Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £83,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 24 September 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 383 264
Rank change year-on-year +79 -119 +25
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 621 285 732
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.60% 0.66% 1.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 0.73% 1.13%
Number of salaries quoted 507 203 597
10th Percentile £65,000 £55,000 £47,000
25th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £83,500 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.33% +7.14% -12.50%
75th Percentile £97,500 £90,625 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £140,000 £142,500
UK median annual salary £80,000 £75,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +6.67% +7.14% -11.11%

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 96,021 38,933 64,766
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.16% 90.43% 95.20%
Number of salaries quoted 67,503 23,350 38,276
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,325 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £59,250 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.73% - -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 24 September 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 24 September 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 +22 211 £87,500 -12.50% 79
North of England +8 145 £75,000 +7.14% 43
Midlands +23 108 £70,000 -3.45% 20
South East +3 91 £90,000 +20.00% 13
North West +17 79 £75,000 +7.14% 10
West Midlands -11 62 £70,000 -3.45% 12
East Midlands +12 46 £70,000 +3.70% 8
Yorkshire -23 44 £75,000 +9.09% 25
East of England -6 32 £76,021 +38.22% 5
South West -71 24 £70,000 +40.00% 6
North East -50 22 £100,000 +45.99% 8
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 September 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.

1 165 (26.57%) Full-Stack Development
2 152 (24.48%) C#
3 145 (23.35%) Technical Leadership
4 136 (21.90%) Azure
5 134 (21.58%) .NET
6 126 (20.29%) JavaScript
7 125 (20.13%) Mentoring
8 120 (19.32%) AWS
9 113 (18.20%) TypeScript
10 96 (15.46%) CI/CD
11 85 (13.69%) Node.js
12 83 (13.37%) AI
13 82 (13.20%) SaaS
14 77 (12.40%) DevOps
15 74 (11.92%) SQL
16 73 (11.76%) Microsoft
16 73 (11.76%) Software Engineering
17 72 (11.59%) Agile
18 67 (10.79%) Microservices
19 65 (10.47%) Python
20 64 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
21 62 (9.98%) Dynamics 365
22 61 (9.82%) React
23 53 (8.53%) SQL Server
24 50 (8.05%) Power Platform
24 50 (8.05%) RESTful
25 48 (7.73%) Event-Driven
25 48 (7.73%) Roadmaps
26 45 (7.25%) Docker
27 44 (7.09%) Event-Driven Architecture

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 19 (3.06%) Anypoint
1 19 (3.06%) Mule
2 14 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.81%) Confluence
4 4 (0.64%) WordPress
5 2 (0.32%) Appian
Business Applications
1 16 (2.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 136 (21.90%) Azure
2 120 (19.32%) AWS
3 82 (13.20%) SaaS
4 62 (9.98%) Dynamics 365
5 50 (8.05%) Power Platform
6 35 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
7 21 (3.38%) Power Automate
8 20 (3.22%) Microsoft Copilot
8 20 (3.22%) Serverless
9 19 (3.06%) Azure Logic Apps
9 19 (3.06%) Azure Service Bus
10 17 (2.74%) Snowflake
11 16 (2.58%) GitHub
12 15 (2.42%) Azure Key Vault
12 15 (2.42%) GCP
13 14 (2.25%) Azure Monitor
14 13 (2.09%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 13 (2.09%) PowerApps
15 12 (1.93%) Amazon ECS
16 10 (1.61%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.25%) SSL
2 4 (0.64%) Broadband
3 1 (0.16%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.16%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (8.53%) SQL Server
2 33 (5.31%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (3.86%) Redis
4 15 (2.42%) MySQL
4 15 (2.42%) Power BI
5 12 (1.93%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (1.61%) DynamoDB
6 10 (1.61%) MongoDB
7 9 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.81%) Metadata
8 5 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.48%) KDB
9 3 (0.48%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.48%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.32%) Db2
10 2 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.32%) InterSystems Cache
10 2 (0.32%) MariaDB
11 1 (0.16%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 35 (5.64%) Git
2 8 (1.29%) JIRA
3 5 (0.81%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.48%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.48%) JUnit
4 3 (0.48%) Maven
4 3 (0.48%) Mockito
5 2 (0.32%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.32%) GitLab
5 2 (0.32%) MSI
5 2 (0.32%) NUnit
5 2 (0.32%) TeamCity
5 2 (0.32%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.16%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.16%) DBeaver
6 1 (0.16%) Eclipse
6 1 (0.16%) fastlane
6 1 (0.16%) git-flow
6 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.16%) XCUITest
General
1 86 (13.85%) Finance
2 71 (11.43%) Social Skills
3 23 (3.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 22 (3.54%) Banking
5 20 (3.22%) Law
6 16 (2.58%) Analytical Skills
7 11 (1.77%) Games
8 10 (1.61%) Front Office
8 10 (1.61%) Public Sector
9 8 (1.29%) Marketing
9 8 (1.29%) Retail
10 7 (1.13%) Legal
10 7 (1.13%) Legal Technology
11 4 (0.64%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.32%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.16%) Local Government
13 1 (0.16%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (21.58%) .NET
2 85 (13.69%) Node.js
3 61 (9.82%) React
4 50 (8.05%) RESTful
5 34 (5.48%) .NET Core
5 34 (5.48%) ASP.NET
6 33 (5.31%) REST
7 31 (4.99%) Vue
8 23 (3.70%) GraphQL
9 22 (3.54%) CSS
9 22 (3.54%) Next.js
10 21 (3.38%) Spring
11 20 (3.22%) HTML
11 20 (3.22%) React Native
12 16 (2.58%) Terraform
13 14 (2.25%) JWT
13 14 (2.25%) MUnit
13 14 (2.25%) OAuth
13 14 (2.25%) OAuth2
13 14 (2.25%) RAML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.96%) Cloud Native
2 18 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (2.90%) Product Ownership
3 16 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.25%) Low-Code
5 12 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.77%) Mobile App
7 10 (1.61%) Virtual Team
8 7 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (0.97%) Algorithms
10 5 (0.81%) Legacy Applications
10 5 (0.81%) Onboarding
11 4 (0.64%) AI Agents
11 4 (0.64%) Hedge funds
11 4 (0.64%) Management Information System
11 4 (0.64%) Taxonomies
12 3 (0.48%) Blog
12 3 (0.48%) Equities
12 3 (0.48%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.48%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 24 (3.86%) Android
2 23 (3.70%) Apple iOS
3 4 (0.64%) Linux
4 3 (0.48%) Windows
5 1 (0.16%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (26.57%) Full-Stack Development
2 145 (23.35%) Technical Leadership
3 125 (20.13%) Mentoring
4 96 (15.46%) CI/CD
5 83 (13.37%) AI
6 77 (12.40%) DevOps
7 73 (11.76%) Software Engineering
8 72 (11.59%) Agile
9 67 (10.79%) Microservices
10 64 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
11 48 (7.73%) Event-Driven
11 48 (7.73%) Roadmaps
12 44 (7.09%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 44 (7.09%) Problem-Solving
13 39 (6.28%) Stakeholder Management
14 36 (5.80%) Test Automation
15 32 (5.15%) Design Patterns
16 30 (4.83%) DevSecOps
17 28 (4.51%) Clean Code
18 26 (4.19%) Mobile Development
Programming Languages
1 152 (24.48%) C#
2 126 (20.29%) JavaScript
3 113 (18.20%) TypeScript
4 74 (11.92%) SQL
5 65 (10.47%) Python
6 38 (6.12%) Java
7 16 (2.58%) PHP
8 14 (2.25%) DataWeave
9 9 (1.45%) C++
10 8 (1.29%) Ruby
11 7 (1.13%) Go
12 6 (0.97%) Bicep
12 6 (0.97%) RPG
13 5 (0.81%) Kotlin
13 5 (0.81%) PowerShell
14 4 (0.64%) Bash
14 4 (0.64%) R
15 3 (0.48%) C
15 3 (0.48%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 30 (4.83%) Degree
1 30 (4.83%) Security Cleared
2 29 (4.67%) SC Cleared
3 21 (3.38%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (0.81%) DBS Check
5 5 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (0.64%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.99%) QA
2 11 (1.77%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.97%) Data Quality
3 6 (0.97%) WCAG
4 5 (0.81%) GDPR
5 2 (0.32%) NCSC
6 1 (0.16%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 45 (7.25%) Docker
2 1 (0.16%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 25 (4.03%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.25%) CloudHub
3 2 (0.32%) Ansible
Vendors
1 73 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 19 (3.06%) MuleSoft
3 16 (2.58%) Salesforce
4 15 (2.42%) ServiceNow
5 14 (2.25%) SAP
6 7 (1.13%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.97%) Google
7 6 (0.97%) IBM
7 6 (0.97%) Oracle
8 5 (0.81%) Databricks
9 3 (0.48%) Adobe
9 3 (0.48%) Bloomberg
10 2 (0.32%) DevExpress
10 2 (0.32%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.32%) Refinitiv
10 2 (0.32%) TikTok
11 1 (0.16%) Apple
11 1 (0.16%) Citrix
11 1 (0.16%) Reuters