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 8 November 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 414 339 436
Rank change year-on-year -75 +97 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 168 215 191
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.59% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.53% 0.63% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 157 143
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £525 £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £625 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.80% +4.17% +1.05%
75th Percentile £703 £756 £725
90th Percentile £775 £888 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £556 £575
% change year-on-year -1.12% -3.26% +6.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £52.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £52.50 -

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 31,811 33,985 44,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.91% 92.88% 93.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,179 20,513 30,002
10th Percentile £278 £300 £295
25th Percentile £402 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,817 1,273 1,546
10th Percentile £14.03 £15.10 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.10% -17.98% +53.98%
75th Percentile £51.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.25 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.65% -20.79% +85.42%

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 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 8 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 -73 140 £596 -4.72% 213
Work from Home -8 81 £600 -7.69% 145
London -55 79 £650 - 111
UK excluding London -20 63 £550 -1.12% 150
North of England -12 31 £596 +8.27% 40
Yorkshire -22 20 £695 +27.82% 7
Midlands -26 12 £475 -11.63% 6
West Midlands -30 9 £475 -11.63% 6
North West -11 8 £525 -13.08% 28
Scotland +15 7 £447 - 7
South West +1 7 £550 -1.12% 2
South East -13 5 £550 -15.38% 83
North East - 3 £600 - 5
East Midlands - 3 - -
East of England -10 1 £550 +51.72% 8

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

For the 6 months to 8 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 79 (47.02%) Agile
2 78 (46.43%) Java
3 64 (38.10%) AWS
4 60 (35.71%) CI/CD
5 55 (32.74%) DevOps
6 50 (29.76%) Microservices
7 47 (27.98%) Azure
8 44 (26.19%) TDD
9 41 (24.40%) Mentoring
10 38 (22.62%) Problem-Solving
11 37 (22.02%) TypeScript
12 36 (21.43%) Docker
13 35 (20.83%) JavaScript
13 35 (20.83%) SQL
14 32 (19.05%) Software Engineering
14 32 (19.05%) Spring
14 32 (19.05%) Spring Boot
15 30 (17.86%) PostgreSQL
15 30 (17.86%) React
16 29 (17.26%) C#
17 28 (16.67%) Containerisation
17 28 (16.67%) Security Cleared
18 27 (16.07%) Kafka
19 26 (15.48%) Node.js
19 26 (15.48%) Technical Leadership
20 24 (14.29%) .NET
21 23 (13.69%) Jenkins
21 23 (13.69%) SC Cleared
21 23 (13.69%) Scrum
21 23 (13.69%) Terraform

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 (2.38%) Tomcat
2 3 (1.79%) Confluence
3 2 (1.19%) Apache
4 1 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.60%) LiveLink
4 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.60%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (1.19%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.60%) ION Anvil
2 1 (0.60%) Maximo
2 1 (0.60%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.60%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.60%) Shopify
2 1 (0.60%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 64 (38.10%) AWS
2 47 (27.98%) Azure
3 22 (13.10%) Azure DevOps
4 14 (8.33%) GCP
5 9 (5.36%) Amazon SQS
5 9 (5.36%) Serverless
6 8 (4.76%) Amazon S3
6 8 (4.76%) GitHub
7 7 (4.17%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.57%) Cloud Functions
8 6 (3.57%) Cloud Run
8 6 (3.57%) Entra ID
9 5 (2.98%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (2.98%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (2.98%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (2.98%) Power Platform
10 4 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.79%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.79%) PowerApps
11 3 (1.79%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.60%) Network Security
1 1 (0.60%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (17.86%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (8.33%) Relational Database
3 11 (6.55%) Redis
4 9 (5.36%) MongoDB
4 9 (5.36%) SQL Server
5 8 (4.76%) DynamoDB
6 6 (3.57%) NoSQL
7 5 (2.98%) Amazon Aurora
7 5 (2.98%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (2.38%) MySQL
9 2 (1.19%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (1.19%) EDRMS
9 2 (1.19%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.60%) BusinessObjects
10 1 (0.60%) Hasura
10 1 (0.60%) Power BI
10 1 (0.60%) Spark SQL
10 1 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 23 (13.69%) Jenkins
2 16 (9.52%) Git
3 13 (7.74%) JUnit
4 9 (5.36%) Mockito
5 8 (4.76%) SonarQube
6 7 (4.17%) GitLab
7 6 (3.57%) Gradle
8 5 (2.98%) JIRA
8 5 (2.98%) Liquibase
8 5 (2.98%) Maven
9 4 (2.38%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.79%) Subversion
11 2 (1.19%) Artifactory
11 2 (1.19%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.60%) Android Studio
12 1 (0.60%) Bundler
12 1 (0.60%) ESLint
12 1 (0.60%) Jaeger
12 1 (0.60%) Karma Test Runner
12 1 (0.60%) webpack
General
1 34 (20.24%) Social Skills
2 32 (19.05%) Public Sector
3 30 (17.86%) Finance
4 19 (11.31%) Banking
5 14 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (5.95%) Front Office
7 9 (5.36%) Marketing
8 8 (4.76%) Investment Banking
9 5 (2.98%) Electronics
9 5 (2.98%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.98%) Telecoms
10 4 (2.38%) Automotive
11 3 (1.79%) Retail
12 2 (1.19%) Aerospace
12 2 (1.19%) Financial Institution
12 2 (1.19%) Military
12 2 (1.19%) Spanish Language
13 1 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.60%) Law
13 1 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (19.05%) Spring
1 32 (19.05%) Spring Boot
2 30 (17.86%) React
3 27 (16.07%) Kafka
4 26 (15.48%) Node.js
5 24 (14.29%) .NET
6 19 (11.31%) RESTful
7 16 (9.52%) .NET Core
8 15 (8.93%) GraphQL
8 15 (8.93%) REST
9 12 (7.14%) ActiveMQ
10 11 (6.55%) AngularJS
11 10 (5.95%) HTML
12 9 (5.36%) CSS
12 9 (5.36%) Redux
13 7 (4.17%) React Native
14 6 (3.57%) OpenAPI
14 6 (3.57%) SOAP
14 6 (3.57%) Swagger
15 5 (2.98%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.71%) Cloud Native
2 15 (8.93%) Product Ownership
3 10 (5.95%) Fixed Income
4 8 (4.76%) Algorithms
5 7 (4.17%) Data Structures
6 6 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (3.57%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.98%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (2.38%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.79%) Mainframe
10 2 (1.19%) Credit Risk
10 2 (1.19%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (1.19%) Management Information System
10 2 (1.19%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.60%) Legacy Code
11 1 (0.60%) Low-Code
11 1 (0.60%) Public Cloud
11 1 (0.60%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.76%) Linux
2 6 (3.57%) Android
3 5 (2.98%) Apple iOS
3 5 (2.98%) Unix
4 3 (1.79%) Mac OS X
5 2 (1.19%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.60%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (47.02%) Agile
2 60 (35.71%) CI/CD
3 55 (32.74%) DevOps
4 50 (29.76%) Microservices
5 44 (26.19%) TDD
6 41 (24.40%) Mentoring
7 38 (22.62%) Problem-Solving
8 32 (19.05%) Software Engineering
9 28 (16.67%) Containerisation
10 26 (15.48%) Technical Leadership
11 23 (13.69%) Scrum
12 20 (11.90%) BDD
13 18 (10.71%) Full-Stack Development
13 18 (10.71%) Performance Optimisation
14 16 (9.52%) Computer Science
14 16 (9.52%) SOLID
15 15 (8.93%) Design Patterns
15 15 (8.93%) Test Automation
16 14 (8.33%) Migration
17 13 (7.74%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 78 (46.43%) Java
2 37 (22.02%) TypeScript
3 35 (20.83%) JavaScript
3 35 (20.83%) SQL
4 29 (17.26%) C#
5 22 (13.10%) Python
6 10 (5.95%) Go
7 8 (4.76%) PowerShell
8 7 (4.17%) Kotlin
9 5 (2.98%) Ruby
10 4 (2.38%) C++
11 3 (1.79%) Swift
12 2 (1.19%) Bicep
12 2 (1.19%) PHP
12 2 (1.19%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.60%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.60%) Bash
13 1 (0.60%) Groovy
13 1 (0.60%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.60%) Perl
Qualifications
1 28 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 23 (13.69%) SC Cleared
3 18 (10.71%) Degree
4 8 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
4 8 (4.76%) Numerate Degree
5 7 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.79%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.79%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.60%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.57%) Accessibility
2 4 (2.38%) QA
System Software
1 36 (21.43%) Docker
2 6 (3.57%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 23 (13.69%) Terraform
2 19 (11.31%) Kubernetes
3 4 (2.38%) Grafana
3 4 (2.38%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (1.19%) Ansible
4 2 (1.19%) Istio
4 2 (1.19%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.60%) Control-M
5 1 (0.60%) Kiali
Vendors
1 14 (8.33%) Microsoft
2 8 (4.76%) Google
3 6 (3.57%) SAP
3 6 (3.57%) Virgin Media
4 4 (2.38%) Autodesk
4 4 (2.38%) Okta
4 4 (2.38%) Oracle
5 2 (1.19%) Adobe
5 2 (1.19%) Checkmarx
5 2 (1.19%) OpenAI
5 2 (1.19%) Salesforce
5 2 (1.19%) Splunk
6 1 (0.60%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.60%) Apple
6 1 (0.60%) Cognos
6 1 (0.60%) Databricks
6 1 (0.60%) Dell
6 1 (0.60%) IBM
6 1 (0.60%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.60%) xMatters