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 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 409 360 394
Rank change year-on-year -49 +34 +73
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 234 179 188
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.60% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.50% 0.65% 0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 129 150
10th Percentile £448 £415 £446
25th Percentile £525 £503 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -15.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £750 £688 £888
90th Percentile £838 £750 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £525 £600
% change year-on-year +9.52% -12.50% +3.23%

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 47,021 27,678 40,406
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.16% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,598 17,771 25,926
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -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 3,150 1,209 2,937
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.84 £12.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.08% -27.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -

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 24 June 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 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 24 June 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 -67 189 £575 -2.13% 59
UK excluding London -64 92 £575 +9.52% 49
London -66 91 £700 +5.26% 16
Work from Home -64 80 £725 +20.83% 34
North of England -48 51 £575 +9.52% 15
North West -28 29 £572 +8.95% 11
Midlands -49 17 £550 +8.47% 13
North East -22 14 £650 +2.36% 2
South West -31 8 £525 -19.85% 5
Yorkshire -55 8 £561 +6.90% 2
South East -56 8 £625 +13.64% 12
West Midlands -61 8 £575 +13.40% 10
East Midlands - 8 £476 - 3
Scotland -22 5 - - 1
East of England -25 3 £550 +4.76% 2

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

For the 6 months to 24 June 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.

1 103 (44.02%) AWS
2 101 (43.16%) Agile
3 81 (34.62%) Java
4 70 (29.91%) Azure
4 70 (29.91%) Node.js
5 66 (28.21%) CI/CD
6 62 (26.50%) JavaScript
7 61 (26.07%) Software Engineering
8 60 (25.64%) Mentoring
9 59 (25.21%) TypeScript
10 58 (24.79%) React
11 57 (24.36%) Security Cleared
12 53 (22.65%) DevOps
13 51 (21.79%) Full-Stack Development
14 49 (20.94%) Docker
14 49 (20.94%) SC Cleared
15 48 (20.51%) Python
16 46 (19.66%) Microservices
16 46 (19.66%) Technical Leadership
17 40 (17.09%) Kubernetes
17 40 (17.09%) Redux
18 38 (16.24%) Containerisation
18 38 (16.24%) Spring
19 36 (15.38%) Investment Management
19 36 (15.38%) Portfolio Management
19 36 (15.38%) Spring Boot
20 33 (14.10%) Kafka
20 33 (14.10%) PostgreSQL
21 31 (13.25%) REST
22 30 (12.82%) GCP

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 (2.99%) Confluence
2 4 (1.71%) SAS
3 3 (1.28%) CMS
3 3 (1.28%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.85%) Appian
4 2 (0.85%) IIS
4 2 (0.85%) JBoss
4 2 (0.85%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.85%) ThingWorx
4 2 (0.85%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.43%) Apache
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
5 1 (0.43%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.43%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 3 (1.28%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.28%) Remedy AR System
1 3 (1.28%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.43%) Magento
2 1 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.43%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 103 (44.02%) AWS
2 70 (29.91%) Azure
3 30 (12.82%) GCP
4 15 (6.41%) GitHub
5 14 (5.98%) Serverless
6 10 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (3.42%) Power Platform
9 6 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (2.56%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 5 (2.14%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.14%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (2.14%) Power Automate
10 5 (2.14%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.71%) Amazon EC2
11 4 (1.71%) Azure AKS
11 4 (1.71%) Azure Service Bus
12 3 (1.28%) Amazon ECR
12 3 (1.28%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.85%) MQTT
2 1 (0.43%) DNS
2 1 (0.43%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (14.10%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (3.42%) Relational Database
2 8 (3.42%) SQL Server
3 7 (2.99%) MongoDB
4 6 (2.56%) Oracle Database
5 5 (2.14%) Redis
6 4 (1.71%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (1.28%) Data Hub
7 3 (1.28%) DocumentDB
7 3 (1.28%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (1.28%) Power BI
8 2 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.85%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.85%) GIS
8 2 (0.85%) MySQL
8 2 (0.85%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.85%) SAS Data Integration Studio
9 1 (0.43%) QGIS
9 1 (0.43%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 16 (6.84%) Git
2 14 (5.98%) Jenkins
2 14 (5.98%) JIRA
3 11 (4.70%) GitLab
4 8 (3.42%) JUnit
4 8 (3.42%) Maven
5 6 (2.56%) Mockito
6 3 (1.28%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (1.28%) PVCS
6 3 (1.28%) Subversion
7 2 (0.85%) Gradle
7 2 (0.85%) MSI
7 2 (0.85%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.85%) SpecFlow
7 2 (0.85%) Storybook
8 1 (0.43%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.43%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.43%) GoCD
8 1 (0.43%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.43%) Vite
General
1 61 (26.07%) Finance
2 53 (22.65%) Public Sector
3 37 (15.81%) Front Office
4 27 (11.54%) Social Skills
5 8 (3.42%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (3.42%) Banking
6 5 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.14%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.71%) Military
8 3 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.28%) Investment Banking
9 2 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.85%) Marketing
10 1 (0.43%) Games
10 1 (0.43%) Law
10 1 (0.43%) Local Government
10 1 (0.43%) Police
10 1 (0.43%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (29.91%) Node.js
2 58 (24.79%) React
3 40 (17.09%) Redux
4 38 (16.24%) Spring
5 36 (15.38%) Spring Boot
6 33 (14.10%) Kafka
7 31 (13.25%) REST
8 26 (11.11%) .NET
9 25 (10.68%) GraphQL
10 17 (7.26%) RESTful
11 14 (5.98%) AngularJS
12 12 (5.13%) Vue
13 8 (3.42%) SOAP
14 7 (2.99%) JPA
14 7 (2.99%) Nunjucks
14 7 (2.99%) OpenAPI
15 6 (2.56%) Flutter
15 6 (2.56%) Jest
15 6 (2.56%) Lightning Web Components
15 6 (2.56%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 38 (16.24%) Fixed Income
2 20 (8.55%) Cloud Native
3 18 (7.69%) Derivative
4 16 (6.84%) Equities
5 11 (4.70%) Product Ownership
6 10 (4.27%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (3.42%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.71%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 4 (1.71%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.28%) CMDB
10 3 (1.28%) Credit Risk
10 3 (1.28%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.28%) NHS
10 3 (1.28%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.85%) Data Centre
11 2 (0.85%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.85%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.85%) Industrial Internet of Things
11 2 (0.85%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.27%) Android
2 9 (3.85%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.71%) Linux
3 4 (1.71%) Windows
4 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.43%) Solaris
4 1 (0.43%) VMS
4 1 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (43.16%) Agile
2 66 (28.21%) CI/CD
3 61 (26.07%) Software Engineering
4 60 (25.64%) Mentoring
5 53 (22.65%) DevOps
6 51 (21.79%) Full-Stack Development
7 46 (19.66%) Microservices
7 46 (19.66%) Technical Leadership
8 38 (16.24%) Containerisation
9 36 (15.38%) Investment Management
9 36 (15.38%) Portfolio Management
10 25 (10.68%) Code Quality
11 20 (8.55%) Continuous Improvement
11 20 (8.55%) Infrastructure as Code
11 20 (8.55%) Order Management
12 19 (8.12%) Event-Driven
12 19 (8.12%) Problem-Solving
12 19 (8.12%) Test Automation
13 18 (7.69%) Line Management
14 16 (6.84%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 81 (34.62%) Java
2 62 (26.50%) JavaScript
3 59 (25.21%) TypeScript
4 48 (20.51%) Python
5 29 (12.39%) SQL
6 22 (9.40%) C#
7 20 (8.55%) Go
8 10 (4.27%) Kotlin
9 8 (3.42%) Swift
10 6 (2.56%) Apex Code
10 6 (2.56%) Bicep
10 6 (2.56%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.71%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.28%) Scala
12 3 (1.28%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.85%) ABAP
13 2 (0.85%) Dart
13 2 (0.85%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.85%) Ruby
14 1 (0.43%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 57 (24.36%) Security Cleared
2 49 (20.94%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.97%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.43%) Degree
5 1 (0.43%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.98%) Accessibility
1 14 (5.98%) QA
2 3 (1.28%) NCSC
2 3 (1.28%) WCAG
3 1 (0.43%) GDPR
3 1 (0.43%) SLA
System Software
1 49 (20.94%) Docker
2 1 (0.43%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 1 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 40 (17.09%) Kubernetes
2 22 (9.40%) Terraform
3 4 (1.71%) Grafana
4 3 (1.28%) Kibana
5 1 (0.43%) Ansible
5 1 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.43%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 9 (3.85%) Oracle
2 9 (3.85%) Salesforce
3 7 (2.99%) Informatica
4 5 (2.14%) IBM
5 4 (1.71%) Blue Prism
6 3 (1.28%) BMC
6 3 (1.28%) Remedy
6 3 (1.28%) SAP
7 2 (0.85%) Adobe
7 2 (0.85%) Anaplan
7 2 (0.85%) DataFlux
7 2 (0.85%) Guidewire
7 2 (0.85%) Kepware
7 2 (0.85%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.43%) Genesys
8 1 (0.43%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.43%) Liquidlogic
8 1 (0.43%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.43%) ServiceNow