Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 349 253
Rank change year-on-year +52 -96 +40
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 407 296 779
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.65% 0.72% 1.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.79% 1.19%
Number of salaries quoted 343 227 708
10th Percentile £56,250 £47,000 £53,750
25th Percentile £68,250 £53,750 £61,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £68,525 £76,250
Median % change year-on-year +16.75% -10.13% -4.69%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £97,500
90th Percentile £142,500 £100,000 £115,750
UK median annual salary £80,000 £68,525 £75,000
% change year-on-year +16.75% -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 57,695 37,266 65,736
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 90.96% 94.49%
Number of salaries quoted 37,298 20,713 52,190
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £28,750
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £39,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.84%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
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 4 March 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 4 March 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 +57 162 £100,000 +31.58% 21
North of England -13 78 £70,000 +27.27% 30
North West +9 60 £70,000 +27.27% 20
South East +8 58 £88,750 +10.94% 22
South West -1 44 £65,000 +13.04% 13
Midlands +6 43 £75,000 +59.57% 17
West Midlands +17 27 £75,000 +59.57% 10
East of England +13 17 £65,000 -18.75% 15
East Midlands -18 16 £75,000 +9.09% 6
Yorkshire -29 16 £78,750 +16.67% 8
North East -18 2 £68,500 +14.41% 2
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 March 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.

1 121 (29.73%) AWS
2 112 (27.52%) Full-Stack Development
3 111 (27.27%) Agile
4 110 (27.03%) Python
5 98 (24.08%) Mentoring
6 94 (23.10%) Azure
7 90 (22.11%) React
8 88 (21.62%) Software Engineering
9 79 (19.41%) JavaScript
10 78 (19.16%) Technical Leadership
11 72 (17.69%) .NET
12 66 (16.22%) TypeScript
13 61 (14.99%) CI/CD
13 61 (14.99%) Node.js
14 60 (14.74%) C#
15 57 (14.00%) AI
16 54 (13.27%) Java
17 48 (11.79%) SaaS
18 46 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
19 45 (11.06%) SQL
20 40 (9.83%) DevOps
20 40 (9.83%) Serverless
21 39 (9.58%) Coaching
22 37 (9.09%) Investment Management
22 37 (9.09%) Redux
23 36 (8.85%) Microservices
23 36 (8.85%) Portfolio Management
23 36 (8.85%) Problem-Solving
24 32 (7.86%) QA
24 32 (7.86%) SQL Server

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 3 (0.74%) Appian
2 2 (0.49%) Confluence
2 2 (0.49%) WordPress
3 1 (0.25%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (1.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.49%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.25%) Magento
3 1 (0.25%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 121 (29.73%) AWS
2 94 (23.10%) Azure
3 48 (11.79%) SaaS
4 40 (9.83%) Serverless
5 28 (6.88%) Amazon S3
5 28 (6.88%) AWS Lambda
6 27 (6.63%) GCP
7 22 (5.41%) Power Platform
8 18 (4.42%) Amazon SQS
9 17 (4.18%) GitHub
10 10 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (2.21%) PowerApps
12 7 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
12 7 (1.72%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (1.47%) Microsoft 365
13 6 (1.47%) Power Automate
14 5 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
15 4 (0.98%) Azure Service Bus
15 4 (0.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.49%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (7.86%) SQL Server
2 25 (6.14%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (3.19%) NoSQL
4 12 (2.95%) MongoDB
5 10 (2.46%) Power BI
6 5 (1.23%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.98%) DB2
7 4 (0.98%) MySQL
8 3 (0.74%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.74%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.74%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 13 (3.19%) Git
2 6 (1.47%) Cypress.io
3 5 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.98%) Maven
4 4 (0.98%) webpack
5 3 (0.74%) ESLint
5 3 (0.74%) GitLab
5 3 (0.74%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.74%) Vite
6 2 (0.49%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.49%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.49%) JIRA
6 2 (0.49%) Selenium
6 2 (0.49%) Subversion
6 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.25%) JUnit
7 1 (0.25%) Postman
7 1 (0.25%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.25%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.25%) XCUITest
General
1 56 (13.76%) Finance
2 55 (13.51%) Social Skills
3 43 (10.57%) Front Office
4 28 (6.88%) Tech for Good
5 19 (4.67%) Health Technology
6 15 (3.69%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.69%) Publishing
7 14 (3.44%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.70%) Public Sector
9 9 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.47%) Banking
11 4 (0.98%) Games
11 4 (0.98%) Local Government
11 4 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (0.98%) Retail
12 3 (0.74%) Marketing
13 2 (0.49%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.49%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.49%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (22.11%) React
2 72 (17.69%) .NET
3 61 (14.99%) Node.js
4 37 (9.09%) Redux
5 27 (6.63%) GraphQL
6 26 (6.39%) RESTful
7 25 (6.14%) Kafka
8 24 (5.90%) .NET Core
8 24 (5.90%) HTML
8 24 (5.90%) Vue
9 23 (5.65%) AngularJS
10 21 (5.16%) CSS
11 19 (4.67%) Flask
12 16 (3.93%) Laravel
13 15 (3.69%) FastAPI
13 15 (3.69%) REST
14 14 (3.44%) .NET Framework
14 14 (3.44%) Spring
14 14 (3.44%) Spring Boot
15 13 (3.19%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 37 (9.09%) Fixed Income
2 20 (4.91%) Product Ownership
3 19 (4.67%) Derivative
4 18 (4.42%) Cloud Native
4 18 (4.42%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (3.93%) Equities
6 11 (2.70%) Mobile App
7 8 (1.97%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (1.72%) Credit Risk
8 7 (1.72%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.72%) PropTech
9 6 (1.47%) AI Agents
9 6 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.23%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.98%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.98%) PKI
12 3 (0.74%) AS400
12 3 (0.74%) Clustering
12 3 (0.74%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 20 (4.91%) Apple iOS
2 14 (3.44%) Android
3 3 (0.74%) Linux
4 1 (0.25%) Unix
4 1 (0.25%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (27.52%) Full-Stack Development
2 111 (27.27%) Agile
3 98 (24.08%) Mentoring
4 88 (21.62%) Software Engineering
5 78 (19.16%) Technical Leadership
6 61 (14.99%) CI/CD
7 57 (14.00%) AI
8 46 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 40 (9.83%) DevOps
10 39 (9.58%) Coaching
11 37 (9.09%) Investment Management
12 36 (8.85%) Microservices
12 36 (8.85%) Portfolio Management
12 36 (8.85%) Problem-Solving
13 29 (7.13%) Line Management
14 26 (6.39%) Code Quality
15 25 (6.14%) Scrum
16 24 (5.90%) Design Patterns
16 24 (5.90%) TDD
17 22 (5.41%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 110 (27.03%) Python
2 79 (19.41%) JavaScript
3 66 (16.22%) TypeScript
4 60 (14.74%) C#
5 54 (13.27%) Java
6 45 (11.06%) SQL
7 20 (4.91%) Go
8 16 (3.93%) PHP
9 6 (1.47%) C++
10 5 (1.23%) Swift
11 4 (0.98%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.98%) RPG
12 3 (0.74%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.74%) C
12 3 (0.74%) COBOL
13 2 (0.49%) Bash
13 2 (0.49%) Groovy
14 1 (0.25%) R
14 1 (0.25%) Scala
14 1 (0.25%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 14 (3.44%) Degree
2 5 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (0.74%) DBS Check
3 3 (0.74%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.49%) PhD
5 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.25%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (7.86%) QA
2 10 (2.46%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.49%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.49%) GAAP
3 2 (0.49%) IFRS
3 2 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 25 (6.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (3.44%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.21%) Terraform
3 3 (0.74%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.49%) Ansible
5 1 (0.25%) Grafana
5 1 (0.25%) Kibana
5 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 25 (6.14%) Microsoft
2 8 (1.97%) OpenAI
3 7 (1.72%) Salesforce
4 3 (0.74%) Apple
5 2 (0.49%) Databricks
5 2 (0.49%) Foundry
5 2 (0.49%) NEC
5 2 (0.49%) Northgate
5 2 (0.49%) Workday
6 1 (0.25%) Adobe
6 1 (0.25%) Google
6 1 (0.25%) IBM
6 1 (0.25%) Revolut
6 1 (0.25%) SAP