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 20 April 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 285 364 243
Rank change year-on-year +79 -121 +80
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 514 272 951
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.66% 0.73% 1.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.82% 1.22%
Number of salaries quoted 438 217 871
10th Percentile £56,100 £49,000 £52,500
25th Percentile £70,000 £57,500 £58,750
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 £93,750
90th Percentile £115,000 £100,000 £115,000
UK median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year +14.29% -3.45% -9.38%

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 71,777 33,354 77,878
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.64% 89.28% 94.45%
Number of salaries quoted 47,086 21,349 59,699
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -10.74%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,000 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -11.67%

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 20 April 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 20 April 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 +61 198 £95,000 +18.75% 31
North of England -1 115 £75,000 +15.38% 21
North West +9 87 £72,500 +11.54% 10
South East +2 68 £90,000 +33.33% 17
South West -17 54 £65,000 +8.33% 2
Midlands -6 53 £70,000 +7.69% 4
West Midlands -13 31 £70,000 +27.27% 2
East Midlands -40 22 £70,000 +5.66% 2
East of England -21 21 £62,550 -19.29% 3
Yorkshire -47 18 £75,000 +7.14% 4
North East -30 10 £67,500 +42.11% 7
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 April 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.

1 159 (30.93%) Full-Stack Development
2 122 (23.74%) AWS
3 115 (22.37%) Agile
4 106 (20.62%) Python
5 103 (20.04%) Mentoring
5 103 (20.04%) Software Engineering
6 100 (19.46%) React
7 97 (18.87%) JavaScript
8 93 (18.09%) .NET
8 93 (18.09%) Azure
9 89 (17.32%) C#
10 88 (17.12%) TypeScript
11 83 (16.15%) Technical Leadership
12 75 (14.59%) Node.js
13 63 (12.26%) SaaS
14 59 (11.48%) CI/CD
15 56 (10.89%) AI
16 55 (10.70%) Java
17 50 (9.73%) SQL
18 49 (9.53%) Continuous Improvement
19 48 (9.34%) DevOps
20 45 (8.75%) Coaching
20 45 (8.75%) RESTful
21 44 (8.56%) Serverless
22 39 (7.59%) Portfolio Management
23 38 (7.39%) Microservices
23 38 (7.39%) Redux
24 36 (7.00%) Investment Management
25 35 (6.81%) Problem-Solving
26 34 (6.61%) AWS Lambda

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 5 (0.97%) Appian
1 5 (0.97%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.39%) Anypoint
2 2 (0.39%) Confluence
2 2 (0.39%) Mule
2 2 (0.39%) WordPress
3 1 (0.19%) CMS
Business Applications
1 7 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.39%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.19%) Magento
3 1 (0.19%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.19%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 122 (23.74%) AWS
2 93 (18.09%) Azure
3 63 (12.26%) SaaS
4 44 (8.56%) Serverless
5 34 (6.61%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (5.45%) Amazon S3
7 23 (4.47%) Amazon SQS
7 23 (4.47%) GCP
8 18 (3.50%) Power Platform
9 16 (3.11%) Dynamics 365
10 15 (2.92%) Azure Logic Apps
11 12 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (2.33%) GitHub
12 8 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
12 8 (1.56%) Amazon EventBridge
13 7 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (1.17%) PowerApps
15 5 (0.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.97%) Entra ID
15 5 (0.97%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.39%) Network Security
2 1 (0.19%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (5.64%) SQL Server
2 25 (4.86%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.75%) MySQL
4 8 (1.56%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.36%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.97%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.78%) DB2
7 4 (0.78%) Power BI
8 3 (0.58%) MariaDB
8 3 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.39%) Metadata
9 2 (0.39%) Relational Database
10 1 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 15 (2.92%) Git
2 6 (1.17%) Cypress.io
3 5 (0.97%) Bitbucket
3 5 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.78%) GitLab
4 4 (0.78%) Maven
4 4 (0.78%) webpack
5 3 (0.58%) ESLint
5 3 (0.58%) JIRA
5 3 (0.58%) NUnit
5 3 (0.58%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.58%) Vite
6 2 (0.39%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.39%) Selenium
6 2 (0.39%) Subversion
6 2 (0.39%) XCUITest
7 1 (0.19%) JUnit
7 1 (0.19%) Postman
7 1 (0.19%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.19%) TeamCity
General
1 65 (12.65%) Finance
2 50 (9.73%) Social Skills
3 40 (7.78%) Front Office
4 28 (5.45%) Tech for Good
5 19 (3.70%) Health Technology
6 15 (2.92%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (2.92%) Publishing
7 14 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (1.75%) Public Sector
9 8 (1.56%) Games
10 6 (1.17%) Banking
10 6 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.17%) Law
11 5 (0.97%) Retail
12 4 (0.78%) Local Government
12 4 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.39%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.39%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.39%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (19.46%) React
2 93 (18.09%) .NET
3 75 (14.59%) Node.js
4 45 (8.75%) RESTful
5 38 (7.39%) Redux
6 34 (6.61%) GraphQL
7 30 (5.84%) .NET Core
8 29 (5.64%) Kafka
9 28 (5.45%) Vue
10 27 (5.25%) AngularJS
11 26 (5.06%) HTML
12 24 (4.67%) CSS
13 23 (4.47%) React Native
14 22 (4.28%) ASP.NET
15 21 (4.09%) Laravel
16 19 (3.70%) Spring
17 17 (3.31%) .NET Framework
18 13 (2.53%) Spring Boot
19 11 (2.14%) REST
20 8 (1.56%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.00%) Fixed Income
2 24 (4.67%) Cloud Native
3 23 (4.47%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.31%) Derivative
4 17 (3.31%) Mobile App
5 16 (3.11%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (3.11%) Equities
6 13 (2.53%) PropTech
7 12 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (1.17%) Credit Risk
9 6 (1.17%) Legacy Applications
10 5 (0.97%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.58%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.58%) AS400
12 3 (0.58%) Data Structures
12 3 (0.58%) iSeries
12 3 (0.58%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.58%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 33 (6.42%) Apple iOS
2 25 (4.86%) Android
3 2 (0.39%) Linux
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (30.93%) Full-Stack Development
2 115 (22.37%) Agile
3 103 (20.04%) Mentoring
3 103 (20.04%) Software Engineering
4 83 (16.15%) Technical Leadership
5 59 (11.48%) CI/CD
6 56 (10.89%) AI
7 49 (9.53%) Continuous Improvement
8 48 (9.34%) DevOps
9 45 (8.75%) Coaching
10 39 (7.59%) Portfolio Management
11 38 (7.39%) Microservices
12 36 (7.00%) Investment Management
13 35 (6.81%) Problem-Solving
14 26 (5.06%) Fintech
14 26 (5.06%) Line Management
14 26 (5.06%) Scrum
15 24 (4.67%) TDD
16 23 (4.47%) Code Quality
16 23 (4.47%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 106 (20.62%) Python
2 97 (18.87%) JavaScript
3 89 (17.32%) C#
4 88 (17.12%) TypeScript
5 55 (10.70%) Java
6 50 (9.73%) SQL
7 23 (4.47%) Go
8 16 (3.11%) PHP
9 11 (2.14%) Swift
10 9 (1.75%) C++
11 7 (1.36%) Kotlin
12 6 (1.17%) Bicep
13 4 (0.78%) C
13 4 (0.78%) RPG
14 3 (0.58%) COBOL
14 3 (0.58%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.39%) Apex Code
15 2 (0.39%) Bash
15 2 (0.39%) Groovy
16 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 17 (3.31%) Degree
2 6 (1.17%) DBS Check
3 4 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (0.78%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
4 2 (0.39%) PhD
4 2 (0.39%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.19%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.19%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (5.25%) QA
2 8 (1.56%) Accessibility
3 5 (0.97%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.39%) GAAP
4 2 (0.39%) IFRS
4 2 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.19%) GDPR
System Software
1 25 (4.86%) Docker
2 3 (0.58%) Firmware
3 1 (0.19%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (2.92%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.33%) Terraform
3 3 (0.58%) Ansible
3 3 (0.58%) HP Fortify
4 1 (0.19%) Grafana
4 1 (0.19%) Kibana
4 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 33 (6.42%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.36%) OpenAI
2 7 (1.36%) Salesforce
3 5 (0.97%) Apple
3 5 (0.97%) HubSpot
4 3 (0.58%) DevExpress
5 2 (0.39%) Foundry
5 2 (0.39%) MuleSoft
5 2 (0.39%) NEC
5 2 (0.39%) Northgate
5 2 (0.39%) Workday
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe
6 1 (0.19%) Databricks
6 1 (0.19%) IBM
6 1 (0.19%) Revolut