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 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 412 359 408
Rank change year-on-year -53 +49 +63
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Developer 225 179 188
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.60% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.48% 0.65% 0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 128 150
10th Percentile £422 £431 £446
25th Percentile £513 £507 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £569 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.10% -12.50% +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%
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 46,676 27,509 40,765
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.24% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,368 17,700 26,113
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £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 3,110 1,183 2,977
10th Percentile £15.24 £13.88 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.92 £17.47 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.69 £27.21 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.57% -27.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 19 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 19 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 -77 184 £575 -4.17% 64
London -66 89 £700 +5.26% 20
UK excluding London -78 88 £575 +9.52% 48
Work from Home -56 78 £725 +20.83% 37
North of England -37 50 £575 +9.52% 14
North West -16 28 £571 -4.83% 10
Midlands -54 16 £550 +8.47% 14
North East -22 14 £650 +2.36% 2
South West -24 8 £525 -19.85% 5
South East -61 8 £625 +13.64% 10
Yorkshire -62 8 £561 +6.90% 2
East Midlands - 8 £476 - 4
West Midlands -66 7 £525 +3.54% 10
Scotland -19 3 - - 1
East of England -26 3 £550 +4.76% 3

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 96 (42.67%) Agile
1 96 (42.67%) AWS
2 77 (34.22%) Java
3 69 (30.67%) Azure
3 69 (30.67%) Node.js
4 63 (28.00%) CI/CD
4 63 (28.00%) JavaScript
5 61 (27.11%) Software Engineering
6 58 (25.78%) Mentoring
7 57 (25.33%) React
8 56 (24.89%) TypeScript
9 53 (23.56%) DevOps
10 51 (22.67%) Full-Stack Development
11 49 (21.78%) Security Cleared
12 48 (21.33%) Docker
12 48 (21.33%) Python
13 44 (19.56%) Microservices
14 43 (19.11%) SC Cleared
15 41 (18.22%) Technical Leadership
16 38 (16.89%) Kubernetes
16 38 (16.89%) Redux
17 37 (16.44%) Containerisation
18 36 (16.00%) Investment Management
18 36 (16.00%) Portfolio Management
18 36 (16.00%) Spring
19 33 (14.67%) Kafka
19 33 (14.67%) Spring Boot
20 32 (14.22%) PostgreSQL
21 31 (13.78%) GCP
22 27 (12.00%) .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 (2.67%) Confluence
2 4 (1.78%) SAS
3 3 (1.33%) CMS
3 3 (1.33%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.89%) Appian
4 2 (0.89%) IIS
4 2 (0.89%) JBoss
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.89%) ThingWorx
4 2 (0.89%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.44%) Apache
5 1 (0.44%) nginx
5 1 (0.44%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.44%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 3 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.89%) Remedy AR System
2 2 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.44%) Magento
3 1 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.44%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 96 (42.67%) AWS
2 69 (30.67%) Azure
3 31 (13.78%) GCP
4 15 (6.67%) GitHub
5 12 (5.33%) Serverless
6 10 (4.44%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (3.56%) Power Platform
8 6 (2.67%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (2.67%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (2.67%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 5 (2.22%) Amazon S3
9 5 (2.22%) Power Automate
9 5 (2.22%) PowerApps
10 4 (1.78%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (1.78%) Azure AKS
10 4 (1.78%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (1.78%) Azure Service Bus
11 3 (1.33%) Amazon ECR
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.89%) MQTT
2 1 (0.44%) DNS
2 1 (0.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (14.22%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (3.56%) Relational Database
2 8 (3.56%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.67%) MongoDB
4 4 (1.78%) Geospatial Data
4 4 (1.78%) Oracle Database
4 4 (1.78%) Redis
5 3 (1.33%) Data Hub
5 3 (1.33%) DocumentDB
5 3 (1.33%) Power BI
6 2 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.89%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.89%) GIS
6 2 (0.89%) MySQL
6 2 (0.89%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.89%) SAS Data Integration Studio
7 1 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 13 (5.78%) Git
1 13 (5.78%) Jenkins
2 12 (5.33%) JIRA
3 10 (4.44%) GitLab
4 6 (2.67%) JUnit
5 5 (2.22%) Maven
5 5 (2.22%) Mockito
6 2 (0.89%) MSI
6 2 (0.89%) Oracle Forms
6 2 (0.89%) PVCS
6 2 (0.89%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.89%) SpecFlow
6 2 (0.89%) Subversion
7 1 (0.44%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.44%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.44%) Gradle
7 1 (0.44%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.44%) Mocha
7 1 (0.44%) Selenium
7 1 (0.44%) Storybook
General
1 58 (25.78%) Finance
2 52 (23.11%) Public Sector
3 37 (16.44%) Front Office
4 23 (10.22%) Social Skills
5 7 (3.11%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (2.67%) Banking
7 5 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.78%) Military
8 4 (1.78%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.33%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.89%) Marketing
11 1 (0.44%) Games
11 1 (0.44%) Law
11 1 (0.44%) Local Government
11 1 (0.44%) Police
11 1 (0.44%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (30.67%) Node.js
2 57 (25.33%) React
3 38 (16.89%) Redux
4 36 (16.00%) Spring
5 33 (14.67%) Kafka
5 33 (14.67%) Spring Boot
6 27 (12.00%) .NET
6 27 (12.00%) REST
7 25 (11.11%) GraphQL
8 17 (7.56%) RESTful
9 14 (6.22%) AngularJS
9 14 (6.22%) Vue
10 7 (3.11%) Nunjucks
10 7 (3.11%) SOAP
11 6 (2.67%) Flutter
11 6 (2.67%) Lightning Web Components
12 5 (2.22%) Django
12 5 (2.22%) JPA
12 5 (2.22%) OpenAPI
12 5 (2.22%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 37 (16.44%) Fixed Income
2 19 (8.44%) Cloud Native
3 18 (8.00%) Derivative
4 16 (7.11%) Equities
5 10 (4.44%) Product Ownership
6 9 (4.00%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (3.56%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (3.56%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.78%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.33%) Credit Risk
9 3 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (1.33%) Mobile App
9 3 (1.33%) NHS
9 3 (1.33%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.89%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.89%) CMDB
10 2 (0.89%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.89%) N-Tier
10 2 (0.89%) Public Cloud
10 2 (0.89%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.44%) Android
2 9 (4.00%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.78%) Linux
3 4 (1.78%) Windows
4 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.44%) Solaris
4 1 (0.44%) VMS
4 1 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (42.67%) Agile
2 63 (28.00%) CI/CD
3 61 (27.11%) Software Engineering
4 58 (25.78%) Mentoring
5 53 (23.56%) DevOps
6 51 (22.67%) Full-Stack Development
7 44 (19.56%) Microservices
8 41 (18.22%) Technical Leadership
9 37 (16.44%) Containerisation
10 36 (16.00%) Investment Management
10 36 (16.00%) Portfolio Management
11 25 (11.11%) Code Quality
12 20 (8.89%) Continuous Improvement
12 20 (8.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 20 (8.89%) Order Management
13 18 (8.00%) Event-Driven
13 18 (8.00%) Line Management
14 16 (7.11%) Asset Management
14 16 (7.11%) Fintech
14 16 (7.11%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 77 (34.22%) Java
2 63 (28.00%) JavaScript
3 56 (24.89%) TypeScript
4 48 (21.33%) Python
5 25 (11.11%) SQL
6 23 (10.22%) C#
7 20 (8.89%) Go
8 10 (4.44%) Kotlin
9 8 (3.56%) Swift
10 6 (2.67%) Apex Code
10 6 (2.67%) Bicep
10 6 (2.67%) T-SQL
11 3 (1.33%) PL/SQL
11 3 (1.33%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.33%) Scala
12 2 (0.89%) ABAP
12 2 (0.89%) Dart
12 2 (0.89%) Ruby
12 2 (0.89%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.44%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 49 (21.78%) Security Cleared
2 43 (19.11%) SC Cleared
3 20 (8.89%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (0.44%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.44%) Degree
5 1 (0.44%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.78%) Accessibility
1 13 (5.78%) QA
2 3 (1.33%) NCSC
2 3 (1.33%) WCAG
3 1 (0.44%) GDPR
3 1 (0.44%) SLA
System Software
1 48 (21.33%) Docker
2 1 (0.44%) Apache ZooKeeper
2 1 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.44%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 38 (16.89%) Kubernetes
2 22 (9.78%) Terraform
3 4 (1.78%) Grafana
4 2 (0.89%) Kibana
5 1 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 26 (11.56%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.00%) Salesforce
3 7 (3.11%) Informatica
3 7 (3.11%) Oracle
4 5 (2.22%) IBM
5 4 (1.78%) Blue Prism
6 3 (1.33%) SAP
7 2 (0.89%) Adobe
7 2 (0.89%) Anaplan
7 2 (0.89%) BMC
7 2 (0.89%) DataFlux
7 2 (0.89%) Guidewire
7 2 (0.89%) Kepware
7 2 (0.89%) OpenAI
7 2 (0.89%) Remedy
8 1 (0.44%) ESRI
8 1 (0.44%) Google
8 1 (0.44%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.44%) Liquidlogic
8 1 (0.44%) VMware