Leader
UK

The median Leader daily rate in the UK is £575 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 30 37 41
Rank change year-on-year +7 +4 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 2,683 4,516 5,033
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.98% 5.88% 5.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.40% 6.18% 5.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,821 3,089 3,474
10th Percentile £410 £413 £400
25th Percentile £500 £500 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £563
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +6.67% +7.14%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £675
90th Percentile £775 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £500
% change year-on-year - +10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 71 85
10th Percentile £23.20 £10.09 £13.25
25th Percentile - £21.29 £16.50
Median hourly rate £46.18 £36.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.28% +33.33% +1.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.06 £53.62
90th Percentile £78.00 £66.00 £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.18 £35.00 £18.50
% change year-on-year +31.94% +89.19% -28.85%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 41,924 73,055 85,608
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.41% 95.16% 95.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,255 50,934 59,949
10th Percentile £294 £313 £301
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £510
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.84% +7.37%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £613
90th Percentile £742 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,489 1,726 2,212
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £30.87 £20.15
Median % change year-on-year +42.53% +53.22% -13.99%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £45.89
90th Percentile £77.50 £73.54 £62.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.00 £17.75
% change year-on-year +78.00% +40.85% -11.25%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Lead in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the UK

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead.

Daily rate trend for Lead in the UK

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead over the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the UK

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Lead.

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the UK

Lead
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Lead over the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

Hourly rate histogram for Lead in the UK

Lead
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the UK over the 6 months to 7 December 2023. 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 +10 2,264 £588 -2.08% 2,172
London +10 1,213 £600 -3.23% 900
UK excluding London +5 1,097 £550 - 1,358
Work from Home +8 1,090 £582 -3.00% 1,270
South East +3 285 £575 +2.22% 340
North of England +6 265 £550 - 335
South West 0 155 £600 -4.00% 162
North West +6 152 £538 +2.38% 184
Midlands +8 135 £561 +12.25% 284
Scotland 0 134 £525 - 59
East of England +37 115 £550 +10.00% 163
West Midlands +13 114 £555 +11.00% 221
Yorkshire +5 105 £563 +2.27% 106
Wales -5 18 £300 -47.37% 36
East Midlands +3 16 £600 +20.00% 62
North East +13 12 £477 -28.81% 47
Northern Ireland -3 10 £500 -4.76% 14

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 December 2023, Lead contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Lead in the job title.

1 609 (22.70%) Finance
2 565 (21.06%) Agile
3 539 (20.09%) Social Skills
4 424 (15.80%) Security Cleared
5 408 (15.21%) Azure
6 337 (12.56%) SC Cleared
7 331 (12.34%) AWS
8 327 (12.19%) DevOps
9 326 (12.15%) SAP
10 297 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
11 291 (10.85%) Public Sector
12 278 (10.36%) Project Management
13 274 (10.21%) Microsoft
14 267 (9.95%) Migration
15 232 (8.65%) Python
16 229 (8.54%) SQL
17 223 (8.31%) Roadmaps
18 221 (8.24%) Problem-Solving
19 202 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
20 183 (6.82%) Mentoring
21 182 (6.78%) Degree
22 178 (6.63%) CI/CD
23 171 (6.37%) Banking
24 167 (6.22%) Java
25 165 (6.15%) Oracle
26 161 (6.00%) SAP S/4HANA
27 158 (5.89%) .NET
27 158 (5.89%) Risk Management
28 155 (5.78%) Test Automation
29 151 (5.63%) Scrum

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 45 (1.68%) SharePoint
2 42 (1.57%) Confluence
3 18 (0.67%) Apache
4 17 (0.63%) Tomcat
5 12 (0.45%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.41%) IIS
6 11 (0.41%) nginx
7 10 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.37%) CMS
8 8 (0.30%) ThingWorx
8 8 (0.30%) WordPress
9 7 (0.26%) SAS
10 6 (0.22%) MS Exchange
11 5 (0.19%) Jupyter
11 5 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.19%) Skype for Business
12 4 (0.15%) Mule
12 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.11%) IBM Notes
Applications
1 41 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (0.60%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.34%) Sketch
6 8 (0.30%) InVision
7 6 (0.22%) Adobe XD
7 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.19%) Zeplin
9 4 (0.15%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.15%) EPLAN
9 4 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
10 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.075%) PlantUML
11 2 (0.075%) Simulink
11 2 (0.075%) Trello
12 1 (0.037%) CATIA
12 1 (0.037%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 161 (6.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
4 14 (0.52%) SAP PM
5 12 (0.45%) SAP CO
5 12 (0.45%) SAP SD
6 11 (0.41%) SAP FI
7 10 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 9 (0.34%) SAP BPC
9 8 (0.30%) Elite 3E
9 8 (0.30%) Loan IQ
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
9 8 (0.30%) SAP MDG
10 7 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
10 7 (0.26%) SAP Payroll
11 6 (0.22%) Endur
11 6 (0.22%) SAP MM
11 6 (0.22%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 408 (15.21%) Azure
2 331 (12.34%) AWS
3 123 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
4 99 (3.69%) Power Platform
5 74 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (2.72%) GCP
7 63 (2.35%) GitHub
7 63 (2.35%) Serverless
8 62 (2.31%) SaaS
9 58 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
10 50 (1.86%) Azure Monitor
11 46 (1.71%) PowerApps
12 45 (1.68%) SuccessFactors
13 38 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
14 37 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
15 33 (1.23%) Amazon S3
16 32 (1.19%) Entra ID
17 28 (1.04%) PaaS
18 27 (1.01%) IaaS
19 24 (0.89%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.65%) Firewall
2 45 (1.68%) LAN
3 41 (1.53%) WAN
4 40 (1.49%) VPN
5 32 (1.19%) Network Security
6 29 (1.08%) DNS
7 23 (0.86%) SAN
8 19 (0.71%) Wireless
9 16 (0.60%) HTTP
10 15 (0.56%) Internet
10 15 (0.56%) TCP/IP
11 14 (0.52%) SSL
11 14 (0.52%) Unified Communications
12 13 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
13 12 (0.45%) VSAN
14 11 (0.41%) WLAN
15 10 (0.37%) SNA
15 10 (0.37%) VLAN
16 9 (0.34%) BGP
16 9 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (3.39%) SQL Server
2 72 (2.68%) Power BI
3 52 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
4 37 (1.38%) Relational Database
5 36 (1.34%) Big Data
6 35 (1.30%) Data Lake
7 34 (1.27%) Metadata
7 34 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
8 29 (1.08%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 25 (0.93%) MySQL
11 20 (0.75%) RDBMS
12 19 (0.71%) Tableau
13 15 (0.56%) Hadoop
14 14 (0.52%) MongoDB
15 13 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 11 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.41%) SAP HANA
17 9 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 127 (4.73%) Git
2 119 (4.44%) JIRA
3 82 (3.06%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.16%) Selenium
5 27 (1.01%) SpecFlow
6 26 (0.97%) Postman
7 19 (0.71%) Bitbucket
8 17 (0.63%) GitLab
9 16 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 13 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.41%) JMeter
12 10 (0.37%) JUnit
12 10 (0.37%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.34%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.34%) TestRail
14 8 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 8 (0.30%) Maven
14 8 (0.30%) Octopus Deploy
14 8 (0.30%) Visual Studio
General
1 609 (22.70%) Finance
2 539 (20.09%) Social Skills
3 291 (10.85%) Public Sector
4 202 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
5 171 (6.37%) Banking
6 112 (4.17%) Manufacturing
7 63 (2.35%) Legal
8 57 (2.12%) Marketing
8 57 (2.12%) Retail
9 56 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
10 55 (2.05%) Law
11 54 (2.01%) Telecoms
12 49 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 39 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
15 32 (1.19%) Electronics
15 32 (1.19%) Investment Banking
16 24 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
17 22 (0.82%) Local Government
18 20 (0.75%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 158 (5.89%) .NET
2 109 (4.06%) REST
3 79 (2.94%) React
4 64 (2.39%) HTML
5 59 (2.20%) CSS
6 57 (2.12%) Spring
7 53 (1.98%) Node.js
8 46 (1.71%) Kafka
8 46 (1.71%) Oracle Fusion
9 45 (1.68%) .NET Core
9 45 (1.68%) SOAP
10 35 (1.30%) AngularJS
11 34 (1.27%) Web Services
12 31 (1.16%) .NET Framework
13 29 (1.08%) GraphQL
13 29 (1.08%) Spring Boot
14 28 (1.04%) OAuth
15 26 (0.97%) Middleware
15 26 (0.97%) RESTful
16 22 (0.82%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 110 (4.10%) Product Ownership
2 85 (3.17%) Management Information System
3 69 (2.57%) Onboarding
4 53 (1.98%) Data Centre
5 44 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (1.12%) Security Posture
7 28 (1.04%) Cloud Native
7 28 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
8 27 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
8 27 (1.01%) Public Cloud
9 24 (0.89%) Data Structures
9 24 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
10 23 (0.86%) PKI
10 23 (0.86%) Virtual Team
11 20 (0.75%) Mobile App
12 19 (0.71%) FMCG
12 19 (0.71%) Operational Technology
13 18 (0.67%) Life Science
14 17 (0.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 17 (0.63%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 130 (4.85%) Windows
2 102 (3.80%) Linux
3 45 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (0.86%) Unix
5 16 (0.60%) Android
6 10 (0.37%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.37%) VMS
7 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.26%) AIX
10 6 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
11 4 (0.15%) Rocky
11 4 (0.15%) SUSE
12 3 (0.11%) CentOS
12 3 (0.11%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 565 (21.06%) Agile
2 327 (12.19%) DevOps
3 297 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
4 278 (10.36%) Project Management
5 267 (9.95%) Migration
6 223 (8.31%) Roadmaps
7 221 (8.24%) Problem-Solving
8 183 (6.82%) Mentoring
9 178 (6.63%) CI/CD
10 158 (5.89%) Risk Management
11 155 (5.78%) Test Automation
12 151 (5.63%) Scrum
13 149 (5.55%) Change Management
13 149 (5.55%) Project Delivery
14 147 (5.48%) Cybersecurity
15 136 (5.07%) Analytics
16 134 (4.99%) ERP
17 123 (4.58%) Data Migration
18 122 (4.55%) Software Engineering
19 117 (4.36%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 232 (8.65%) Python
2 229 (8.54%) SQL
3 167 (6.22%) Java
4 147 (5.48%) JavaScript
5 135 (5.03%) C#
6 68 (2.53%) TypeScript
7 54 (2.01%) PowerShell
8 44 (1.64%) Bash
9 27 (1.01%) Go
10 20 (0.75%) ABAP
10 20 (0.75%) Kotlin
11 17 (0.63%) Ruby
12 15 (0.56%) Scala
13 14 (0.52%) PHP
14 13 (0.48%) C++
15 12 (0.45%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.45%) T-SQL
16 10 (0.37%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.34%) C
18 8 (0.30%) Perl
Qualifications
1 424 (15.80%) Security Cleared
2 337 (12.56%) SC Cleared
3 182 (6.78%) Degree
4 81 (3.02%) DV Cleared
5 52 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 45 (1.68%) CISSP
7 37 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
8 33 (1.23%) CISM
9 24 (0.89%) AWS Certification
9 24 (0.89%) CRISC
10 22 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (0.82%) Chartered Engineer
11 21 (0.78%) PMI Certification
12 18 (0.67%) Azure Certification
13 17 (0.63%) CCIE
13 17 (0.63%) GIAC
14 16 (0.60%) CCNP
14 16 (0.60%) Master's Degree
14 16 (0.60%) PMP
15 12 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.58%) QA
2 89 (3.32%) Data Quality
3 76 (2.83%) PMO
4 53 (1.98%) Accessibility
5 47 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 39 (1.45%) GDPR
7 32 (1.19%) NIST
8 29 (1.08%) SLA
9 28 (1.04%) PCI DSS
10 20 (0.75%) WCAG
11 15 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.41%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.34%) GRC
14 9 (0.34%) NCSC
15 8 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.26%) COBIT
17 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 85 (3.17%) Active Directory
2 77 (2.87%) Docker
3 50 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (0.56%) VMware NSX
6 10 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.34%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.15%) Squid
10 3 (0.11%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 2 (0.075%) Firmware
11 2 (0.075%) HDFS
11 2 (0.075%) KVM
12 1 (0.037%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.037%) Postfix
12 1 (0.037%) UAG
12 1 (0.037%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.037%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 106 (3.95%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.50%) Terraform
3 57 (2.12%) Ansible
4 24 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (0.86%) Progress Chef
6 22 (0.82%) Puppet
7 19 (0.71%) Grafana
7 19 (0.71%) SCCM
8 15 (0.56%) vRealize
9 11 (0.41%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (0.34%) HP ALM
11 9 (0.34%) Packer
12 8 (0.30%) VxRail
13 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.26%) FortiGate
13 7 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
13 7 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 7 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
14 6 (0.22%) PowerBroker
Vendors
1 326 (12.15%) SAP
2 274 (10.21%) Microsoft
3 165 (6.15%) Oracle
4 93 (3.47%) VMware
5 61 (2.27%) Salesforce
6 52 (1.94%) Cisco
7 43 (1.60%) ServiceNow
8 37 (1.38%) Google
9 31 (1.16%) Workday
10 30 (1.12%) Databricks
10 30 (1.12%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.01%) Ariba
12 24 (0.89%) Informatica
13 23 (0.86%) Virgin Media
14 22 (0.82%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.71%) HP
16 17 (0.63%) IBM
17 16 (0.60%) Adobe
18 15 (0.56%) Splunk
19 14 (0.52%) IFS