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 3 months leading to 15 March 2026.

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

3 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 290 229
Rank change year-on-year +64 -61 +93
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 265 130 648
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.77% 0.81% 1.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.83% 0.91% 1.26%
Number of salaries quoted 222 93 602
10th Percentile £56,625 £54,250 £53,346
25th Percentile £66,563 £61,250 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £70,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -6.67% -6.25%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £90,938
90th Percentile £142,500 £97,000 £106,500
UK median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -6.67% -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 31,944 14,337 51,552
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.17% 89.00% 94.28%
Number of salaries quoted 22,638 9,365 40,804
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £102,500 £88,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% -12.50%

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 3 months to 15 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 3 months to 15 March 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 3 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +17 106 £100,000 +29.03% 30
North of England +7 55 £71,250 -5.00% 22
North West +13 48 £70,000 -3.45% 15
South East -15 36 £75,000 +7.14% 19
South West -9 33 £65,000 -4.43% 7
Midlands -8 25 £75,000 +13.21% 13
East Midlands -24 16 £75,000 +15.38% 3
East of England -8 10 £65,000 -13.33% 1
West Midlands -11 9 £75,000 +11.11% 10
Yorkshire -28 5 £85,000 - 3
North East - 2 £65,000 - 4
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 120 (28.37%) AWS
2 119 (28.13%) Full-Stack Development
3 112 (26.48%) Python
4 109 (25.77%) Agile
5 98 (23.17%) Mentoring
6 97 (22.93%) Software Engineering
7 92 (21.75%) Azure
8 89 (21.04%) React
9 82 (19.39%) JavaScript
10 76 (17.97%) Technical Leadership
11 75 (17.73%) .NET
12 67 (15.84%) TypeScript
13 62 (14.66%) Node.js
14 60 (14.18%) CI/CD
15 59 (13.95%) C#
16 58 (13.71%) AI
17 54 (12.77%) Java
18 52 (12.29%) SaaS
19 51 (12.06%) Continuous Improvement
20 45 (10.64%) SQL
21 42 (9.93%) Serverless
22 40 (9.46%) Coaching
22 40 (9.46%) DevOps
23 37 (8.75%) Portfolio Management
23 37 (8.75%) Redux
24 36 (8.51%) Investment Management
25 35 (8.27%) Microservices
26 34 (8.04%) Problem-Solving
27 31 (7.33%) SQL Server
28 30 (7.09%) GraphQL

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 4 (0.95%) Appian
2 2 (0.47%) Confluence
2 2 (0.47%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.47%) WordPress
3 1 (0.24%) CMS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.47%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.24%) Magento
3 1 (0.24%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 120 (28.37%) AWS
2 92 (21.75%) Azure
3 52 (12.29%) SaaS
4 42 (9.93%) Serverless
5 29 (6.86%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (6.62%) Amazon S3
7 26 (6.15%) GCP
8 20 (4.73%) Power Platform
9 18 (4.26%) Amazon SQS
10 16 (3.78%) GitHub
11 10 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
12 9 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (1.89%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (1.65%) PowerApps
15 6 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
15 6 (1.42%) Power Automate
16 5 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
17 4 (0.95%) Azure Service Bus
17 4 (0.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.47%) Network Security
2 1 (0.24%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (7.33%) SQL Server
2 25 (5.91%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (2.60%) NoSQL
4 10 (2.36%) MongoDB
4 10 (2.36%) Power BI
5 5 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
6 4 (0.95%) DB2
6 4 (0.95%) MySQL
6 4 (0.95%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.71%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.71%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.71%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.24%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 16 (3.78%) Git
2 6 (1.42%) Cypress.io
3 4 (0.95%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.95%) Maven
3 4 (0.95%) webpack
4 3 (0.71%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.71%) ESLint
4 3 (0.71%) GitLab
4 3 (0.71%) JIRA
4 3 (0.71%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.71%) Vite
5 2 (0.47%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.47%) Selenium
5 2 (0.47%) Subversion
5 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.24%) NUnit
6 1 (0.24%) Postman
6 1 (0.24%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.24%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.24%) XCUITest
General
1 58 (13.71%) Finance
2 55 (13.00%) Social Skills
3 43 (10.17%) Front Office
4 28 (6.62%) Tech for Good
5 19 (4.49%) Health Technology
6 15 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.55%) Publishing
7 14 (3.31%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.36%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.42%) Banking
10 6 (1.42%) Games
11 4 (0.95%) Local Government
11 4 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.71%) Marketing
12 3 (0.71%) Retail
13 2 (0.47%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.47%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.47%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (21.04%) React
2 75 (17.73%) .NET
3 62 (14.66%) Node.js
4 37 (8.75%) Redux
5 30 (7.09%) GraphQL
5 30 (7.09%) RESTful
6 25 (5.91%) .NET Core
6 25 (5.91%) HTML
7 24 (5.67%) AngularJS
7 24 (5.67%) Kafka
7 24 (5.67%) Vue
8 22 (5.20%) CSS
9 17 (4.02%) Flask
9 17 (4.02%) React Native
10 16 (3.78%) .NET Framework
10 16 (3.78%) Laravel
11 15 (3.55%) REST
11 15 (3.55%) Spring
12 14 (3.31%) ASP.NET
12 14 (3.31%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 37 (8.75%) Fixed Income
2 21 (4.96%) Product Ownership
3 19 (4.49%) Derivative
4 16 (3.78%) Cloud Native
4 16 (3.78%) Distributed Systems
4 16 (3.78%) Equities
5 12 (2.84%) Mobile App
6 10 (2.36%) PropTech
7 9 (2.13%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (1.65%) Credit Risk
8 7 (1.65%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.42%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.18%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.18%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.95%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.95%) PKI
12 3 (0.71%) AS400
12 3 (0.71%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 23 (5.44%) Apple iOS
2 17 (4.02%) Android
3 3 (0.71%) Linux
4 1 (0.24%) Unix
4 1 (0.24%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (28.13%) Full-Stack Development
2 109 (25.77%) Agile
3 98 (23.17%) Mentoring
4 97 (22.93%) Software Engineering
5 76 (17.97%) Technical Leadership
6 60 (14.18%) CI/CD
7 58 (13.71%) AI
8 51 (12.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 40 (9.46%) Coaching
9 40 (9.46%) DevOps
10 37 (8.75%) Portfolio Management
11 36 (8.51%) Investment Management
12 35 (8.27%) Microservices
13 34 (8.04%) Problem-Solving
14 28 (6.62%) Line Management
15 26 (6.15%) Code Quality
16 25 (5.91%) Design Patterns
17 24 (5.67%) Scrum
17 24 (5.67%) TDD
18 22 (5.20%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 112 (26.48%) Python
2 82 (19.39%) JavaScript
3 67 (15.84%) TypeScript
4 59 (13.95%) C#
5 54 (12.77%) Java
6 45 (10.64%) SQL
7 21 (4.96%) Go
8 14 (3.31%) PHP
9 7 (1.65%) C++
10 6 (1.42%) Swift
11 5 (1.18%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.95%) RPG
13 3 (0.71%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.71%) Bicep
13 3 (0.71%) C
13 3 (0.71%) COBOL
14 2 (0.47%) Bash
14 2 (0.47%) Groovy
15 1 (0.24%) R
15 1 (0.24%) Scala
Qualifications
1 15 (3.55%) Degree
2 5 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (0.95%) DBS Check
4 2 (0.47%) PhD
4 2 (0.47%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.24%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (7.09%) QA
2 11 (2.60%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.47%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.47%) GAAP
3 2 (0.47%) IFRS
3 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 24 (5.67%) Docker
2 1 (0.24%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.24%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 13 (3.07%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.13%) Terraform
3 3 (0.71%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.47%) Ansible
5 1 (0.24%) Grafana
5 1 (0.24%) Kibana
5 1 (0.24%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 27 (6.38%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.65%) OpenAI
2 7 (1.65%) Salesforce
3 3 (0.71%) Apple
4 2 (0.47%) Databricks
4 2 (0.47%) Foundry
4 2 (0.47%) NEC
4 2 (0.47%) Northgate
4 2 (0.47%) Workday
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe
5 1 (0.24%) DevExpress
5 1 (0.24%) Google
5 1 (0.24%) IBM
5 1 (0.24%) Revolut
5 1 (0.24%) SAP