Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £77,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 March 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 376 254
Rank change year-on-year +81 -122 +36
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 391 303 777
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.63% 0.72% 1.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.79% 1.19%
Number of salaries quoted 327 231 708
10th Percentile £55,750 £47,000 £53,629
25th Percentile £67,500 £52,313 £61,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £68,525 £77,500
Median % change year-on-year +13.10% -11.58% -3.13%
75th Percentile £94,375 £85,000 £97,500
90th Percentile £137,500 £100,000 £118,250
UK median annual salary £80,000 £68,525 £75,000
% change year-on-year +16.75% -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 56,639 38,272 65,442
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.53% 91.08% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 36,607 21,032 52,042
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £28,801
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,883
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
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 1 March 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 1 March 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 +44 150 £95,000 +25.00% 21
North of England -7 75 £71,750 +30.45% 28
South East +16 59 £87,500 +9.38% 16
North West +8 56 £70,000 +27.27% 21
South West -1 44 £65,000 +15.56% 10
Midlands +7 41 £75,000 +59.57% 18
West Midlands +18 25 £75,000 +59.57% 13
East of England +14 17 £65,000 -18.75% 11
Yorkshire -28 17 £77,500 +64.89% 6
East Midlands -18 16 £75,000 +9.09% 5
North East -12 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 1 March 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.

1 113 (28.90%) AWS
2 103 (26.34%) Full-Stack Development
3 101 (25.83%) Agile
4 100 (25.58%) Python
5 93 (23.79%) Mentoring
6 89 (22.76%) Azure
7 80 (20.46%) React
8 78 (19.95%) Technical Leadership
9 76 (19.44%) Software Engineering
10 69 (17.65%) .NET
11 68 (17.39%) JavaScript
12 60 (15.35%) CI/CD
13 58 (14.83%) C#
14 56 (14.32%) TypeScript
15 55 (14.07%) AI
16 51 (13.04%) Node.js
17 49 (12.53%) Java
18 46 (11.76%) SaaS
19 45 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
19 45 (11.51%) SQL
20 40 (10.23%) Serverless
21 39 (9.97%) Coaching
21 39 (9.97%) DevOps
22 36 (9.21%) Microservices
22 36 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
23 32 (8.18%) QA
23 32 (8.18%) SQL Server
24 29 (7.42%) Amazon S3
25 28 (7.16%) AWS Lambda
25 28 (7.16%) Investment Management

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 (0.51%) Appian
1 2 (0.51%) Confluence
1 2 (0.51%) WordPress
2 1 (0.26%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.51%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.26%) Magento
3 1 (0.26%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 113 (28.90%) AWS
2 89 (22.76%) Azure
3 46 (11.76%) SaaS
4 40 (10.23%) Serverless
5 29 (7.42%) Amazon S3
6 28 (7.16%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (5.63%) GCP
7 22 (5.63%) Power Platform
8 18 (4.60%) Amazon SQS
9 17 (4.35%) GitHub
10 10 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.30%) PowerApps
12 8 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.79%) Azure Data Factory
14 6 (1.53%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (1.53%) Microsoft 365
14 6 (1.53%) Power Automate
15 5 (1.28%) GitHub Copilot
16 4 (1.02%) Azure Service Bus
16 4 (1.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.51%) Network Security
2 1 (0.26%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.18%) SQL Server
2 22 (5.63%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (3.32%) MongoDB
3 13 (3.32%) NoSQL
4 10 (2.56%) Power BI
5 5 (1.28%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (1.02%) Amazon Redshift
6 4 (1.02%) DB2
6 4 (1.02%) MySQL
7 3 (0.77%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.77%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.77%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.26%) ClickHouse
8 1 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.26%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.26%) Redis
Development Applications
1 12 (3.07%) Git
2 6 (1.53%) Cypress.io
3 5 (1.28%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.02%) Maven
4 4 (1.02%) webpack
5 3 (0.77%) ESLint
5 3 (0.77%) GitLab
5 3 (0.77%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.77%) Vite
6 2 (0.51%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.51%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.51%) JIRA
6 2 (0.51%) Selenium
6 2 (0.51%) Subversion
6 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.26%) JUnit
7 1 (0.26%) Postman
7 1 (0.26%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.26%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.26%) XCUITest
General
1 55 (14.07%) Social Skills
2 45 (11.51%) Finance
3 34 (8.70%) Front Office
4 28 (7.16%) Tech for Good
5 19 (4.86%) Health Technology
6 15 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.84%) Publishing
7 14 (3.58%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.81%) Public Sector
9 9 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.53%) Banking
11 4 (1.02%) Games
11 4 (1.02%) Local Government
11 4 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.02%) Retail
12 3 (0.77%) Marketing
13 2 (0.51%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.51%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.51%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (20.46%) React
2 69 (17.65%) .NET
3 51 (13.04%) Node.js
4 28 (7.16%) Redux
5 26 (6.65%) RESTful
6 24 (6.14%) .NET Core
7 23 (5.88%) HTML
7 23 (5.88%) Vue
8 22 (5.63%) GraphQL
9 21 (5.37%) AngularJS
9 21 (5.37%) Kafka
10 20 (5.12%) CSS
11 19 (4.86%) Flask
12 16 (4.09%) Laravel
13 15 (3.84%) FastAPI
13 15 (3.84%) REST
14 14 (3.58%) Spring
14 14 (3.58%) Spring Boot
15 13 (3.32%) .NET Framework
15 13 (3.32%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.16%) Fixed Income
2 20 (5.12%) Product Ownership
3 19 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
4 18 (4.60%) Cloud Native
5 15 (3.84%) Derivative
6 12 (3.07%) Equities
7 11 (2.81%) Mobile App
8 8 (2.05%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.79%) Credit Risk
9 7 (1.79%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.53%) AI Agents
10 6 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.53%) PropTech
11 5 (1.28%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.02%) Low-Code
12 4 (1.02%) PKI
13 3 (0.77%) AS400
13 3 (0.77%) Clustering
13 3 (0.77%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 20 (5.12%) Apple iOS
2 14 (3.58%) Android
3 3 (0.77%) Linux
4 1 (0.26%) Unix
4 1 (0.26%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (26.34%) Full-Stack Development
2 101 (25.83%) Agile
3 93 (23.79%) Mentoring
4 78 (19.95%) Technical Leadership
5 76 (19.44%) Software Engineering
6 60 (15.35%) CI/CD
7 55 (14.07%) AI
8 45 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
9 39 (9.97%) Coaching
9 39 (9.97%) DevOps
10 36 (9.21%) Microservices
10 36 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
11 28 (7.16%) Investment Management
12 27 (6.91%) Code Quality
12 27 (6.91%) Portfolio Management
13 25 (6.39%) Line Management
13 25 (6.39%) TDD
14 24 (6.14%) Design Patterns
14 24 (6.14%) Scrum
15 21 (5.37%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 100 (25.58%) Python
2 68 (17.39%) JavaScript
3 58 (14.83%) C#
4 56 (14.32%) TypeScript
5 49 (12.53%) Java
6 45 (11.51%) SQL
7 16 (4.09%) Go
7 16 (4.09%) PHP
8 7 (1.79%) C++
9 5 (1.28%) Swift
10 4 (1.02%) Kotlin
10 4 (1.02%) RPG
11 3 (0.77%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.77%) C
11 3 (0.77%) COBOL
12 2 (0.51%) Bash
12 2 (0.51%) Groovy
13 1 (0.26%) R
13 1 (0.26%) Scala
13 1 (0.26%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 14 (3.58%) Degree
2 5 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (0.77%) DBS Check
3 3 (0.77%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.51%) PhD
5 1 (0.26%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.26%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.26%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.26%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (8.18%) QA
2 10 (2.56%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.51%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.51%) GAAP
3 2 (0.51%) IFRS
3 2 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 25 (6.39%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (3.84%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.30%) Terraform
3 3 (0.77%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.51%) Ansible
5 1 (0.26%) Grafana
5 1 (0.26%) Kibana
5 1 (0.26%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 25 (6.39%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.05%) OpenAI
3 7 (1.79%) Salesforce
4 3 (0.77%) Apple
5 2 (0.51%) Databricks
5 2 (0.51%) Foundry
5 2 (0.51%) NEC
5 2 (0.51%) Northgate
5 2 (0.51%) Workday
6 1 (0.26%) Adobe
6 1 (0.26%) Google
6 1 (0.26%) IBM
6 1 (0.26%) Revolut
6 1 (0.26%) SAP