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 23 March 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 345 248
Rank change year-on-year +57 -97 +63
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 434 293 886
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.64% 0.77% 1.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.85% 1.23%
Number of salaries quoted 366 233 808
10th Percentile £56,250 £47,000 £53,346
25th Percentile £69,250 £56,250 £60,000
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 £95,000
90th Percentile £142,500 £100,000 £115,000
UK median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -6.67% -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 62,487 34,309 72,190
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 90.23% 94.41%
Number of salaries quoted 40,738 21,159 56,617
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.69%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
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 23 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 23 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 +32 167 £95,000 +18.75% 31
North of England -16 88 £73,750 +13.46% 25
North West +1 67 £70,000 +7.69% 19
South East +1 58 £88,750 +26.79% 18
South West +1 52 £65,000 +10.64% 7
Midlands -18 46 £75,000 +20.00% 11
West Midlands +15 29 £71,000 +51.06% 9
East of England +6 18 £65,000 -16.13%
East Midlands -30 17 £75,000 +11.11% 2
Yorkshire -37 14 £80,000 +6.67% 2
North East -21 7 £83,750 +28.85% 5
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 124 (28.57%) Full-Stack Development
2 117 (26.96%) AWS
3 112 (25.81%) Python
4 105 (24.19%) Agile
5 100 (23.04%) Software Engineering
6 94 (21.66%) Mentoring
7 89 (20.51%) React
8 86 (19.82%) Azure
9 84 (19.35%) JavaScript
10 75 (17.28%) Technical Leadership
11 74 (17.05%) .NET
12 68 (15.67%) TypeScript
13 64 (14.75%) Node.js
14 61 (14.06%) C#
15 56 (12.90%) AI
16 55 (12.67%) CI/CD
17 53 (12.21%) Java
17 53 (12.21%) SaaS
18 48 (11.06%) Continuous Improvement
19 44 (10.14%) SQL
20 40 (9.22%) Serverless
21 38 (8.76%) Coaching
22 37 (8.53%) Portfolio Management
22 37 (8.53%) Redux
23 36 (8.29%) DevOps
23 36 (8.29%) Investment Management
24 34 (7.83%) Microservices
24 34 (7.83%) Problem-Solving
25 31 (7.14%) GraphQL
25 31 (7.14%) RESTful

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 (1.15%) Appian
2 2 (0.46%) Confluence
2 2 (0.46%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.46%) WordPress
3 1 (0.23%) CMS
Business Applications
1 7 (1.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.46%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.23%) Magento
3 1 (0.23%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 117 (26.96%) AWS
2 86 (19.82%) Azure
3 53 (12.21%) SaaS
4 40 (9.22%) Serverless
5 29 (6.68%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (6.45%) Amazon S3
7 26 (5.99%) GCP
8 18 (4.15%) Amazon SQS
9 16 (3.69%) GitHub
9 16 (3.69%) Power Platform
10 9 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (2.07%) Azure Logic Apps
10 9 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 6 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (1.38%) Power Automate
11 6 (1.38%) PowerApps
12 5 (1.15%) GitHub Copilot
13 4 (0.92%) Microsoft 365
14 3 (0.69%) Amazon Cognito
14 3 (0.69%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.46%) Network Security
2 1 (0.23%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.45%) SQL Server
2 26 (5.99%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.30%) NoSQL
4 9 (2.07%) MongoDB
4 9 (2.07%) Power BI
5 5 (1.15%) MySQL
6 4 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
6 4 (0.92%) DB2
6 4 (0.92%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.69%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.46%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.23%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.23%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 16 (3.69%) Git
2 6 (1.38%) Cypress.io
3 4 (0.92%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.92%) Maven
3 4 (0.92%) webpack
4 3 (0.69%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.69%) ESLint
4 3 (0.69%) GitLab
4 3 (0.69%) JIRA
4 3 (0.69%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.69%) Vite
5 2 (0.46%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.46%) Selenium
5 2 (0.46%) Subversion
5 2 (0.46%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.23%) JUnit
6 1 (0.23%) NUnit
6 1 (0.23%) Postman
6 1 (0.23%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.23%) TeamCity
General
1 60 (13.82%) Finance
2 53 (12.21%) Social Skills
3 43 (9.91%) Front Office
4 28 (6.45%) Tech for Good
5 19 (4.38%) Health Technology
6 15 (3.46%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.46%) Publishing
7 14 (3.23%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.30%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.38%) Banking
10 6 (1.38%) Games
11 4 (0.92%) Local Government
11 4 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.69%) Marketing
12 3 (0.69%) Retail
13 2 (0.46%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.46%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.46%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (20.51%) React
2 74 (17.05%) .NET
3 64 (14.75%) Node.js
4 37 (8.53%) Redux
5 31 (7.14%) GraphQL
5 31 (7.14%) RESTful
6 26 (5.99%) HTML
7 25 (5.76%) .NET Core
8 24 (5.53%) AngularJS
8 24 (5.53%) Vue
9 23 (5.30%) CSS
9 23 (5.30%) Kafka
10 18 (4.15%) React Native
11 17 (3.92%) Flask
11 17 (3.92%) Laravel
12 15 (3.46%) ASP.NET
12 15 (3.46%) Spring
13 14 (3.23%) REST
14 13 (3.00%) FastAPI
14 13 (3.00%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 37 (8.53%) Fixed Income
2 20 (4.61%) Product Ownership
3 19 (4.38%) Derivative
4 16 (3.69%) Cloud Native
4 16 (3.69%) Equities
5 15 (3.46%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (3.00%) Mobile App
7 11 (2.53%) PropTech
8 8 (1.84%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.61%) Credit Risk
9 7 (1.61%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.15%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.15%) Low-Code
12 4 (0.92%) AI Agents
12 4 (0.92%) Legacy Applications
12 4 (0.92%) PKI
13 3 (0.69%) AS400
13 3 (0.69%) iSeries
13 3 (0.69%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 25 (5.76%) Apple iOS
2 18 (4.15%) Android
3 3 (0.69%) Linux
4 1 (0.23%) Unix
4 1 (0.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (28.57%) Full-Stack Development
2 105 (24.19%) Agile
3 100 (23.04%) Software Engineering
4 94 (21.66%) Mentoring
5 75 (17.28%) Technical Leadership
6 56 (12.90%) AI
7 55 (12.67%) CI/CD
8 48 (11.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 38 (8.76%) Coaching
10 37 (8.53%) Portfolio Management
11 36 (8.29%) DevOps
11 36 (8.29%) Investment Management
12 34 (7.83%) Microservices
12 34 (7.83%) Problem-Solving
13 28 (6.45%) Line Management
14 25 (5.76%) Code Quality
15 24 (5.53%) Design Patterns
15 24 (5.53%) Fintech
16 23 (5.30%) Scrum
17 21 (4.84%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 112 (25.81%) Python
2 84 (19.35%) JavaScript
3 68 (15.67%) TypeScript
4 61 (14.06%) C#
5 53 (12.21%) Java
6 44 (10.14%) SQL
7 21 (4.84%) Go
8 14 (3.23%) PHP
9 7 (1.61%) C++
9 7 (1.61%) Swift
10 5 (1.15%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.92%) RPG
12 3 (0.69%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.69%) Bicep
12 3 (0.69%) C
12 3 (0.69%) COBOL
13 2 (0.46%) Bash
13 2 (0.46%) Groovy
14 1 (0.23%) R
14 1 (0.23%) Scala
Qualifications
1 14 (3.23%) Degree
2 5 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (0.92%) DBS Check
4 2 (0.46%) PhD
4 2 (0.46%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.23%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.23%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.23%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.22%) QA
2 9 (2.07%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.46%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.46%) GAAP
3 2 (0.46%) IFRS
3 2 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 24 (5.53%) Docker
2 1 (0.23%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (2.53%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.07%) Terraform
3 3 (0.69%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.46%) Ansible
5 1 (0.23%) Grafana
5 1 (0.23%) Kibana
5 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (5.53%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.61%) OpenAI
2 7 (1.61%) Salesforce
3 4 (0.92%) Apple
4 2 (0.46%) Databricks
4 2 (0.46%) Foundry
4 2 (0.46%) NEC
4 2 (0.46%) Northgate
4 2 (0.46%) Workday
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe
5 1 (0.23%) DevExpress
5 1 (0.23%) Google
5 1 (0.23%) IBM
5 1 (0.23%) Revolut
5 1 (0.23%) SAP