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 6 August 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 369 226
Rank change year-on-year +74 -143 +101
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 609 310 898
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.66% 0.71% 1.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.78% 1.30%
Number of salaries quoted 509 221 799
10th Percentile £63,100 £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 £93,500
90th Percentile £101,000 £122,500 £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 87,430 39,496 69,091
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.21% 90.67% 94.82%
Number of salaries quoted 61,472 23,894 47,595
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,754 £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 6 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 6 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 +23 226 £95,000 +5.56% 61
North of England +40 146 £75,000 +7.14% 31
North West +55 96 £72,500 - 15
South East +8 86 £90,000 +20.00% 7
Midlands +15 84 £68,250 - 12
West Midlands +3 53 £65,000 -6.47% 6
South West -54 32 £70,000 +24.44% 4
East Midlands +5 31 £70,000 +5.66% 6
East of England -6 27 £60,100 -19.87% 2
Yorkshire -21 26 £70,000 +1.82% 11
North East -32 24 £90,000 +12.50% 5
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 191 (31.36%) Full-Stack Development
2 146 (23.97%) C#
2 146 (23.97%) JavaScript
3 143 (23.48%) .NET
4 141 (23.15%) Mentoring
5 140 (22.99%) AWS
6 139 (22.82%) Azure
7 138 (22.66%) TypeScript
8 121 (19.87%) Technical Leadership
9 117 (19.21%) Software Engineering
10 104 (17.08%) Agile
11 101 (16.58%) Node.js
12 99 (16.26%) React
13 94 (15.44%) CI/CD
14 84 (13.79%) Python
15 80 (13.14%) AI
16 79 (12.97%) DevOps
17 74 (12.15%) SaaS
18 68 (11.17%) Microservices
19 66 (10.84%) Continuous Improvement
20 63 (10.34%) Microsoft
20 63 (10.34%) SQL
21 59 (9.69%) Java
22 55 (9.03%) RESTful
23 49 (8.05%) GraphQL
24 47 (7.72%) Event-Driven
24 47 (7.72%) Problem-Solving
25 44 (7.22%) Dynamics 365
25 44 (7.22%) Event-Driven Architecture
25 44 (7.22%) SQL Server

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 (3.12%) Anypoint
1 19 (3.12%) Mule
2 9 (1.48%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.15%) Appian
4 6 (0.99%) Confluence
5 4 (0.66%) WordPress
6 1 (0.16%) CMS
Business Applications
1 9 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 140 (22.99%) AWS
2 139 (22.82%) Azure
3 74 (12.15%) SaaS
4 44 (7.22%) Dynamics 365
5 37 (6.08%) Power Platform
6 30 (4.93%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (4.27%) GCP
8 20 (3.28%) Azure Logic Apps
9 18 (2.96%) Serverless
10 16 (2.63%) Microsoft Copilot
11 15 (2.46%) Azure Service Bus
11 15 (2.46%) Snowflake
12 14 (2.30%) Power Automate
13 13 (2.13%) Azure Key Vault
13 13 (2.13%) GitHub
14 12 (1.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 11 (1.81%) Azure Monitor
15 11 (1.81%) PowerApps
16 10 (1.64%) Amazon ECS
16 10 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.30%) SSL
2 5 (0.82%) Broadband
3 1 (0.16%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.16%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (7.22%) SQL Server
2 43 (7.06%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (3.28%) Redis
4 16 (2.63%) MySQL
5 11 (1.81%) Power BI
6 10 (1.64%) DynamoDB
6 10 (1.64%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (1.64%) MongoDB
7 9 (1.48%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.82%) Metadata
8 5 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.49%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.49%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.49%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.33%) InterSystems Cache
10 2 (0.33%) KDB
11 1 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.16%) Db2
11 1 (0.16%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 32 (5.25%) Git
2 8 (1.31%) JIRA
3 5 (0.82%) Bitbucket
4 4 (0.66%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.66%) Maven
5 3 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.49%) JUnit
5 3 (0.49%) Mockito
5 3 (0.49%) NUnit
5 3 (0.49%) Vite
5 3 (0.49%) 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 (0.16%) Ant
7 1 (0.16%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.16%) fastlane
7 1 (0.16%) git-flow
General
1 117 (19.21%) Finance
2 62 (10.18%) Social Skills
3 37 (6.08%) Front Office
4 22 (3.61%) Law
5 18 (2.96%) Banking
6 15 (2.46%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.30%) Games
7 14 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (0.99%) Legal
8 6 (0.99%) Legal Technology
8 6 (0.99%) Public Sector
8 6 (0.99%) Retail
9 3 (0.49%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.33%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.33%) Marketing
11 1 (0.16%) Local Government
11 1 (0.16%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.16%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (23.48%) .NET
2 101 (16.58%) Node.js
3 99 (16.26%) React
4 55 (9.03%) RESTful
5 49 (8.05%) GraphQL
6 38 (6.24%) Vue
7 35 (5.75%) Redux
8 34 (5.58%) .NET Core
8 34 (5.58%) ASP.NET
9 32 (5.25%) Kafka
10 27 (4.43%) React Native
10 27 (4.43%) REST
11 25 (4.11%) CSS
12 23 (3.78%) HTML
12 23 (3.78%) Spring
13 20 (3.28%) AngularJS
13 20 (3.28%) Next.js
14 15 (2.46%) Laravel
15 14 (2.30%) JWT
15 14 (2.30%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.73%) Cloud Native
2 32 (5.25%) Fixed Income
3 21 (3.45%) Product Ownership
4 18 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
5 17 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (2.63%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (2.63%) Mobile App
7 14 (2.30%) Equities
7 14 (2.30%) Low-Code
8 13 (2.13%) Derivative
9 9 (1.48%) Legacy Applications
10 8 (1.31%) PropTech
11 6 (0.99%) Algorithms
11 6 (0.99%) Virtual Team
12 5 (0.82%) Onboarding
13 4 (0.66%) Video\Live Streaming
14 3 (0.49%) Operational Technology
14 3 (0.49%) Photography
15 2 (0.33%) Distributed Architecture
15 2 (0.33%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 35 (5.75%) Apple iOS
2 33 (5.42%) Android
3 4 (0.66%) Linux
4 3 (0.49%) Windows
5 1 (0.16%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 191 (31.36%) Full-Stack Development
2 141 (23.15%) Mentoring
3 121 (19.87%) Technical Leadership
4 117 (19.21%) Software Engineering
5 104 (17.08%) Agile
6 94 (15.44%) CI/CD
7 80 (13.14%) AI
8 79 (12.97%) DevOps
9 68 (11.17%) Microservices
10 66 (10.84%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (7.72%) Event-Driven
11 47 (7.72%) Problem-Solving
12 44 (7.22%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 39 (6.40%) Roadmaps
14 35 (5.75%) Portfolio Management
15 34 (5.58%) Investment Management
15 34 (5.58%) Test Automation
16 33 (5.42%) Design Patterns
17 32 (5.25%) Coaching
17 32 (5.25%) Mobile Development
Programming Languages
1 146 (23.97%) C#
1 146 (23.97%) JavaScript
2 138 (22.66%) TypeScript
3 84 (13.79%) Python
4 63 (10.34%) SQL
5 59 (9.69%) Java
6 28 (4.60%) Go
7 16 (2.63%) PHP
8 14 (2.30%) DataWeave
9 11 (1.81%) C++
9 11 (1.81%) Swift
10 10 (1.64%) Kotlin
11 9 (1.48%) Bicep
12 7 (1.15%) Ruby
13 6 (0.99%) RPG
14 5 (0.82%) PowerShell
15 4 (0.66%) Bash
16 3 (0.49%) C
16 3 (0.49%) PL/SQL
16 3 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (5.09%) Degree
2 27 (4.43%) SC Cleared
2 27 (4.43%) Security Cleared
3 18 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.48%) DBS Check
5 5 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (0.16%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.60%) QA
2 12 (1.97%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.99%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.33%) NCSC
4 2 (0.33%) WCAG
5 1 (0.16%) GDPR
5 1 (0.16%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 40 (6.57%) Docker
2 3 (0.49%) Firmware
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 24 (3.94%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.63%) Terraform
3 14 (2.30%) CloudHub
4 2 (0.33%) Ansible
5 1 (0.16%) Grafana
5 1 (0.16%) Kibana
5 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 63 (10.34%) Microsoft
2 19 (3.12%) MuleSoft
3 18 (2.96%) Salesforce
4 15 (2.46%) ServiceNow
5 14 (2.30%) SAP
6 7 (1.15%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.99%) IBM
7 6 (0.99%) Oracle
8 4 (0.66%) Apple
9 3 (0.49%) Bloomberg
9 3 (0.49%) DevExpress
10 2 (0.33%) Google
10 2 (0.33%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.33%) Refinitiv
10 2 (0.33%) TikTok
11 1 (0.16%) Citrix
11 1 (0.16%) Reuters