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 25 April 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 284 377 249
Rank change year-on-year +93 -128 +75
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 515 263 957
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.65% 0.70% 1.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.79% 1.22%
Number of salaries quoted 436 207 876
10th Percentile £55,750 £50,000 £52,500
25th Percentile £70,000 £57,500 £58,625
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 72,973 33,444 78,399
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.76% 88.88% 94.45%
Number of salaries quoted 47,795 21,436 59,944
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% -10.84%
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 25 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 25 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 +49 199 £95,000 +18.75% 29
North of England +9 114 £75,000 +15.38% 21
North West +4 87 £72,500 +11.54% 11
South East +5 68 £90,000 +30.91% 21
South West -24 54 £65,000 +8.33%
Midlands -14 52 £70,000 +7.69% 7
West Midlands -8 30 £70,000 +12.00% 4
East of England -16 23 £60,100 -19.87% 4
East Midlands -46 22 £70,000 +5.66% 3
Yorkshire -48 17 £75,000 +7.14% 4
North East -35 10 £67,500 +42.11% 6
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 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.

1 161 (31.26%) Full-Stack Development
2 119 (23.11%) AWS
3 113 (21.94%) Agile
4 104 (20.19%) Software Engineering
5 101 (19.61%) Python
6 100 (19.42%) React
7 99 (19.22%) Mentoring
8 93 (18.06%) JavaScript
9 92 (17.86%) .NET
9 92 (17.86%) Azure
10 89 (17.28%) C#
11 88 (17.09%) TypeScript
12 84 (16.31%) Technical Leadership
13 76 (14.76%) Node.js
14 64 (12.43%) SaaS
15 58 (11.26%) AI
16 56 (10.87%) CI/CD
17 55 (10.68%) Java
18 51 (9.90%) Continuous Improvement
19 50 (9.71%) DevOps
20 49 (9.51%) SQL
21 45 (8.74%) Coaching
22 43 (8.35%) RESTful
23 40 (7.77%) Microservices
23 40 (7.77%) Serverless
24 39 (7.57%) Portfolio Management
25 38 (7.38%) Redux
26 36 (6.99%) Investment Management
27 35 (6.80%) Problem-Solving
28 34 (6.60%) 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 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
1 119 (23.11%) AWS
2 92 (17.86%) Azure
3 64 (12.43%) SaaS
4 40 (7.77%) Serverless
5 32 (6.21%) AWS Lambda
6 26 (5.05%) Amazon S3
7 22 (4.27%) GCP
8 21 (4.08%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (3.50%) Power Platform
10 17 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
11 15 (2.91%) Azure Logic Apps
12 11 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (1.94%) GitHub
14 8 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
14 8 (1.55%) Amazon EventBridge
15 7 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
16 5 (0.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.97%) Datadog
16 5 (0.97%) Entra ID
16 5 (0.97%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Broadband
1 1 (0.19%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (5.44%) SQL Server
2 25 (4.85%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.75%) MySQL
4 8 (1.55%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.17%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.97%) DB2
6 5 (0.97%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
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 14 (2.72%) 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%) 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 (12.62%) Finance
2 45 (8.74%) Social Skills
3 40 (7.77%) Front Office
4 25 (4.85%) Tech for Good
5 17 (3.30%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (3.30%) Health Technology
6 13 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (2.52%) Publishing
7 12 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (1.55%) Games
8 8 (1.55%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.36%) Banking
9 7 (1.36%) Law
10 6 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (0.97%) Retail
12 4 (0.78%) Local Government
12 4 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.39%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.19%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (19.42%) React
2 92 (17.86%) .NET
3 76 (14.76%) Node.js
4 43 (8.35%) RESTful
5 38 (7.38%) Redux
6 34 (6.60%) GraphQL
7 30 (5.83%) .NET Core
8 29 (5.63%) Kafka
9 27 (5.24%) AngularJS
9 27 (5.24%) Vue
10 23 (4.47%) HTML
10 23 (4.47%) React Native
11 22 (4.27%) ASP.NET
11 22 (4.27%) CSS
12 21 (4.08%) Laravel
13 19 (3.69%) Spring
14 17 (3.30%) .NET Framework
15 13 (2.52%) Spring Boot
16 10 (1.94%) REST
17 8 (1.55%) SwiftUI
Miscellaneous
1 36 (6.99%) Fixed Income
2 26 (5.05%) Cloud Native
3 25 (4.85%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.30%) Derivative
4 17 (3.30%) Mobile App
5 16 (3.11%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (3.11%) Equities
6 14 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (2.52%) PropTech
8 8 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.55%) Legacy Applications
9 6 (1.17%) Credit Risk
10 5 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.97%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.78%) AS400
12 3 (0.58%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.58%) iSeries
12 3 (0.58%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.58%) Photography
13 2 (0.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 32 (6.21%) Apple iOS
2 24 (4.66%) Android
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
4 1 (0.19%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (31.26%) Full-Stack Development
2 113 (21.94%) Agile
3 104 (20.19%) Software Engineering
4 99 (19.22%) Mentoring
5 84 (16.31%) Technical Leadership
6 58 (11.26%) AI
7 56 (10.87%) CI/CD
8 51 (9.90%) Continuous Improvement
9 50 (9.71%) DevOps
10 45 (8.74%) Coaching
11 40 (7.77%) Microservices
12 39 (7.57%) Portfolio Management
13 36 (6.99%) Investment Management
14 35 (6.80%) Problem-Solving
15 26 (5.05%) Fintech
15 26 (5.05%) Line Management
16 24 (4.66%) Design Patterns
16 24 (4.66%) Scrum
17 22 (4.27%) Event-Driven
17 22 (4.27%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 101 (19.61%) Python
2 93 (18.06%) JavaScript
3 89 (17.28%) C#
4 88 (17.09%) TypeScript
5 55 (10.68%) Java
6 49 (9.51%) 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 5 (0.97%) RPG
14 4 (0.78%) C
15 3 (0.58%) COBOL
15 3 (0.58%) T-SQL
16 2 (0.39%) Bash
16 2 (0.39%) Groovy
17 1 (0.19%) PowerShell
17 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 18 (3.50%) Degree
2 8 (1.55%) DBS Check
3 4 (0.78%) 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 (5.05%) QA
2 8 (1.55%) 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 23 (4.47%) Docker
2 3 (0.58%) Firmware
3 1 (0.19%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (2.91%) Kubernetes
2 10 (1.94%) 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 (6.41%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.36%) OpenAI
3 6 (1.17%) 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%) IBM
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%) Citrix
7 1 (0.19%) Databricks
7 1 (0.19%) Revolut