Lead Contracts in the West Midlands

Leader
England > West Midlands

The median Leader daily rate in the West Midlands is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 30 22 27
Rank change year-on-year -8 +5 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 78 112 155
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the West Midlands 5.70% 5.85% 6.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.27% 6.40% 7.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 79 111
10th Percentile £309 £383 £413
25th Percentile £422 £482 £494
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £595 £595
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% - +10.70%
75th Percentile £619 £688 £700
90th Percentile £720 £813 £743
England median daily rate £580 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -0.85% -2.50% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 8 0
Median hourly rate £59.00 £39.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +51.28% - -
England median hourly rate £71.25 £61.01 £55.00
% change year-on-year +16.78% +10.93% +57.14%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. 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 West Midlands with a recognized job title 1,244 1,751 2,197
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.87% 91.39% 94.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 815 1,183 1,505
10th Percentile £197 £259 £250
25th Percentile £375 £363 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -2.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £711 £697
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 135 63
10th Percentile £12.62 £12.04 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £15.00 £14.75
Median hourly rate £17.62 £22.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.91% +10.00% +17.65%
75th Percentile £24.33 £41.13 £27.57
90th Percentile £35.58 £55.75 £56.75
England median hourly rate £30.36 £37.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -18.34% -17.38% +99.60%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the West Midlands

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

Daily rate trend for Lead in the West Midlands

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 10 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the West Midlands

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the West Midlands

Lead
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 10 May 2025. 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
Birmingham -10 25 £550 -4.35% 56
Warwickshire +7 20 £600 - 28
Shropshire - 16 £521 - 14
Solihull +11 4 £575 -17.12% 5
Coventry -5 4 £463 -17.78% 11
Herefordshire +13 2 £400 -27.27%
Worcestershire +1 1 £675 +22.73% 15
Staffordshire -3 1 £574 -2.38% 27
Walsall - 1 - - 3
Lead
England

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the West Midlands

For the 6 months to 10 May 2025, 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 across the West Midlands region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 35 (44.87%) Social Skills
2 27 (34.62%) Agile
3 23 (29.49%) SQL
3 23 (29.49%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (26.92%) Power Platform
5 18 (23.08%) Azure
6 17 (21.79%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (19.23%) Stakeholder Management
8 14 (17.95%) Data Modelling
9 13 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
9 13 (16.67%) Finance
9 13 (16.67%) Decision-Making
9 13 (16.67%) Power BI
10 12 (15.38%) DevOps
11 11 (14.10%) Test Strategy
12 10 (12.82%) Project Management
13 9 (11.54%) Configuration Management
13 9 (11.54%) Change Management
13 9 (11.54%) Scrum
13 9 (11.54%) Process Improvement
13 9 (11.54%) JIRA
14 8 (10.26%) Migration
14 8 (10.26%) Problem Management
14 8 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 8 (10.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 8 (10.26%) OO
14 8 (10.26%) PowerApps
14 8 (10.26%) Public Sector
14 8 (10.26%) Roadmaps
15 7 (8.97%) Data Warehouse

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 2 (2.56%) Confluence
2 1 (1.28%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (1.28%) Oracle Receivables
1 1 (1.28%) SAP Oil and Gas
1 1 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 21 (26.92%) Power Platform
2 18 (23.08%) Azure
3 8 (10.26%) PowerApps
4 6 (7.69%) AWS
5 4 (5.13%) Entra ID
6 2 (2.56%) Amazon EC2
6 2 (2.56%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.56%) Amazon SQS
6 2 (2.56%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.56%) GCP
6 2 (2.56%) SaaS
6 2 (2.56%) Snowflake
7 1 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (1.28%) AWS KMS
7 1 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (1.28%) Azure Functions
7 1 (1.28%) Route 53
7 1 (1.28%) Serverless
7 1 (1.28%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.28%) NetScaler
1 1 (1.28%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (16.67%) Power BI
2 7 (8.97%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (5.13%) Oracle Database
4 3 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (3.85%) SQL Server
4 3 (3.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (2.56%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (2.56%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (2.56%) DynamoDB
5 2 (2.56%) IDMS
5 2 (2.56%) Metadata
6 1 (1.28%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 1 (1.28%) Big Data
6 1 (1.28%) Data Lake
6 1 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 1 (1.28%) Power Query
6 1 (1.28%) Relational Database
6 1 (1.28%) SAP Data Services
6 1 (1.28%) Spark SQL
6 1 (1.28%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (11.54%) JIRA
2 3 (3.85%) Oracle Forms
3 2 (2.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 2 (2.56%) Bitbucket
3 2 (2.56%) CA Gen
3 2 (2.56%) Git
3 2 (2.56%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.56%) JUnit
3 2 (2.56%) Maven
3 2 (2.56%) Mockito
4 1 (1.28%) Bitbucket Server
4 1 (1.28%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.28%) DbUnit
4 1 (1.28%) jMock
4 1 (1.28%) SonarQube
4 1 (1.28%) Zephyr
General
1 35 (44.87%) Social Skills
2 17 (21.79%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (16.67%) Finance
4 8 (10.26%) Public Sector
5 5 (6.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (6.41%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (6.41%) Law
5 5 (6.41%) Legal
6 4 (5.13%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (2.56%) Local Government
8 1 (1.28%) Advertising
8 1 (1.28%) Banking
8 1 (1.28%) Games
8 1 (1.28%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.28%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.13%) LDAP
2 3 (3.85%) .NET
2 3 (3.85%) SOAP
2 3 (3.85%) Spring
3 2 (2.56%) ActiveMQ
3 2 (2.56%) AngularJS
3 2 (2.56%) Hibernate
3 2 (2.56%) JPA
3 2 (2.56%) Oracle Fusion
3 2 (2.56%) REST
3 2 (2.56%) RESTful
3 2 (2.56%) Spring Boot
3 2 (2.56%) Spring Cloud
3 2 (2.56%) Web Services
4 1 (1.28%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (1.28%) Bootstrap
4 1 (1.28%) Flask
4 1 (1.28%) Lightning Web Components
4 1 (1.28%) PySpark
4 1 (1.28%) React
Miscellaneous
1 6 (7.69%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (6.41%) Data Centre
3 4 (5.13%) Management Information System
3 4 (5.13%) Security Posture
4 3 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (3.85%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.85%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.28%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.28%) Online Games
5 1 (1.28%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.28%) PMI
5 1 (1.28%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.28%) Social Media
5 1 (1.28%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (8.97%) Windows
2 5 (6.41%) Linux
3 2 (2.56%) Unix
4 1 (1.28%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (34.62%) Agile
2 23 (29.49%) Problem-Solving
3 15 (19.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 14 (17.95%) Data Modelling
5 13 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
5 13 (16.67%) Decision-Making
6 12 (15.38%) DevOps
7 11 (14.10%) Test Strategy
8 10 (12.82%) Project Management
9 9 (11.54%) Change Management
9 9 (11.54%) Configuration Management
9 9 (11.54%) Process Improvement
9 9 (11.54%) Scrum
10 8 (10.26%) Continuous Improvement
10 8 (10.26%) Migration
10 8 (10.26%) OO
10 8 (10.26%) Problem Management
10 8 (10.26%) Roadmaps
10 8 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 7 (8.97%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 23 (29.49%) SQL
2 6 (7.69%) Python
3 3 (3.85%) Java
4 2 (2.56%) C#
4 2 (2.56%) COBOL
4 2 (2.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 1 (1.28%) Apex Code
5 1 (1.28%) Bash
5 1 (1.28%) Perl
5 1 (1.28%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.28%) R
Qualifications
1 7 (8.97%) Degree
2 4 (5.13%) HNC
2 4 (5.13%) HND
2 4 (5.13%) Security Cleared
3 3 (3.85%) ISTQB
3 3 (3.85%) SC Cleared
4 2 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (2.56%) ISEB
4 2 (2.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 1 (1.28%) ACCA
5 1 (1.28%) AWS Certification
5 1 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (1.28%) Azure Certification
5 1 (1.28%) CIMA
5 1 (1.28%) CIPFA
5 1 (1.28%) DV Cleared
5 1 (1.28%) ICAEW
5 1 (1.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (1.28%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.97%) QA
2 5 (6.41%) Data Quality
3 3 (3.85%) GDPR
3 3 (3.85%) PMO
4 2 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (1.28%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.28%) ISO 9001
5 1 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.28%) NIST
5 1 (1.28%) SLA
5 1 (1.28%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 5 (6.41%) Docker
3 2 (2.56%) Postfix
3 2 (2.56%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (5.13%) Single Sign-On
2 3 (3.85%) Kubernetes
3 2 (2.56%) Grafana
3 2 (2.56%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.28%) Ansible
4 1 (1.28%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (8.97%) Oracle
2 6 (7.69%) Atlassian
2 6 (7.69%) SAP
3 4 (5.13%) CyberArk
3 4 (5.13%) ServiceNow
4 2 (2.56%) Broadcom
4 2 (2.56%) Databricks
4 2 (2.56%) Google
4 2 (2.56%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.56%) VMware
5 1 (1.28%) Adobe
5 1 (1.28%) Ariba
5 1 (1.28%) Civica
5 1 (1.28%) Concur
5 1 (1.28%) Dell
5 1 (1.28%) HP
5 1 (1.28%) IBM
5 1 (1.28%) Jaspersoft
5 1 (1.28%) Siemens