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 5 December 2025.

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

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 345 284 279
Rank change year-on-year -61 -5 +33
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 287 550 500
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.59% 0.97% 1.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 1.03% 1.18%
Number of salaries quoted 224 433 430
10th Percentile £58,820 - £57,750
25th Percentile £68,250 £47,000 £65,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £67,500 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.81% -15.63% -
75th Percentile £94,063 £92,500 £100,000
90th Percentile £122,500 £142,500 £122,500
UK median annual salary £77,500 £67,500 £80,000
% change year-on-year +14.81% -15.63% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 43,785 53,252 42,527
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.38% 93.91% 95.10%
Number of salaries quoted 28,019 29,611 33,199
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,703 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,250 £100,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,836 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.90% -3.61% -

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -22 118 £95,000 - 28
North of England -4 69 £70,000 +12.90% 26
Midlands +10 34 £75,000 +57.89% 12
North West +2 34 £70,000 +7.69% 12
West Midlands +9 33 £75,000 +59.57% 10
South East +13 32 £90,000 +35.85% 26
Yorkshire -1 29 £70,000 +48.94% 8
South West -10 19 £70,000 +48.94% 10
East of England +10 8 £71,250 -6.56% 7
North East +3 6 £68,500 +5.38% 6
East Midlands -4 1 - - 2
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 December 2025, 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.

1 108 (37.63%) AWS
2 103 (35.89%) Azure
3 98 (34.15%) Agile
4 85 (29.62%) Python
5 78 (27.18%) Mentoring
6 67 (23.34%) CI/CD
7 63 (21.95%) C#
8 62 (21.60%) Technical Leadership
9 61 (21.25%) React
10 58 (20.21%) Full-Stack Development
11 56 (19.51%) .NET
12 53 (18.47%) Software Engineering
13 51 (17.77%) Java
14 47 (16.38%) JavaScript
14 47 (16.38%) Microservices
15 46 (16.03%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (15.68%) Problem-Solving
17 43 (14.98%) AI
18 41 (14.29%) SQL
19 40 (13.94%) Docker
20 39 (13.59%) DevOps
21 38 (13.24%) TypeScript
22 37 (12.89%) Containerisation
23 36 (12.54%) QA
24 34 (11.85%) Roadmaps
25 32 (11.15%) Node.js
25 32 (11.15%) Serverless
26 31 (10.80%) SaaS
27 30 (10.45%) Power Platform
28 29 (10.10%) 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 3 (1.05%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.70%) WordPress
3 1 (0.35%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.35%) Apache
3 1 (0.35%) Appian
3 1 (0.35%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 14 (4.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.70%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.35%) Endur
3 1 (0.35%) Magento
3 1 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.35%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 108 (37.63%) AWS
2 103 (35.89%) Azure
3 32 (11.15%) Serverless
4 31 (10.80%) SaaS
5 30 (10.45%) Power Platform
6 21 (7.32%) GCP
7 20 (6.97%) GitHub
8 19 (6.62%) Amazon S3
9 18 (6.27%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (5.92%) Amazon SQS
10 17 (5.92%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (5.92%) PowerApps
11 12 (4.18%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (3.48%) Power Automate
13 8 (2.79%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 8 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
14 6 (2.09%) Azure Logic Apps
15 5 (1.74%) Azure Functions
15 5 (1.74%) GitHub Copilot
16 4 (1.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.35%) Broadband
1 1 (0.35%) MQTT
1 1 (0.35%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (10.10%) SQL Server
2 28 (9.76%) MongoDB
3 27 (9.41%) NoSQL
4 25 (8.71%) PostgreSQL
5 15 (5.23%) Power BI
6 11 (3.83%) MySQL
7 7 (2.44%) Relational Database
8 6 (2.09%) Tick Data
9 5 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.74%) DynamoDB
10 4 (1.39%) Azure SQL Database
10 4 (1.39%) Data Lake
10 4 (1.39%) RDBMS
10 4 (1.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (1.05%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 2 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
12 2 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.35%) Big Data
13 1 (0.35%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 1 (0.35%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (4.88%) Git
2 4 (1.39%) Jenkins
2 4 (1.39%) SonarQube
3 3 (1.05%) Maven
3 3 (1.05%) Xcode
4 2 (0.70%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.70%) GitLab
4 2 (0.70%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
5 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.35%) DbUnit
5 1 (0.35%) JIRA
5 1 (0.35%) jMock
5 1 (0.35%) JUnit
5 1 (0.35%) Mockito
5 1 (0.35%) MSTest
5 1 (0.35%) NUnit
5 1 (0.35%) Selenium
5 1 (0.35%) Storybook
5 1 (0.35%) Subversion
General
1 54 (18.82%) Social Skills
2 39 (13.59%) Finance
3 21 (7.32%) Front Office
4 19 (6.62%) Marketing
5 18 (6.27%) Tech for Good
6 17 (5.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (5.23%) Health Technology
8 14 (4.88%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (4.88%) Publishing
9 13 (4.53%) Analytical Skills
9 13 (4.53%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (4.53%) Public Sector
10 12 (4.18%) Retail
11 7 (2.44%) Electronics
12 5 (1.74%) Back Office
12 5 (1.74%) Games
12 5 (1.74%) Law
13 4 (1.39%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.39%) Telecoms
14 3 (1.05%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (21.25%) React
2 56 (19.51%) .NET
3 32 (11.15%) Node.js
4 28 (9.76%) RESTful
5 23 (8.01%) Kafka
6 20 (6.97%) Flask
7 17 (5.92%) AngularJS
7 17 (5.92%) GraphQL
7 17 (5.92%) Redux
7 17 (5.92%) REST
7 17 (5.92%) Vue
8 16 (5.57%) .NET Core
8 16 (5.57%) FastAPI
9 13 (4.53%) .NET Framework
10 12 (4.18%) Blazor
10 12 (4.18%) HTML
10 12 (4.18%) Laravel
11 11 (3.83%) CSS
12 10 (3.48%) Django
13 8 (2.79%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.92%) Fixed Income
3 16 (5.57%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (4.88%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (4.53%) Product Ownership
6 9 (3.14%) Marketing Technology
7 8 (2.79%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (2.44%) Clustering
8 7 (2.44%) Data Structures
9 6 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.74%) Derivative
11 4 (1.39%) AI Agents
11 4 (1.39%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.39%) Credit Risk
11 4 (1.39%) Hedge funds
11 4 (1.39%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.39%) PKI
12 3 (1.05%) Market Risk
12 3 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
13 2 (0.70%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.79%) Apple iOS
2 5 (1.74%) Android
2 5 (1.74%) Linux
3 2 (0.70%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (34.15%) Agile
2 78 (27.18%) Mentoring
3 67 (23.34%) CI/CD
4 62 (21.60%) Technical Leadership
5 58 (20.21%) Full-Stack Development
6 53 (18.47%) Software Engineering
7 47 (16.38%) Microservices
8 46 (16.03%) Continuous Improvement
9 45 (15.68%) Problem-Solving
10 43 (14.98%) AI
11 39 (13.59%) DevOps
12 37 (12.89%) Containerisation
13 34 (11.85%) Roadmaps
14 29 (10.10%) Code Quality
14 29 (10.10%) TDD
15 28 (9.76%) Coaching
16 27 (9.41%) Scrum
17 24 (8.36%) Clean Code
18 23 (8.01%) Test Automation
19 20 (6.97%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 85 (29.62%) Python
2 63 (21.95%) C#
3 51 (17.77%) Java
4 47 (16.38%) JavaScript
5 41 (14.29%) SQL
6 38 (13.24%) TypeScript
7 22 (7.67%) Go
8 14 (4.88%) PHP
9 11 (3.83%) Scala
10 8 (2.79%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.09%) C++
12 4 (1.39%) Swift
13 2 (0.70%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.70%) C
13 2 (0.70%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.70%) Ruby
14 1 (0.35%) Bash
14 1 (0.35%) Groovy
14 1 (0.35%) SOQL
14 1 (0.35%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 11 (3.83%) Degree
1 11 (3.83%) Security Cleared
2 9 (3.14%) SC Cleared
3 4 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (0.70%) AWS Certification
4 2 (0.70%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (0.35%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.35%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.35%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (12.54%) QA
2 5 (1.74%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.35%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.35%) HL7
System Software
1 40 (13.94%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (6.27%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.88%) Terraform
3 2 (0.70%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 28 (9.76%) Microsoft
2 5 (1.74%) Databricks
3 4 (1.39%) Google
3 4 (1.39%) SAP
4 3 (1.05%) OpenAI
4 3 (1.05%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.70%) NEC
5 2 (0.70%) Northgate
6 1 (0.35%) Adobe
6 1 (0.35%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.35%) Blue Prism
6 1 (0.35%) eFront
6 1 (0.35%) Informatica
6 1 (0.35%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.35%) OpenLink
6 1 (0.35%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.35%) Splunk