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 8 February 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 306 357 261
Rank change year-on-year +51 -96 +27
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 356 349 724
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.62% 0.76% 1.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.68% 0.83% 1.16%
Number of salaries quoted 289 248 646
10th Percentile £56,000 £46,250 £53,750
25th Percentile £70,000 £47,000 £62,028
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £76,500 £67,500 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -15.63% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £80,625 £100,000
90th Percentile £110,250 £99,125 £122,500
UK median annual salary £77,500 £67,500 £77,500
% change year-on-year +14.81% -12.90% -3.13%

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 52,463 41,887 62,653
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.12% 91.66% 94.83%
Number of salaries quoted 33,551 21,942 50,063
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.31%
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 8 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 8 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 +53 132 £92,500 +21.71% 38
North of England -12 73 £73,750 +34.09% 15
South East +19 54 £80,000 +12.68% 27
North West +12 51 £70,000 +27.27% 14
Midlands +19 42 £75,000 +59.57% 5
South West +8 37 £65,000 +38.30% 11
West Midlands +14 28 £75,000 +59.57% 2
Yorkshire -22 20 £77,500 +64.89% 1
East Midlands -6 14 £75,000 +11.11% 3
East of England +19 13 £65,000 -25.71% 3
North East -8 2 £68,500 +14.41%
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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 98 (27.53%) AWS
2 88 (24.72%) Python
3 87 (24.44%) Azure
4 86 (24.16%) Full-Stack Development
5 83 (23.31%) Agile
6 80 (22.47%) Mentoring
7 71 (19.94%) Technical Leadership
8 68 (19.10%) .NET
9 65 (18.26%) React
10 64 (17.98%) C#
11 58 (16.29%) CI/CD
12 54 (15.17%) AI
13 53 (14.89%) Software Engineering
14 45 (12.64%) SaaS
14 45 (12.64%) SQL
15 43 (12.08%) JavaScript
16 42 (11.80%) Continuous Improvement
17 41 (11.52%) Java
18 39 (10.96%) Serverless
19 36 (10.11%) Microservices
20 35 (9.83%) Coaching
20 35 (9.83%) Problem-Solving
21 33 (9.27%) QA
22 32 (8.99%) SQL Server
23 31 (8.71%) DevOps
24 30 (8.43%) Node.js
24 30 (8.43%) TypeScript
25 29 (8.15%) Amazon S3
26 28 (7.87%) AWS Lambda
27 27 (7.58%) Docker

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 (0.56%) WordPress
2 1 (0.28%) Confluence
2 1 (0.28%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.56%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.28%) Magento
3 1 (0.28%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 98 (27.53%) AWS
2 87 (24.44%) Azure
3 45 (12.64%) SaaS
4 39 (10.96%) Serverless
5 29 (8.15%) Amazon S3
6 28 (7.87%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (6.46%) Power Platform
8 18 (5.06%) Amazon SQS
8 18 (5.06%) GitHub
9 16 (4.49%) GCP
10 10 (2.81%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (2.53%) PowerApps
12 8 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
12 8 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (1.69%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (1.69%) Microsoft 365
13 6 (1.69%) Power Automate
14 5 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
15 4 (1.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 4 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.56%) Network Security
2 1 (0.28%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.99%) SQL Server
2 16 (4.49%) NoSQL
2 16 (4.49%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (3.37%) MongoDB
4 11 (3.09%) Power BI
5 8 (2.25%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.12%) DB2
7 4 (1.12%) MySQL
7 4 (1.12%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.84%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.84%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.28%) ClickHouse
9 1 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 8 (2.25%) Git
2 5 (1.40%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.84%) Cypress.io
3 3 (0.84%) ESLint
3 3 (0.84%) GitLab
3 3 (0.84%) Maven
3 3 (0.84%) SonarQube
3 3 (0.84%) Xcode
4 2 (0.56%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.56%) Selenium
4 2 (0.56%) Subversion
4 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.28%) JIRA
5 1 (0.28%) JUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Postman
5 1 (0.28%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.28%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.28%) webpack
5 1 (0.28%) XCUITest
General
1 56 (15.73%) Social Skills
2 27 (7.58%) Finance
2 27 (7.58%) Tech for Good
3 19 (5.34%) Health Technology
4 17 (4.78%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (4.78%) Front Office
5 15 (4.21%) Organisational Skills
5 15 (4.21%) Publishing
6 14 (3.93%) Influencing Skills
6 14 (3.93%) Public Sector
7 10 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.25%) Marketing
9 7 (1.97%) Electronics
10 5 (1.40%) Retail
11 4 (1.12%) Banking
11 4 (1.12%) Games
11 4 (1.12%) Local Government
11 4 (1.12%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.12%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (19.10%) .NET
2 65 (18.26%) React
3 30 (8.43%) Node.js
4 24 (6.74%) .NET Core
4 24 (6.74%) RESTful
5 23 (6.46%) Flask
6 20 (5.62%) HTML
7 19 (5.34%) FastAPI
8 18 (5.06%) Vue
9 17 (4.78%) CSS
9 17 (4.78%) REST
10 15 (4.21%) AngularJS
10 15 (4.21%) Laravel
11 14 (3.93%) .NET Framework
11 14 (3.93%) ASP.NET
11 14 (3.93%) Spring Boot
12 13 (3.65%) Django
13 12 (3.37%) Spring
14 11 (3.09%) Kafka
15 10 (2.81%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.90%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (5.06%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.21%) Cloud Native
4 11 (3.09%) Fixed Income
5 9 (2.53%) Greenfield Project
5 9 (2.53%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.25%) Credit Risk
6 8 (2.25%) Derivative
7 7 (1.97%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.69%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.40%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.40%) PropTech
10 4 (1.12%) Equities
10 4 (1.12%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.12%) PKI
11 3 (0.84%) AS400
11 3 (0.84%) Clustering
11 3 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.84%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 16 (4.49%) Apple iOS
2 9 (2.53%) Android
3 3 (0.84%) Linux
4 1 (0.28%) Unix
4 1 (0.28%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (24.16%) Full-Stack Development
2 83 (23.31%) Agile
3 80 (22.47%) Mentoring
4 71 (19.94%) Technical Leadership
5 58 (16.29%) CI/CD
6 54 (15.17%) AI
7 53 (14.89%) Software Engineering
8 42 (11.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 36 (10.11%) Microservices
10 35 (9.83%) Coaching
10 35 (9.83%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (8.71%) DevOps
12 26 (7.30%) Code Quality
13 24 (6.74%) Design Patterns
13 24 (6.74%) Scrum
13 24 (6.74%) TDD
14 23 (6.46%) Roadmaps
15 22 (6.18%) Containerisation
16 19 (5.34%) User Stories
17 18 (5.06%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 88 (24.72%) Python
2 64 (17.98%) C#
3 45 (12.64%) SQL
4 43 (12.08%) JavaScript
5 41 (11.52%) Java
6 30 (8.43%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.49%) PHP
8 10 (2.81%) Go
9 7 (1.97%) C++
10 6 (1.69%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.40%) Scala
12 4 (1.12%) RPG
12 4 (1.12%) Swift
13 3 (0.84%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.84%) C
13 3 (0.84%) COBOL
14 2 (0.56%) Bash
14 2 (0.56%) Groovy
15 1 (0.28%) R
15 1 (0.28%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 13 (3.65%) Degree
2 6 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (0.84%) Security Cleared
4 2 (0.56%) PhD
5 1 (0.28%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.28%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.28%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.28%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.28%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.27%) QA
2 5 (1.40%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.56%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.56%) GAAP
3 2 (0.56%) IFRS
3 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 27 (7.58%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (4.49%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.37%) Terraform
3 3 (0.84%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.56%) Ansible
Vendors
1 24 (6.74%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.25%) OpenAI
3 5 (1.40%) Salesforce
4 4 (1.12%) Google
4 4 (1.12%) SAP
5 3 (0.84%) Databricks
6 2 (0.56%) Foundry
6 2 (0.56%) NEC
6 2 (0.56%) Northgate
6 2 (0.56%) Workday
7 1 (0.28%) Adobe
7 1 (0.28%) Apple
7 1 (0.28%) IBM
7 1 (0.28%) Informatica
7 1 (0.28%) Revolut