Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 8 August 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 361 227
Rank change year-on-year +71 -134 +88
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 606 306 893
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.65% 0.70% 1.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.77% 1.30%
Number of salaries quoted 505 217 795
10th Percentile £62,800 £53,750 £47,000
25th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% +7.14% -8.20%
75th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £93,750
90th Percentile - £125,500 £142,500
UK median annual salary £85,000 £75,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +13.33% +7.14% -9.68%

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 87,841 39,513 68,517
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.13% 90.67% 94.85%
Number of salaries quoted 61,676 23,901 47,109
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,250 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £96,250 £92,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 8 August 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 8 August 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 +34 223 £95,000 +5.56% 58
North of England +34 147 £75,000 +7.14% 23
North West +54 96 £72,500 - 10
Midlands +25 85 £70,000 +2.56% 14
South East +9 85 £90,000 +20.00% 7
West Midlands +9 54 £65,000 -6.47% 6
East Midlands -1 31 £70,000 +5.66% 8
South West -63 31 £70,000 +24.44% 4
East of England -6 27 £60,100 -19.87% 2
Yorkshire -33 26 £70,000 +1.82% 10
North East -31 25 £90,000 +12.50% 3
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 August 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.

1 186 (30.69%) Full-Stack Development
2 148 (24.42%) C#
3 143 (23.60%) .NET
3 143 (23.60%) JavaScript
3 143 (23.60%) Mentoring
4 139 (22.94%) Azure
5 138 (22.77%) AWS
6 133 (21.95%) TypeScript
7 124 (20.46%) Technical Leadership
8 112 (18.48%) Software Engineering
9 100 (16.50%) Agile
10 95 (15.68%) CI/CD
10 95 (15.68%) Node.js
10 95 (15.68%) React
11 81 (13.37%) AI
12 80 (13.20%) Python
13 79 (13.04%) DevOps
14 73 (12.05%) SaaS
15 69 (11.39%) Microservices
16 68 (11.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 65 (10.73%) SQL
18 63 (10.40%) Microsoft
19 57 (9.41%) RESTful
20 54 (8.91%) Java
21 48 (7.92%) Problem-Solving
22 47 (7.76%) Event-Driven
23 45 (7.43%) Dynamics 365
23 45 (7.43%) GraphQL
23 45 (7.43%) SQL Server
24 44 (7.26%) 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 (3.14%) Anypoint
1 19 (3.14%) Mule
2 9 (1.49%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.16%) Appian
4 6 (0.99%) Confluence
5 4 (0.66%) WordPress
6 1 (0.17%) CMS
Business Applications
1 9 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.17%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 139 (22.94%) Azure
2 138 (22.77%) AWS
3 73 (12.05%) SaaS
4 45 (7.43%) Dynamics 365
5 38 (6.27%) Power Platform
6 30 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (4.13%) GCP
8 21 (3.47%) Azure Logic Apps
9 18 (2.97%) Serverless
10 16 (2.64%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (2.64%) Snowflake
11 15 (2.48%) Azure Service Bus
11 15 (2.48%) Power Automate
12 13 (2.15%) Azure Key Vault
12 13 (2.15%) GitHub
13 12 (1.98%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 11 (1.82%) Azure Monitor
14 11 (1.82%) PowerApps
15 10 (1.65%) Amazon ECS
15 10 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.31%) SSL
2 5 (0.83%) Broadband
3 1 (0.17%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (7.43%) SQL Server
2 44 (7.26%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (3.47%) Redis
4 16 (2.64%) MySQL
5 11 (1.82%) Power BI
6 10 (1.65%) DynamoDB
6 10 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (1.65%) MongoDB
7 9 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.83%) Metadata
8 5 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.50%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.50%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.50%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.33%) InterSystems Cache
10 2 (0.33%) KDB
11 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.17%) Db2
11 1 (0.17%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 32 (5.28%) Git
2 8 (1.32%) JIRA
3 5 (0.83%) Bitbucket
4 4 (0.66%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.66%) Maven
5 3 (0.50%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.50%) JUnit
5 3 (0.50%) Mockito
5 3 (0.50%) NUnit
5 3 (0.50%) Vite
5 3 (0.50%) webpack
6 2 (0.33%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.33%) GitLab
6 2 (0.33%) MSI
6 2 (0.33%) TeamCity
6 2 (0.33%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.17%) Ant
7 1 (0.17%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.17%) fastlane
7 1 (0.17%) git-flow
General
1 111 (18.32%) Finance
2 64 (10.56%) Social Skills
3 32 (5.28%) Front Office
4 22 (3.63%) Law
5 18 (2.97%) Banking
6 16 (2.64%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.31%) Games
7 14 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.16%) Legal
8 7 (1.16%) Legal Technology
9 6 (0.99%) Public Sector
9 6 (0.99%) Retail
10 3 (0.50%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.33%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.33%) Marketing
12 1 (0.17%) Local Government
12 1 (0.17%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.17%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (23.60%) .NET
2 95 (15.68%) Node.js
2 95 (15.68%) React
3 57 (9.41%) RESTful
4 45 (7.43%) GraphQL
5 38 (6.27%) Vue
6 34 (5.61%) .NET Core
6 34 (5.61%) ASP.NET
7 30 (4.95%) Redux
8 28 (4.62%) React Native
9 27 (4.46%) Kafka
9 27 (4.46%) REST
10 26 (4.29%) CSS
11 24 (3.96%) HTML
12 23 (3.80%) Spring
13 21 (3.47%) Next.js
14 19 (3.14%) AngularJS
15 15 (2.48%) Laravel
16 14 (2.31%) OAuth
16 14 (2.31%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.77%) Cloud Native
2 27 (4.46%) Fixed Income
3 21 (3.47%) Product Ownership
4 18 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
5 17 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
5 17 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (2.64%) Mobile App
7 14 (2.31%) Equities
7 14 (2.31%) Low-Code
8 13 (2.15%) Derivative
9 9 (1.49%) Legacy Applications
10 8 (1.32%) PropTech
11 6 (0.99%) Algorithms
11 6 (0.99%) Virtual Team
12 5 (0.83%) Onboarding
13 4 (0.66%) Video\Live Streaming
14 3 (0.50%) Operational Technology
14 3 (0.50%) Photography
15 2 (0.33%) Distributed Architecture
15 2 (0.33%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 36 (5.94%) Apple iOS
2 34 (5.61%) Android
3 4 (0.66%) Linux
4 3 (0.50%) Windows
5 1 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (30.69%) Full-Stack Development
2 143 (23.60%) Mentoring
3 124 (20.46%) Technical Leadership
4 112 (18.48%) Software Engineering
5 100 (16.50%) Agile
6 95 (15.68%) CI/CD
7 81 (13.37%) AI
8 79 (13.04%) DevOps
9 69 (11.39%) Microservices
10 68 (11.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 48 (7.92%) Problem-Solving
12 47 (7.76%) Event-Driven
13 44 (7.26%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 39 (6.44%) Roadmaps
15 35 (5.78%) Design Patterns
16 34 (5.61%) Test Automation
17 33 (5.45%) Coaching
17 33 (5.45%) Mobile Development
18 31 (5.12%) Fintech
18 31 (5.12%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 148 (24.42%) C#
2 143 (23.60%) JavaScript
3 133 (21.95%) TypeScript
4 80 (13.20%) Python
5 65 (10.73%) SQL
6 54 (8.91%) Java
7 23 (3.80%) Go
8 16 (2.64%) PHP
9 14 (2.31%) DataWeave
10 11 (1.82%) C++
10 11 (1.82%) Swift
11 10 (1.65%) Kotlin
12 9 (1.49%) Bicep
13 8 (1.32%) Ruby
14 6 (0.99%) RPG
15 5 (0.83%) PowerShell
16 4 (0.66%) Bash
17 3 (0.50%) C
17 3 (0.50%) PL/SQL
17 3 (0.50%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (5.28%) Degree
2 27 (4.46%) SC Cleared
2 27 (4.46%) Security Cleared
3 19 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.49%) DBS Check
5 5 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (0.17%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.79%) QA
2 12 (1.98%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.99%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.33%) NCSC
4 2 (0.33%) WCAG
5 1 (0.17%) GDPR
5 1 (0.17%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 40 (6.60%) Docker
2 3 (0.50%) Firmware
3 1 (0.17%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 24 (3.96%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.64%) Terraform
3 14 (2.31%) CloudHub
4 2 (0.33%) Ansible
5 1 (0.17%) Grafana
5 1 (0.17%) Kibana
5 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 63 (10.40%) Microsoft
2 19 (3.14%) MuleSoft
3 18 (2.97%) Salesforce
4 15 (2.48%) ServiceNow
5 14 (2.31%) SAP
6 7 (1.16%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.99%) IBM
7 6 (0.99%) Oracle
8 4 (0.66%) Apple
9 3 (0.50%) Bloomberg
9 3 (0.50%) DevExpress
10 2 (0.33%) Google
10 2 (0.33%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.33%) Refinitiv
10 2 (0.33%) TikTok
11 1 (0.17%) Citrix
11 1 (0.17%) Reuters