Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £76,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 25 January 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 314 351 271
Rank change year-on-year +37 -80 +17
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 341 368 648
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.62% 0.77% 1.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.68% 0.84% 1.15%
Number of salaries quoted 271 262 570
10th Percentile £55,000 £46,250 £53,750
25th Percentile £67,500 £47,000 £62,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £76,000 £67,500 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.59% -15.63% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £83,438 £100,000
90th Percentile £105,000 £104,500 £125,000
UK median annual salary £76,000 £67,500 £77,500
% change year-on-year +12.59% -12.90% -3.13%

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 50,189 43,775 56,417
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.07% 95.06%
Number of salaries quoted 31,901 22,794 44,874
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
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% -9.30%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 +29 118 £85,000 +6.25% 22
North of England -6 74 £71,750 +30.45% 16
South East +34 50 £75,000 -3.85% 34
North West +1 48 £70,000 +27.27% 15
Midlands +17 46 £75,000 +59.57% 6
South West -8 34 £68,750 +46.28% 11
West Midlands +23 32 £75,000 +59.57% 5
Yorkshire -12 22 £78,750 +67.55% 1
East Midlands +5 14 £75,000 +11.11% 1
East of England +15 13 £65,000 -31.58% 4
North East -2 4 £68,500 +14.41%
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 January 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 91 (26.69%) AWS
2 90 (26.39%) Azure
3 79 (23.17%) Mentoring
4 78 (22.87%) Python
5 77 (22.58%) Agile
6 76 (22.29%) Full-Stack Development
7 71 (20.82%) Technical Leadership
8 69 (20.23%) .NET
9 67 (19.65%) C#
10 61 (17.89%) CI/CD
11 56 (16.42%) React
12 52 (15.25%) AI
13 45 (13.20%) SQL
14 43 (12.61%) Continuous Improvement
15 41 (12.02%) Software Engineering
16 40 (11.73%) Serverless
17 39 (11.44%) SaaS
18 36 (10.56%) Microservices
18 36 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
19 35 (10.26%) DevOps
19 35 (10.26%) Java
20 34 (9.97%) JavaScript
20 34 (9.97%) QA
21 33 (9.68%) Coaching
21 33 (9.68%) SQL Server
22 29 (8.50%) Amazon S3
22 29 (8.50%) Docker
22 29 (8.50%) Roadmaps
23 28 (8.21%) AWS Lambda
23 28 (8.21%) 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 (0.59%) WordPress
2 1 (0.29%) Confluence
2 1 (0.29%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 11 (3.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.59%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.29%) Endur
3 1 (0.29%) Magento
3 1 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.29%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 91 (26.69%) AWS
2 90 (26.39%) Azure
3 40 (11.73%) Serverless
4 39 (11.44%) SaaS
5 29 (8.50%) Amazon S3
6 28 (8.21%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (7.92%) Power Platform
8 19 (5.57%) GitHub
9 18 (5.28%) Amazon SQS
10 14 (4.11%) Dynamics 365
11 13 (3.81%) GCP
11 13 (3.81%) PowerApps
12 11 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (2.35%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (2.05%) Power Automate
15 6 (1.76%) Azure Logic Apps
15 6 (1.76%) Microsoft 365
16 5 (1.47%) GitHub Copilot
17 4 (1.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 4 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.59%) Network Security
2 1 (0.29%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (9.68%) SQL Server
2 18 (5.28%) NoSQL
3 16 (4.69%) MongoDB
4 13 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (3.23%) Power BI
6 8 (2.35%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.76%) MySQL
8 5 (1.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.17%) RDBMS
10 3 (0.88%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.88%) DB2
10 3 (0.88%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.88%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
12 1 (0.29%) ClickHouse
12 1 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
12 1 (0.29%) Redis
Development Applications
1 9 (2.64%) Git
2 5 (1.47%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.17%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.88%) Cypress.io
4 3 (0.88%) ESLint
4 3 (0.88%) GitLab
4 3 (0.88%) Maven
4 3 (0.88%) Xcode
5 2 (0.59%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.59%) Selenium
5 2 (0.59%) Subversion
5 2 (0.59%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.29%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.29%) JIRA
6 1 (0.29%) JUnit
6 1 (0.29%) Postman
6 1 (0.29%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.29%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.29%) webpack
6 1 (0.29%) XCUITest
General
1 55 (16.13%) Social Skills
2 27 (7.92%) Tech for Good
3 19 (5.57%) Health Technology
4 16 (4.69%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (4.69%) Public Sector
5 15 (4.40%) Finance
5 15 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
5 15 (4.40%) Publishing
6 14 (4.11%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (2.93%) Marketing
8 8 (2.35%) Front Office
9 7 (2.05%) Electronics
9 7 (2.05%) Retail
10 4 (1.17%) Banking
10 4 (1.17%) Games
10 4 (1.17%) Local Government
10 4 (1.17%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.17%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (20.23%) .NET
2 56 (16.42%) React
3 26 (7.62%) RESTful
4 24 (7.04%) .NET Core
5 23 (6.74%) Flask
6 21 (6.16%) HTML
7 20 (5.87%) Node.js
8 19 (5.57%) FastAPI
9 18 (5.28%) CSS
10 17 (4.99%) REST
10 17 (4.99%) Vue
11 16 (4.69%) .NET Framework
12 15 (4.40%) Laravel
13 14 (4.11%) AngularJS
13 14 (4.11%) ASP.NET
14 13 (3.81%) Django
15 12 (3.52%) Spring Boot
16 11 (3.23%) Spring
17 10 (2.93%) React Native
18 7 (2.05%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.57%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (4.69%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.40%) Cloud Native
4 10 (2.93%) Mobile App
5 9 (2.64%) Greenfield Project
6 7 (2.05%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.76%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.76%) Credit Risk
7 6 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.47%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.47%) Clustering
9 4 (1.17%) Derivative
9 4 (1.17%) Low-Code
9 4 (1.17%) PKI
10 3 (0.88%) Marketing Technology
10 3 (0.88%) PropTech
11 2 (0.59%) Renewable Energy
11 2 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.59%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 16 (4.69%) Apple iOS
2 9 (2.64%) Android
3 3 (0.88%) Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (23.17%) Mentoring
2 77 (22.58%) Agile
3 76 (22.29%) Full-Stack Development
4 71 (20.82%) Technical Leadership
5 61 (17.89%) CI/CD
6 52 (15.25%) AI
7 43 (12.61%) Continuous Improvement
8 41 (12.02%) Software Engineering
9 36 (10.56%) Microservices
9 36 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
10 35 (10.26%) DevOps
11 33 (9.68%) Coaching
12 29 (8.50%) Roadmaps
13 28 (8.21%) Code Quality
14 27 (7.92%) Scrum
15 26 (7.62%) TDD
16 24 (7.04%) Containerisation
17 22 (6.45%) Design Patterns
18 21 (6.16%) Continuous Integration
19 19 (5.57%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 78 (22.87%) Python
2 67 (19.65%) C#
3 45 (13.20%) SQL
4 35 (10.26%) Java
5 34 (9.97%) JavaScript
6 24 (7.04%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.69%) PHP
8 8 (2.35%) Scala
9 7 (2.05%) Kotlin
10 6 (1.76%) Go
11 5 (1.47%) C++
12 4 (1.17%) Swift
13 3 (0.88%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.88%) RPG
14 2 (0.59%) Bash
14 2 (0.59%) C
14 2 (0.59%) COBOL
14 2 (0.59%) Groovy
15 1 (0.29%) R
15 1 (0.29%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 13 (3.81%) Degree
2 6 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (1.17%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.59%) PhD
4 2 (0.59%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.29%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.29%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (9.97%) QA
2 5 (1.47%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.59%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.59%) GAAP
3 2 (0.59%) IFRS
3 2 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 29 (8.50%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.81%) Terraform
3 3 (0.88%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.59%) Ansible
Vendors
1 26 (7.62%) Microsoft
2 7 (2.05%) OpenAI
3 6 (1.76%) Salesforce
4 4 (1.17%) Google
4 4 (1.17%) SAP
5 3 (0.88%) Databricks
6 2 (0.59%) Foundry
6 2 (0.59%) NEC
6 2 (0.59%) Northgate
6 2 (0.59%) Workday
7 1 (0.29%) Adobe
7 1 (0.29%) Apple
7 1 (0.29%) IBM
7 1 (0.29%) Informatica
7 1 (0.29%) OpenLink
7 1 (0.29%) ServiceNow