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 26 May 2026.

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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 443 352 409
Rank change year-on-year -91 +57 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 193 174 167
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.61% 0.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.43% 0.66% 0.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 123 135
10th Percentile £413 £413 £400
25th Percentile £511 £502 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £625
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -12.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £775 £688 £838
90th Percentile £846 £750 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £525 £600
% change year-on-year +9.52% -12.50% +2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £72.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 44,822 26,395 39,583
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.28% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,378 17,183 25,758
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,956 1,008 2,746
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.49 £18.12 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.52 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.46% -24.62% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.06 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 May 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 14 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 May 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 -110 155 £575 -2.46% 66
London -83 75 £725 +11.54% 21
UK excluding London -92 74 £575 +9.52% 51
Work from Home -53 71 £700 +16.67% 34
North of England -41 48 £575 +3.14% 20
North West -18 26 £570 -10.59% 8
North East -9 14 £650 +2.36% 6
Midlands -60 13 £513 -1.36% 13
South East -58 9 £600 +9.09% 15
Yorkshire -56 8 £561 +6.90% 6
East Midlands -24 6 £476 -4.80% 9
West Midlands -65 6 £475 -11.89% 4
South West -34 2 £688 -7.09%
East of England -35 2 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 26 May 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 85 (44.04%) Agile
2 77 (39.90%) AWS
3 66 (34.20%) Java
4 63 (32.64%) Azure
5 62 (32.12%) Node.js
6 59 (30.57%) React
7 58 (30.05%) JavaScript
8 57 (29.53%) Software Engineering
9 53 (27.46%) CI/CD
10 52 (26.94%) TypeScript
11 51 (26.42%) Mentoring
12 44 (22.80%) Full-Stack Development
12 44 (22.80%) Python
13 42 (21.76%) DevOps
14 38 (19.69%) Redux
15 37 (19.17%) Docker
16 36 (18.65%) Investment Management
16 36 (18.65%) Portfolio Management
17 34 (17.62%) Microservices
17 34 (17.62%) Technical Leadership
18 33 (17.10%) Security Cleared
19 32 (16.58%) Containerisation
19 32 (16.58%) GCP
20 31 (16.06%) SC Cleared
20 31 (16.06%) Spring
21 30 (15.54%) Kafka
21 30 (15.54%) Kubernetes
22 27 (13.99%) PostgreSQL
22 27 (13.99%) Spring Boot
23 26 (13.47%) GraphQL

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 (2.07%) SAS
2 3 (1.55%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.04%) Appian
3 2 (1.04%) ArcGIS
3 2 (1.04%) Confluence
3 2 (1.04%) IIS
3 2 (1.04%) JBoss
3 2 (1.04%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (1.04%) ThingWorx
3 2 (1.04%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.52%) Apache
4 1 (0.52%) CMS
4 1 (0.52%) nginx
4 1 (0.52%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.52%) Magento
2 1 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.52%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 77 (39.90%) AWS
2 63 (32.64%) Azure
3 32 (16.58%) GCP
4 10 (5.18%) GitHub
4 10 (5.18%) Serverless
5 9 (4.66%) GitHub Actions
6 7 (3.63%) Amazon SQS
6 7 (3.63%) Power Platform
7 6 (3.11%) Azure AKS
7 6 (3.11%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.59%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.59%) Azure Monitor
8 5 (2.59%) Azure Service Bus
8 5 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
8 5 (2.59%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 4 (2.07%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (2.07%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 4 (2.07%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.04%) MQTT
2 1 (0.52%) DNS
2 1 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (13.99%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 7 (3.63%) Relational Database
4 4 (2.07%) Data Hub
4 4 (2.07%) MongoDB
4 4 (2.07%) Power BI
5 3 (1.55%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (1.55%) DocumentDB
6 2 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.04%) DynamoDB
6 2 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (1.04%) Geospatial Data
6 2 (1.04%) GIS
6 2 (1.04%) MySQL
6 2 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 2 (1.04%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.52%) Spark SQL
7 1 (0.52%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 9 (4.66%) Jenkins
2 8 (4.15%) Git
3 7 (3.63%) GitLab
3 7 (3.63%) JIRA
4 5 (2.59%) JUnit
5 4 (2.07%) Mockito
6 3 (1.55%) Maven
7 2 (1.04%) SonarQube
7 2 (1.04%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.52%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.52%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.52%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.52%) Gradle
8 1 (0.52%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.52%) Mocha
8 1 (0.52%) Selenium
8 1 (0.52%) Storybook
8 1 (0.52%) Vite
8 1 (0.52%) webpack
General
1 53 (27.46%) Finance
2 39 (20.21%) Public Sector
3 37 (19.17%) Front Office
4 19 (9.84%) Social Skills
5 7 (3.63%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.55%) Banking
7 3 (1.55%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.52%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.52%) Local Government
9 1 (0.52%) Marketing
9 1 (0.52%) Military
9 1 (0.52%) Police
9 1 (0.52%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (32.12%) Node.js
2 59 (30.57%) React
3 38 (19.69%) Redux
4 31 (16.06%) Spring
5 30 (15.54%) Kafka
6 27 (13.99%) Spring Boot
7 26 (13.47%) GraphQL
8 22 (11.40%) REST
9 18 (9.33%) .NET
10 15 (7.77%) Vue
11 14 (7.25%) RESTful
12 13 (6.74%) AngularJS
13 8 (4.15%) OAuth
14 7 (3.63%) Nunjucks
15 6 (3.11%) Flutter
15 6 (3.11%) OAuth2
15 6 (3.11%) OpenID
15 6 (3.11%) SOAP
16 5 (2.59%) Hibernate
16 5 (2.59%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 37 (19.17%) Fixed Income
2 17 (8.81%) Cloud Native
3 16 (8.29%) Derivative
3 16 (8.29%) Equities
4 9 (4.66%) Product Ownership
5 7 (3.63%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.55%) Credit Risk
6 3 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.55%) NHS
6 3 (1.55%) Virtual Team
7 2 (1.04%) Client/Server
7 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.04%) Industrial Internet of Things
7 2 (1.04%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.04%) N-Tier
7 2 (1.04%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.04%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.04%) SCADA
8 1 (0.52%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.18%) Android
2 9 (4.66%) Apple iOS
3 4 (2.07%) Linux
4 2 (1.04%) Windows
5 1 (0.52%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.52%) Solaris
5 1 (0.52%) VMS
5 1 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (44.04%) Agile
2 57 (29.53%) Software Engineering
3 53 (27.46%) CI/CD
4 51 (26.42%) Mentoring
5 44 (22.80%) Full-Stack Development
6 42 (21.76%) DevOps
7 36 (18.65%) Investment Management
7 36 (18.65%) Portfolio Management
8 34 (17.62%) Microservices
8 34 (17.62%) Technical Leadership
9 32 (16.58%) Containerisation
10 22 (11.40%) Code Quality
11 20 (10.36%) Order Management
12 18 (9.33%) Line Management
13 17 (8.81%) Infrastructure as Code
14 16 (8.29%) Asset Management
14 16 (8.29%) Continuous Improvement
14 16 (8.29%) Fintech
15 15 (7.77%) Event-Driven
15 15 (7.77%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 66 (34.20%) Java
2 58 (30.05%) JavaScript
3 52 (26.94%) TypeScript
4 44 (22.80%) Python
5 21 (10.88%) Go
5 21 (10.88%) SQL
6 19 (9.84%) C#
7 9 (4.66%) Kotlin
8 8 (4.15%) Swift
9 6 (3.11%) Bicep
10 5 (2.59%) Apex Code
11 3 (1.55%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.55%) Scala
11 3 (1.55%) T-SQL
12 2 (1.04%) ABAP
12 2 (1.04%) Dart
12 2 (1.04%) Ruby
13 1 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.52%) R
13 1 (0.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 33 (17.10%) Security Cleared
2 31 (16.06%) SC Cleared
3 15 (7.77%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (1.04%) DBS Check
4 2 (1.04%) Degree
4 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.22%) QA
2 8 (4.15%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.52%) GDPR
3 1 (0.52%) NCSC
3 1 (0.52%) SLA
3 1 (0.52%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (19.17%) Docker
2 1 (0.52%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 30 (15.54%) Kubernetes
2 19 (9.84%) Terraform
3 4 (2.07%) Grafana
4 1 (0.52%) Kibana
4 1 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
4 1 (0.52%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 22 (11.40%) Microsoft
2 7 (3.63%) Informatica
3 5 (2.59%) Salesforce
4 4 (2.07%) Oracle
5 3 (1.55%) Adobe
5 3 (1.55%) Anaplan
5 3 (1.55%) IBM
5 3 (1.55%) SAP
5 3 (1.55%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.04%) DataFlux
6 2 (1.04%) ESRI
6 2 (1.04%) Kepware
7 1 (0.52%) Ariba
7 1 (0.52%) Databricks
7 1 (0.52%) Google
7 1 (0.52%) Guidewire
7 1 (0.52%) Jaspersoft
7 1 (0.52%) Liquidlogic
7 1 (0.52%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.52%) VMware