53 (33.54%) CI/CD
3 44 (27.85%) DevOps
4 43 (27.22%) Microservices
5 38 (24.05%) Mentoring
6 36 (22.78%) TDD
7 34 (21.52%) Problem-Solving
8 29 (18.35%) Software Engineering
9 27 (17.09%) Technical Leadership
10 25 (15.82%) Containerisation
11 18 (11.39%) Full-Stack Development
11 18 (11.39%) Performance Optimisation
12 17 (10.76%) Scrum
13 16 (10.13%) Computer Science
14 15 (9.49%) BDD
14 15 (9.49%) Design Patterns
15 14 (8.86%) Migration
15 14 (8.86%) Test Automation
16 13 (8.23%) SOLID
17 12 (7.59%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 74 (46.84%) Java
2 34 (21.52%) TypeScript
3 31 (19.62%) SQL
4 30 (18.99%) JavaScript
5 27 (17.09%) Python
6 23 (14.56%) C#
7 10 (6.33%) Go
8 7 (4.43%) Kotlin
9 4 (2.53%) C++
10 3 (1.90%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.90%) Swift
11 2 (1.27%) PHP
11 2 (1.27%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.27%) Ruby
12 1 (0.63%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.63%) C
12 1 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.63%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.63%) Perl
12 1 (0.63%) R
Qualifications
1 29 (18.35%) Security Cleared
2 24 (15.19%) SC Cleared
3 18 (11.39%) Degree
4 10 (6.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (5.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (3.80%) Numerate Degree
7 3 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.90%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.63%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.80%) Accessibility
2 5 (3.16%) QA
System Software
1 33 (20.89%) Docker
2 2 (1.27%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 21 (13.29%) Terraform
2 18 (11.39%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.27%) Ansible
3 2 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.63%) Istio
Vendors
1 13 (8.23%) Microsoft
2 8 (5.06%) Google
3 5 (3.16%) Foundry
4 4 (2.53%) Oracle
5 3 (1.90%) SAP
5 3 (1.90%) Virgin Media
6 2 (1.27%) Adobe
6 2 (1.27%) Autodesk
6 2 (1.27%) Checkmarx
6 2 (1.27%) Okta
6 2 (1.27%) OpenAI
6 2 (1.27%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.63%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (0.63%) Dell
7 1 (0.63%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.63%) ION Trading
7 1 (0.63%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.63%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.63%) Splunk
7 1 (0.63%) Wonderware