Lead Developer Contract Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer daily rate in the UK is £560, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 425 376 364
Rank change year-on-year -49 -12 +90
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 264 178 214
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.54% 0.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.52% 0.59% 0.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 126 163
10th Percentile £450 £463 £453
25th Percentile £500 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £550 £625
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -12.00% +7.21%
75th Percentile £638 £710 £875
90th Percentile £746 £778 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £550 £550
% change year-on-year +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 50,596 30,108 35,619
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.21% 91.02% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,877 19,013 21,671
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.62%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,928 1,616 1,603
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £69.20 £74.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -0.38%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 -85 177 £555 -3.48% 172
UK excluding London -58 104 £575 +4.55% 99
London -88 82 £550 -15.38% 86
Work from Home -74 65 £550 -8.33% 79
North of England -51 44 £650 +16.59% 37
North West -25 25 £575 +9.52% 10
Midlands -36 22 £519 +9.21% 19
Scotland -12 19 £475 -0.21% 7
West Midlands -42 13 £488 +2.63% 12
North East -28 12 £650 +2.36% 5
South West -38 10 £525 -4.55% 6
East Midlands -9 9 £550 - 7
Yorkshire -51 7 £625 +5.93% 22
South East -70 5 £600 +9.09% 18
East of England -32 4 £503 -6.51% 4
Wales - 2 £750 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 26 September 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 95 (35.98%) CI/CD
1 95 (35.98%) Security Cleared
2 94 (35.61%) Agile
3 93 (35.23%) AWS
4 81 (30.68%) SC Cleared
5 76 (28.79%) Java
6 65 (24.62%) DevOps
7 63 (23.86%) Azure
8 62 (23.48%) Microservices
8 62 (23.48%) Technical Leadership
9 61 (23.11%) Mentoring
10 59 (22.35%) Docker
11 53 (20.08%) SQL
12 47 (17.80%) Git
13 46 (17.42%) REST
14 45 (17.05%) JavaScript
15 44 (16.67%) Spring
15 44 (16.67%) Spring Boot
16 42 (15.91%) Node.js
16 42 (15.91%) Software Engineering
17 41 (15.53%) Kubernetes
18 40 (15.15%) Containerisation
19 38 (14.39%) .NET
20 37 (14.02%) Code Quality
21 36 (13.64%) C#
22 34 (12.88%) Full-Stack Development
23 33 (12.50%) Test Automation
24 32 (12.12%) BPSS Clearance
24 32 (12.12%) Microsoft
24 32 (12.12%) Problem-Solving

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 10 (3.79%) SharePoint
2 9 (3.41%) Confluence
3 5 (1.89%) IIS
4 4 (1.52%) Oracle Workflow
4 4 (1.52%) SAS
5 3 (1.14%) CMS
6 2 (0.76%) ThingWorx
7 1 (0.38%) Camunda
7 1 (0.38%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.38%) nginx
7 1 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.38%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.38%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.76%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 7 (2.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.14%) Remedy AR System
2 3 (1.14%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.76%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.38%) IntelliMatch
4 1 (0.38%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 93 (35.23%) AWS
2 63 (23.86%) Azure
3 25 (9.47%) Serverless
4 20 (7.58%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (5.30%) Power Platform
6 13 (4.92%) GitHub
7 10 (3.79%) GCP
7 10 (3.79%) Power Automate
8 8 (3.03%) Dynamics 365
8 8 (3.03%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (2.65%) Azure Functions
9 7 (2.65%) SaaS
10 6 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (2.27%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (2.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (1.89%) Amazon Cognito
12 4 (1.52%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (1.52%) Azure Key Vault
12 4 (1.52%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (1.52%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.65%) HTTP
2 2 (0.76%) CTI
2 2 (0.76%) MQTT
3 1 (0.38%) DNS
3 1 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (8.71%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (7.95%) SQL Server
3 17 (6.44%) MongoDB
4 9 (3.41%) Relational Database
5 8 (3.03%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (2.27%) Oracle Database
6 6 (2.27%) Redis
7 5 (1.89%) MS Access
7 5 (1.89%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.52%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.52%) Metadata
9 3 (1.14%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.76%) Couchbase
10 2 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.76%) GIS
10 2 (0.76%) Power BI
10 2 (0.76%) SAS Data Integration Studio
11 1 (0.38%) Oracle Database 10g
11 1 (0.38%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 47 (17.80%) Git
2 27 (10.23%) Jenkins
3 20 (7.58%) Maven
4 15 (5.68%) GitLab
4 15 (5.68%) JIRA
5 13 (4.92%) JUnit
6 7 (2.65%) Mockito
6 7 (2.65%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (2.65%) SonarQube
7 6 (2.27%) GoCD
7 6 (2.27%) Gradle
8 5 (1.89%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (1.52%) JProfiler
9 4 (1.52%) Visual Studio
10 3 (1.14%) PVCS
10 3 (1.14%) Subversion
10 3 (1.14%) tSQLt
11 2 (0.76%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.76%) MSI
11 2 (0.76%) Rational DOORS
General
1 75 (28.41%) Public Sector
2 47 (17.80%) Social Skills
3 27 (10.23%) Finance
4 14 (5.30%) Banking
5 13 (4.92%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.27%) Military
8 5 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.89%) Investment Banking
8 5 (1.89%) Legal
9 4 (1.52%) Legal Technology
9 4 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.14%) Retail
10 3 (1.14%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.76%) Local Government
11 2 (0.76%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Marketing
12 1 (0.38%) Police
12 1 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (17.42%) REST
2 44 (16.67%) Spring
2 44 (16.67%) Spring Boot
3 42 (15.91%) Node.js
4 38 (14.39%) .NET
5 27 (10.23%) Terraform
6 24 (9.09%) React
7 23 (8.71%) HTML
8 22 (8.33%) Kafka
9 21 (7.95%) RESTful
10 17 (6.44%) AngularJS
11 16 (6.06%) SOAP
11 16 (6.06%) XML
12 15 (5.68%) CSS
13 12 (4.55%) JSON
14 10 (3.79%) HTML5
14 10 (3.79%) Vue
15 9 (3.41%) .NET Framework
15 9 (3.41%) Nunjucks
15 9 (3.41%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (9.47%) Cloud Native
2 15 (5.68%) Product Ownership
3 13 (4.92%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (4.55%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (3.79%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (3.79%) LIMS
6 9 (3.41%) Management Information System
7 8 (3.03%) Legacy Applications
8 7 (2.65%) Onboarding
9 6 (2.27%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.89%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (1.89%) Replication
10 5 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (1.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 4 (1.52%) NHS
11 4 (1.52%) Taxonomies
12 3 (1.14%) CMDB
12 3 (1.14%) Derivative
12 3 (1.14%) Mobile App
13 2 (0.76%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 12 (4.55%) Windows
2 4 (1.52%) Android
2 4 (1.52%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.14%) Linux
4 2 (0.76%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.76%) Unix
5 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.38%) Solaris
5 1 (0.38%) VMS
5 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (35.98%) CI/CD
2 94 (35.61%) Agile
3 65 (24.62%) DevOps
4 62 (23.48%) Microservices
4 62 (23.48%) Technical Leadership
5 61 (23.11%) Mentoring
6 42 (15.91%) Software Engineering
7 40 (15.15%) Containerisation
8 37 (14.02%) Code Quality
9 34 (12.88%) Full-Stack Development
10 33 (12.50%) Test Automation
11 32 (12.12%) Problem-Solving
12 29 (10.98%) Front End Development
13 27 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
13 27 (10.23%) Infrastructure as Code
14 26 (9.85%) Event-Driven
15 25 (9.47%) Scrum
16 24 (9.09%) Data Modelling
17 23 (8.71%) TDD
18 21 (7.95%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 76 (28.79%) Java
2 53 (20.08%) SQL
3 45 (17.05%) JavaScript
4 36 (13.64%) C#
5 23 (8.71%) Python
6 21 (7.95%) TypeScript
7 13 (4.92%) T-SQL
8 9 (3.41%) PL/SQL
9 7 (2.65%) Bicep
10 6 (2.27%) Apex Code
11 5 (1.89%) Ruby
11 5 (1.89%) Scala
11 5 (1.89%) VB.NET
11 5 (1.89%) VBA
12 4 (1.52%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.52%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.52%) XPath
13 3 (1.14%) ABAP
13 3 (1.14%) VBScript
14 2 (0.76%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 95 (35.98%) Security Cleared
2 81 (30.68%) SC Cleared
3 32 (12.12%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (2.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (1.14%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.76%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified Developer
6 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (0.76%) Degree
6 2 (0.76%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (10.98%) Accessibility
2 18 (6.82%) QA
3 10 (3.79%) WCAG
4 6 (2.27%) GDPR
5 5 (1.89%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 5 (1.89%) GMP
5 5 (1.89%) GxP
5 5 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 17025
6 4 (1.52%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.14%) NCSC
8 1 (0.38%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.38%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 59 (22.35%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 41 (15.53%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.27%) Ansible
3 5 (1.89%) Grafana
3 5 (1.89%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.76%) Kibana
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 32 (12.12%) Microsoft
2 24 (9.09%) Oracle
3 10 (3.79%) Salesforce
4 8 (3.03%) IBM
5 7 (2.65%) Informatica
6 5 (1.89%) SAP
7 4 (1.52%) Blue Prism
8 3 (1.14%) BMC
8 3 (1.14%) Guidewire
8 3 (1.14%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.14%) Remedy
8 3 (1.14%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.76%) Adobe
9 2 (0.76%) DataFlux
9 2 (0.76%) Kepware
9 2 (0.76%) MuleSoft
9 2 (0.76%) PTC
9 2 (0.76%) Siemens
10 1 (0.38%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.38%) HubSpot