Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £76,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 February 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 360 266
Rank change year-on-year +65 -94 +20
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 372 342 739
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.63% 0.77% 1.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.84% 1.17%
Number of salaries quoted 307 248 664
10th Percentile £55,450 £46,775 £53,750
25th Percentile £67,500 £47,000 £62,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £76,500 £68,525 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.64% -14.34% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £100,000
90th Percentile £118,500 £99,125 £120,000
UK median annual salary £77,500 £68,525 £75,000
% change year-on-year +13.10% -8.63% -6.25%

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 54,103 40,882 62,969
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.26% 91.50% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 34,863 21,550 50,248
10th Percentile £29,142 £33,613 £29,000
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,000 £39,986
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 15 February 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 15 February 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 +31 140 £95,000 +23.78% 22
North of England -5 72 £72,500 +31.82% 13
South East +27 57 £80,000 +9.59% 19
North West +7 52 £70,000 +27.27% 11
Midlands +16 42 £75,000 +59.57% 8
South West 0 41 £65,000 +30.00% 6
West Midlands +15 26 £75,000 +59.57% 5
Yorkshire -19 18 £77,500 +64.89% 1
East Midlands +2 16 £75,000 +9.09% 3
East of England +19 15 £65,000 -18.75% 1
North East -8 2 £68,500 +14.41% 1
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 February 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.

1 105 (28.23%) AWS
2 95 (25.54%) Agile
2 95 (25.54%) Python
3 94 (25.27%) Full-Stack Development
4 87 (23.39%) Azure
5 86 (23.12%) Mentoring
6 74 (19.89%) Technical Leadership
7 73 (19.62%) React
8 67 (18.01%) .NET
9 62 (16.67%) Software Engineering
10 61 (16.40%) C#
11 60 (16.13%) CI/CD
12 55 (14.78%) AI
12 55 (14.78%) JavaScript
13 46 (12.37%) SQL
14 45 (12.10%) Java
14 45 (12.10%) SaaS
15 44 (11.83%) Continuous Improvement
16 43 (11.56%) TypeScript
17 40 (10.75%) Node.js
17 40 (10.75%) Serverless
18 37 (9.95%) Coaching
18 37 (9.95%) Microservices
19 36 (9.68%) DevOps
20 35 (9.41%) Problem-Solving
21 33 (8.87%) QA
22 32 (8.60%) SQL Server
23 29 (7.80%) Amazon S3
24 28 (7.53%) AWS Lambda
25 27 (7.26%) Code Quality

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 2 (0.54%) Confluence
1 2 (0.54%) WordPress
2 1 (0.27%) Appian
2 1 (0.27%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.54%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.27%) Magento
3 1 (0.27%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 105 (28.23%) AWS
2 87 (23.39%) Azure
3 45 (12.10%) SaaS
4 40 (10.75%) Serverless
5 29 (7.80%) Amazon S3
6 28 (7.53%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (6.18%) Power Platform
8 19 (5.11%) GCP
9 18 (4.84%) Amazon SQS
9 18 (4.84%) GitHub
10 10 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.42%) PowerApps
12 8 (2.15%) Azure Data Factory
12 8 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (1.61%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (1.61%) Microsoft 365
13 6 (1.61%) Power Automate
14 5 (1.34%) GitHub Copilot
15 4 (1.08%) Azure Service Bus
15 4 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.54%) Network Security
2 1 (0.27%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.60%) SQL Server
2 20 (5.38%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (4.03%) NoSQL
4 13 (3.49%) MongoDB
5 11 (2.96%) Power BI
6 7 (1.88%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.08%) DB2
8 4 (1.08%) MySQL
9 3 (0.81%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.81%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.81%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.81%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 1 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.27%) ClickHouse
10 1 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (2.69%) Git
2 5 (1.34%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.08%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.08%) Maven
4 3 (0.81%) ESLint
4 3 (0.81%) GitLab
4 3 (0.81%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.54%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.54%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.54%) JIRA
5 2 (0.54%) Selenium
5 2 (0.54%) Subversion
5 2 (0.54%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.54%) webpack
5 2 (0.54%) Xcode
6 1 (0.27%) JUnit
6 1 (0.27%) Postman
6 1 (0.27%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.27%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.27%) XCUITest
General
1 55 (14.78%) Social Skills
2 36 (9.68%) Finance
3 28 (7.53%) Tech for Good
4 26 (6.99%) Front Office
5 19 (5.11%) Health Technology
6 16 (4.30%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
7 15 (4.03%) Publishing
8 14 (3.76%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (3.49%) Public Sector
10 10 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.61%) Marketing
12 5 (1.34%) Electronics
13 4 (1.08%) Banking
13 4 (1.08%) Games
13 4 (1.08%) Local Government
13 4 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.08%) Retail
14 3 (0.81%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.81%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (19.62%) React
2 67 (18.01%) .NET
3 40 (10.75%) Node.js
4 24 (6.45%) .NET Core
4 24 (6.45%) RESTful
5 22 (5.91%) Flask
6 21 (5.65%) HTML
7 20 (5.38%) Vue
8 19 (5.11%) Redux
9 18 (4.84%) AngularJS
9 18 (4.84%) CSS
9 18 (4.84%) FastAPI
10 17 (4.57%) REST
11 16 (4.30%) Kafka
12 15 (4.03%) GraphQL
12 15 (4.03%) Laravel
13 14 (3.76%) .NET Framework
13 14 (3.76%) ASP.NET
13 14 (3.76%) Spring Boot
14 13 (3.49%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 20 (5.38%) Distributed Systems
1 20 (5.38%) Fixed Income
1 20 (5.38%) Product Ownership
2 17 (4.57%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.23%) Derivative
4 11 (2.96%) Mobile App
5 9 (2.42%) Greenfield Project
6 8 (2.15%) Credit Risk
6 8 (2.15%) Equities
7 7 (1.88%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.61%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.34%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.34%) PropTech
10 4 (1.08%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.08%) PKI
11 3 (0.81%) AS400
11 3 (0.81%) Clustering
11 3 (0.81%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.84%) Apple iOS
2 10 (2.69%) Android
3 3 (0.81%) Linux
4 1 (0.27%) Unix
4 1 (0.27%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (25.54%) Agile
2 94 (25.27%) Full-Stack Development
3 86 (23.12%) Mentoring
4 74 (19.89%) Technical Leadership
5 62 (16.67%) Software Engineering
6 60 (16.13%) CI/CD
7 55 (14.78%) AI
8 44 (11.83%) Continuous Improvement
9 37 (9.95%) Coaching
9 37 (9.95%) Microservices
10 36 (9.68%) DevOps
11 35 (9.41%) Problem-Solving
12 27 (7.26%) Code Quality
13 25 (6.72%) Design Patterns
13 25 (6.72%) TDD
14 24 (6.45%) Scrum
15 23 (6.18%) Containerisation
16 21 (5.65%) Line Management
17 19 (5.11%) Roadmaps
17 19 (5.11%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 95 (25.54%) Python
2 61 (16.40%) C#
3 55 (14.78%) JavaScript
4 46 (12.37%) SQL
5 45 (12.10%) Java
6 43 (11.56%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.30%) PHP
8 13 (3.49%) Go
9 7 (1.88%) C++
10 5 (1.34%) Swift
11 4 (1.08%) Kotlin
11 4 (1.08%) RPG
12 3 (0.81%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.81%) C
12 3 (0.81%) COBOL
12 3 (0.81%) Scala
13 2 (0.54%) Bash
13 2 (0.54%) Groovy
14 1 (0.27%) R
14 1 (0.27%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 15 (4.03%) Degree
2 6 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (0.81%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.54%) DBS Check
4 2 (0.54%) PhD
5 1 (0.27%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.27%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.27%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.27%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (8.87%) QA
2 8 (2.15%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.54%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.54%) GAAP
3 2 (0.54%) IFRS
3 2 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 27 (7.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (4.57%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.96%) Terraform
3 3 (0.81%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.54%) Ansible
5 1 (0.27%) Grafana
5 1 (0.27%) Kibana
5 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (6.45%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.15%) OpenAI
3 6 (1.61%) Salesforce
4 3 (0.81%) Apple
4 3 (0.81%) Databricks
4 3 (0.81%) Google
4 3 (0.81%) SAP
5 2 (0.54%) Foundry
5 2 (0.54%) NEC
5 2 (0.54%) Northgate
5 2 (0.54%) Workday
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe
6 1 (0.27%) IBM
6 1 (0.27%) Informatica
6 1 (0.27%) Revolut