Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £76,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 February 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 308 361 261
Rank change year-on-year +53 -100 +23
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 371 338 741
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.62% 0.76% 1.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.68% 0.84% 1.18%
Number of salaries quoted 305 243 671
10th Percentile £55,300 £46,400 £53,750
25th Percentile £67,500 £48,750 £62,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £76,500 £68,525 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.64% -14.34% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £100,000
90th Percentile £119,000 £99,750 £120,000
UK median annual salary £77,500 £68,525 £75,000
% change year-on-year +13.10% -8.63% -6.25%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in England with a recognized job title 54,650 40,463 62,780
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.29% 91.38% 94.70%
Number of salaries quoted 35,243 21,304 50,139
10th Percentile £29,250 £33,500 £28,750
25th Percentile £38,208 £45,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead Developer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Lead Developer job vacancy trend in England

Lead Developer
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in England

Lead Developer
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer in England over the 6 months to 18 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Developer in England

Lead Developer
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Developer within the England region over the 6 months to 18 February 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +41 139 £95,000 +23.78% 30
North of England -21 72 £72,500 +31.82% 21
South East +30 57 £80,000 +9.59% 17
North West +4 52 £70,000 +27.27% 18
South West +8 42 £65,000 +23.81% 7
Midlands +19 41 £75,000 +59.57% 9
West Midlands +11 25 £75,000 +59.57% 7
Yorkshire -20 18 £77,500 +35.37% 3
East Midlands -3 16 £75,000 +9.09% 2
East of England +16 15 £65,000 -18.75% 3
North East -10 2 £68,500 +14.41%
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 February 2026, Lead Developer 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 permanent job ads across the England region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 104 (28.03%) AWS
2 94 (25.34%) Agile
2 94 (25.34%) Full-Stack Development
2 94 (25.34%) Python
3 86 (23.18%) Azure
4 85 (22.91%) Mentoring
5 73 (19.68%) Technical Leadership
6 72 (19.41%) React
7 67 (18.06%) .NET
8 62 (16.71%) Software Engineering
9 60 (16.17%) C#
10 59 (15.90%) CI/CD
11 55 (14.82%) AI
11 55 (14.82%) JavaScript
12 46 (12.40%) SQL
13 45 (12.13%) Java
14 44 (11.86%) SaaS
15 43 (11.59%) Continuous Improvement
15 43 (11.59%) TypeScript
16 40 (10.78%) Node.js
16 40 (10.78%) Serverless
17 37 (9.97%) DevOps
18 36 (9.70%) Coaching
18 36 (9.70%) Microservices
19 34 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
20 33 (8.89%) QA
21 32 (8.63%) SQL Server
22 29 (7.82%) Amazon S3
23 28 (7.55%) AWS Lambda
24 27 (7.28%) Code Quality

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 2 (0.54%) Confluence
1 2 (0.54%) WordPress
2 1 (0.27%) Appian
2 1 (0.27%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.54%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.27%) Magento
3 1 (0.27%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 104 (28.03%) AWS
2 86 (23.18%) Azure
3 44 (11.86%) SaaS
4 40 (10.78%) Serverless
5 29 (7.82%) Amazon S3
6 28 (7.55%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (6.20%) Power Platform
8 18 (4.85%) Amazon SQS
8 18 (4.85%) GCP
8 18 (4.85%) GitHub
9 10 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (2.43%) PowerApps
11 8 (2.16%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (1.62%) Azure Logic Apps
12 6 (1.62%) Microsoft 365
12 6 (1.62%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.35%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (1.08%) Azure Service Bus
14 4 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.54%) Network Security
2 1 (0.27%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.63%) SQL Server
2 19 (5.12%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (3.77%) NoSQL
4 13 (3.50%) MongoDB
5 11 (2.96%) Power BI
6 6 (1.62%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.08%) DB2
8 4 (1.08%) MySQL
9 3 (0.81%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.81%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.81%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.54%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.27%) ClickHouse
11 1 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
11 1 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (2.70%) Git
2 5 (1.35%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.08%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.08%) Maven
4 3 (0.81%) ESLint
4 3 (0.81%) GitLab
4 3 (0.81%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.54%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.54%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.54%) JIRA
5 2 (0.54%) Selenium
5 2 (0.54%) Subversion
5 2 (0.54%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.54%) webpack
6 1 (0.27%) JUnit
6 1 (0.27%) Postman
6 1 (0.27%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.27%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.27%) Xcode
6 1 (0.27%) XCUITest
General
1 55 (14.82%) Social Skills
2 36 (9.70%) Finance
3 28 (7.55%) Tech for Good
4 26 (7.01%) Front Office
5 19 (5.12%) Health Technology
6 16 (4.31%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (4.04%) Organisational Skills
7 15 (4.04%) Publishing
8 14 (3.77%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (3.23%) Public Sector
10 10 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.35%) Marketing
12 4 (1.08%) Banking
12 4 (1.08%) Games
12 4 (1.08%) Local Government
12 4 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (1.08%) Retail
13 3 (0.81%) Electronics
14 2 (0.54%) Aerospace
14 2 (0.54%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (19.41%) React
2 67 (18.06%) .NET
3 40 (10.78%) Node.js
4 24 (6.47%) .NET Core
4 24 (6.47%) RESTful
5 21 (5.66%) Flask
5 21 (5.66%) HTML
6 20 (5.39%) Vue
7 19 (5.12%) Redux
8 18 (4.85%) AngularJS
8 18 (4.85%) CSS
9 17 (4.58%) FastAPI
10 16 (4.31%) Kafka
10 16 (4.31%) REST
11 15 (4.04%) GraphQL
11 15 (4.04%) Laravel
12 14 (3.77%) .NET Framework
12 14 (3.77%) ASP.NET
12 14 (3.77%) Spring Boot
13 13 (3.50%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 20 (5.39%) Fixed Income
2 19 (5.12%) Distributed Systems
2 19 (5.12%) Product Ownership
3 17 (4.58%) Cloud Native
4 12 (3.23%) Derivative
5 11 (2.96%) Mobile App
6 9 (2.43%) Greenfield Project
7 8 (2.16%) Credit Risk
7 8 (2.16%) Equities
8 7 (1.89%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.62%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.35%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.35%) PropTech
11 4 (1.08%) Low-Code
11 4 (1.08%) PKI
12 3 (0.81%) AS400
12 3 (0.81%) Clustering
12 3 (0.81%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 17 (4.58%) Apple iOS
2 10 (2.70%) Android
3 3 (0.81%) Linux
4 1 (0.27%) Unix
4 1 (0.27%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (25.34%) Agile
1 94 (25.34%) Full-Stack Development
2 85 (22.91%) Mentoring
3 73 (19.68%) Technical Leadership
4 62 (16.71%) Software Engineering
5 59 (15.90%) CI/CD
6 55 (14.82%) AI
7 43 (11.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 37 (9.97%) DevOps
9 36 (9.70%) Coaching
9 36 (9.70%) Microservices
10 34 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
11 27 (7.28%) Code Quality
12 25 (6.74%) TDD
13 24 (6.47%) Design Patterns
13 24 (6.47%) Scrum
14 22 (5.93%) Containerisation
15 21 (5.66%) Line Management
16 19 (5.12%) Roadmaps
16 19 (5.12%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 94 (25.34%) Python
2 60 (16.17%) C#
3 55 (14.82%) JavaScript
4 46 (12.40%) SQL
5 45 (12.13%) Java
6 43 (11.59%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.31%) PHP
8 13 (3.50%) Go
9 7 (1.89%) C++
10 4 (1.08%) Kotlin
10 4 (1.08%) RPG
10 4 (1.08%) Swift
11 3 (0.81%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.81%) C
11 3 (0.81%) COBOL
11 3 (0.81%) Scala
12 2 (0.54%) Bash
12 2 (0.54%) Groovy
13 1 (0.27%) R
13 1 (0.27%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 15 (4.04%) Degree
2 6 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (0.81%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.54%) DBS Check
4 2 (0.54%) PhD
5 1 (0.27%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.27%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.27%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.27%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (8.89%) QA
2 8 (2.16%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.54%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.54%) GAAP
3 2 (0.54%) IFRS
3 2 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 26 (7.01%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.70%) Terraform
3 3 (0.81%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.54%) Ansible
5 1 (0.27%) Grafana
5 1 (0.27%) Kibana
5 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (6.47%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.16%) OpenAI
3 7 (1.89%) Salesforce
4 3 (0.81%) Apple
4 3 (0.81%) Databricks
5 2 (0.54%) Foundry
5 2 (0.54%) Google
5 2 (0.54%) NEC
5 2 (0.54%) Northgate
5 2 (0.54%) SAP
5 2 (0.54%) Workday
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe
6 1 (0.27%) IBM
6 1 (0.27%) Informatica
6 1 (0.27%) Revolut