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 23 April 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 279 374 242
Rank change year-on-year +95 -132 +78
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 518 270 952
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.66% 0.72% 1.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.81% 1.22%
Number of salaries quoted 439 214 872
10th Percentile £55,750 £48,250 £52,504
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 £74,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -5.41% -7.50%

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 72,546 33,415 78,101
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.74% 89.21% 94.46%
Number of salaries quoted 47,462 21,467 59,800
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,750 £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% -10.49%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £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 23 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 23 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 +50 199 £95,000 +18.75% 30
North of England -6 115 £75,000 +15.38% 23
North West +9 87 £72,500 +11.54% 12
South East +8 69 £90,000 +33.33% 18
South West -16 55 £65,000 +8.33% 1
Midlands -6 52 £70,000 +7.69% 4
West Midlands -7 30 £70,000 +27.27% 2
East of England -22 23 £60,100 -22.45% 3
East Midlands -36 22 £70,000 +5.66% 2
Yorkshire -40 18 £75,000 +7.14% 4
North East -36 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 23 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.

1 162 (31.27%) Full-Stack Development
2 121 (23.36%) AWS
3 114 (22.01%) Agile
4 104 (20.08%) Software Engineering
5 103 (19.88%) Python
6 101 (19.50%) React
7 100 (19.31%) Mentoring
8 95 (18.34%) JavaScript
9 93 (17.95%) Azure
10 92 (17.76%) .NET
11 89 (17.18%) C#
12 88 (16.99%) TypeScript
13 85 (16.41%) Technical Leadership
14 76 (14.67%) Node.js
15 64 (12.36%) SaaS
16 58 (11.20%) AI
16 58 (11.20%) CI/CD
17 55 (10.62%) Java
18 50 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
18 50 (9.65%) DevOps
19 49 (9.46%) SQL
20 45 (8.69%) Coaching
21 43 (8.30%) RESTful
22 41 (7.92%) Serverless
23 40 (7.72%) Microservices
24 39 (7.53%) Portfolio Management
25 38 (7.34%) Redux
26 36 (6.95%) Investment Management
27 34 (6.56%) GraphQL
27 34 (6.56%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.35%) 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
1 121 (23.36%) AWS
2 93 (17.95%) Azure
3 64 (12.36%) SaaS
4 41 (7.92%) Serverless
5 32 (6.18%) AWS Lambda
6 26 (5.02%) Amazon S3
7 23 (4.44%) GCP
8 21 (4.05%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (3.47%) Power Platform
10 17 (3.28%) Dynamics 365
11 15 (2.90%) Azure Logic Apps
12 11 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (2.12%) GitHub
13 8 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
13 8 (1.54%) Amazon EventBridge
14 7 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (0.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.97%) Datadog
15 5 (0.97%) Entra ID
15 5 (0.97%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Broadband
1 1 (0.19%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (5.60%) SQL Server
2 25 (4.83%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.74%) MySQL
4 8 (1.54%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.35%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.97%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.77%) DB2
7 4 (0.77%) 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 14 (2.70%) Git
2 6 (1.16%) Cypress.io
3 5 (0.97%) Bitbucket
3 5 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.77%) GitLab
4 4 (0.77%) Maven
4 4 (0.77%) 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%) XCUITest
7 1 (0.19%) JUnit
7 1 (0.19%) Postman
7 1 (0.19%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.19%) Subversion
7 1 (0.19%) TeamCity
General
1 65 (12.55%) Finance
2 46 (8.88%) Social Skills
3 40 (7.72%) Front Office
4 26 (5.02%) Tech for Good
5 17 (3.28%) Health Technology
6 16 (3.09%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (2.51%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (2.51%) Publishing
8 12 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.74%) Public Sector
10 8 (1.54%) Games
11 7 (1.35%) Law
12 6 (1.16%) Banking
12 6 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.97%) Retail
14 4 (0.77%) Local Government
14 4 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.39%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
16 1 (0.19%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (19.50%) React
2 92 (17.76%) .NET
3 76 (14.67%) Node.js
4 43 (8.30%) RESTful
5 38 (7.34%) Redux
6 34 (6.56%) GraphQL
7 30 (5.79%) .NET Core
8 29 (5.60%) Kafka
9 28 (5.41%) Vue
10 27 (5.21%) AngularJS
11 24 (4.63%) HTML
12 23 (4.44%) CSS
12 23 (4.44%) React Native
13 22 (4.25%) ASP.NET
14 21 (4.05%) Laravel
15 19 (3.67%) Spring
16 17 (3.28%) .NET Framework
17 13 (2.51%) Spring Boot
18 10 (1.93%) REST
19 8 (1.54%) SwiftUI
Miscellaneous
1 36 (6.95%) Fixed Income
2 26 (5.02%) Cloud Native
3 25 (4.83%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.28%) Derivative
4 17 (3.28%) Mobile App
5 16 (3.09%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (3.09%) Equities
6 14 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (2.51%) PropTech
8 8 (1.54%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.54%) Legacy Applications
9 6 (1.16%) Credit Risk
10 5 (0.97%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.58%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.58%) AS400
12 3 (0.58%) iSeries
12 3 (0.58%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.58%) Photography
13 2 (0.39%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 33 (6.37%) Apple iOS
2 25 (4.83%) Android
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
4 1 (0.19%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (31.27%) Full-Stack Development
2 114 (22.01%) Agile
3 104 (20.08%) Software Engineering
4 100 (19.31%) Mentoring
5 85 (16.41%) Technical Leadership
6 58 (11.20%) AI
6 58 (11.20%) CI/CD
7 50 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
7 50 (9.65%) DevOps
8 45 (8.69%) Coaching
9 40 (7.72%) Microservices
10 39 (7.53%) Portfolio Management
11 36 (6.95%) Investment Management
12 34 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
13 26 (5.02%) Fintech
13 26 (5.02%) Line Management
14 25 (4.83%) Design Patterns
15 24 (4.63%) Scrum
16 22 (4.25%) Event-Driven
16 22 (4.25%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 103 (19.88%) Python
2 95 (18.34%) JavaScript
3 89 (17.18%) C#
4 88 (16.99%) TypeScript
5 55 (10.62%) Java
6 49 (9.46%) SQL
7 23 (4.44%) Go
8 16 (3.09%) PHP
9 11 (2.12%) Swift
10 9 (1.74%) C++
11 7 (1.35%) Kotlin
12 6 (1.16%) Bicep
13 4 (0.77%) C
13 4 (0.77%) RPG
14 3 (0.58%) COBOL
14 3 (0.58%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.39%) Bash
15 2 (0.39%) Groovy
16 1 (0.19%) PowerShell
16 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 18 (3.47%) Degree
2 8 (1.54%) DBS Check
3 4 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (0.58%) Security Cleared
5 2 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
5 2 (0.39%) SC Cleared
6 1 (0.19%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.19%) AWS Certified Developer
6 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.19%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (5.02%) QA
2 8 (1.54%) 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 24 (4.63%) Docker
2 3 (0.58%) Firmware
3 1 (0.19%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (2.90%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.12%) 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 (6.37%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.35%) OpenAI
3 6 (1.16%) Salesforce
4 5 (0.97%) Apple
4 5 (0.97%) HubSpot
5 3 (0.58%) DevExpress
6 2 (0.39%) Foundry
6 2 (0.39%) MuleSoft
6 2 (0.39%) NEC
6 2 (0.39%) Northgate
6 2 (0.39%) Workday
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe
7 1 (0.19%) Databricks
7 1 (0.19%) IBM
7 1 (0.19%) Revolut