Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £82,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 383 230
Rank change year-on-year +114 -153 +107
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 598 275 1,108
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.72% 0.70% 1.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% 0.77% 1.24%
Number of salaries quoted 484 192 1,003
10th Percentile £61,625 £53,750 £48,750
25th Percentile £70,000 £63,438 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £82,000 £72,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.10% +3.57% -9.68%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £91,250
90th Percentile £110,000 £100,000 £117,500
UK median annual salary £80,750 £72,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +11.38% +3.57% -9.68%

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 78,099 35,564 89,585
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.06% 89.90% 94.60%
Number of salaries quoted 54,949 20,661 66,315
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,926 £38,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,239 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -0.45% +9.52% -13.22%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £90,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 +52 225 £95,000 +13.43% 20
North of England +58 139 £72,500 - 16
North West +70 101 £72,500 - 12
South East +31 84 £87,500 +22.81% 15
Midlands +38 78 £70,000 +3.70% 17
South West -39 42 £65,000 +8.33% 5
East Midlands +8 41 £70,000 +5.66% 7
West Midlands -1 37 £65,000 -7.14% 10
Yorkshire -22 26 £70,000 - 2
East of England 0 24 £60,100 -19.87% 6
North East -33 12 £75,000 -6.25% 2
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 June 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.

1 186 (31.10%) Full-Stack Development
2 127 (21.24%) AWS
3 126 (21.07%) Mentoring
4 123 (20.57%) Software Engineering
5 122 (20.40%) JavaScript
6 121 (20.23%) .NET
7 117 (19.57%) TypeScript
8 113 (18.90%) C#
9 111 (18.56%) Azure
10 108 (18.06%) Agile
10 108 (18.06%) React
10 108 (18.06%) Technical Leadership
11 103 (17.22%) Python
12 92 (15.38%) Node.js
13 76 (12.71%) AI
14 74 (12.37%) CI/CD
15 73 (12.21%) SaaS
16 71 (11.87%) DevOps
17 68 (11.37%) Java
18 64 (10.70%) SQL
19 59 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
20 54 (9.03%) Microservices
21 51 (8.53%) Microsoft
22 49 (8.19%) RESTful
23 46 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
24 45 (7.53%) GraphQL
25 40 (6.69%) PostgreSQL
26 39 (6.52%) Portfolio Management
26 39 (6.52%) Redux
27 38 (6.35%) 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 9 (1.51%) Anypoint
1 9 (1.51%) Mule
2 7 (1.17%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.00%) Appian
4 5 (0.84%) Confluence
5 1 (0.17%) CMS
5 1 (0.17%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 8 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.17%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 127 (21.24%) AWS
2 111 (18.56%) Azure
3 73 (12.21%) SaaS
4 30 (5.02%) Power Platform
5 28 (4.68%) Dynamics 365
6 26 (4.35%) GCP
6 26 (4.35%) Serverless
7 19 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
7 19 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
8 17 (2.84%) Azure Logic Apps
9 11 (1.84%) Amazon S3
9 11 (1.84%) GitHub
10 9 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (1.51%) Amazon EventBridge
10 9 (1.51%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (1.51%) PowerApps
11 8 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.34%) Microsoft 365
11 8 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
11 8 (1.34%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.67%) Broadband
1 4 (0.67%) SSL
2 1 (0.17%) Asterisk PBX
2 1 (0.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.69%) PostgreSQL
2 35 (5.85%) SQL Server
3 11 (1.84%) MongoDB
4 10 (1.67%) DynamoDB
4 10 (1.67%) Redis
5 8 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (1.34%) MySQL
6 7 (1.17%) Power BI
7 5 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (0.67%) Db2
8 4 (0.67%) Metadata
9 3 (0.50%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.50%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.50%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.33%) InterSystems Cache
11 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
11 1 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 21 (3.51%) Git
2 6 (1.00%) JIRA
3 5 (0.84%) Bitbucket
3 5 (0.84%) Cypress.io
3 5 (0.84%) Maven
4 4 (0.67%) JUnit
5 3 (0.50%) GitLab
5 3 (0.50%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.50%) Mockito
5 3 (0.50%) NUnit
5 3 (0.50%) Vite
5 3 (0.50%) webpack
6 2 (0.33%) ESLint
6 2 (0.33%) XCUITest
7 1 (0.17%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.17%) fastlane
7 1 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.17%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 107 (17.89%) Finance
2 52 (8.70%) Social Skills
3 41 (6.86%) Front Office
4 17 (2.84%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (2.84%) Banking
5 12 (2.01%) Games
6 11 (1.84%) Public Sector
7 10 (1.67%) Law
8 9 (1.51%) Tech for Good
9 5 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (0.84%) Local Government
9 5 (0.84%) Retail
10 4 (0.67%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.50%) Legal
11 3 (0.50%) Legal Technology
12 2 (0.33%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.33%) Marketing
12 2 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.17%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (20.23%) .NET
2 108 (18.06%) React
3 92 (15.38%) Node.js
4 49 (8.19%) RESTful
5 45 (7.53%) GraphQL
6 39 (6.52%) Redux
7 30 (5.02%) .NET Core
7 30 (5.02%) Kafka
8 29 (4.85%) Spring
9 28 (4.68%) ASP.NET
9 28 (4.68%) Vue
10 27 (4.52%) React Native
11 24 (4.01%) AngularJS
12 23 (3.85%) CSS
13 22 (3.68%) HTML
14 18 (3.01%) REST
15 15 (2.51%) .NET Framework
15 15 (2.51%) Hugging Face
16 14 (2.34%) Next.js
16 14 (2.34%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 36 (6.02%) Fixed Income
2 35 (5.85%) Cloud Native
3 25 (4.18%) Product Ownership
4 20 (3.34%) Mobile App
5 19 (3.18%) Distributed Systems
6 17 (2.84%) Derivative
7 16 (2.68%) Equities
8 14 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (2.17%) PropTech
10 10 (1.67%) Low-Code
11 9 (1.51%) Legacy Applications
11 9 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.67%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.67%) AS400
12 4 (0.67%) Credit Risk
12 4 (0.67%) Video\Live Streaming
13 3 (0.50%) iSeries
13 3 (0.50%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.50%) Photography
13 3 (0.50%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 35 (5.85%) Apple iOS
2 31 (5.18%) Android
3 4 (0.67%) Linux
4 3 (0.50%) Windows
5 1 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (31.10%) Full-Stack Development
2 126 (21.07%) Mentoring
3 123 (20.57%) Software Engineering
4 108 (18.06%) Agile
4 108 (18.06%) Technical Leadership
5 76 (12.71%) AI
6 74 (12.37%) CI/CD
7 71 (11.87%) DevOps
8 59 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
9 54 (9.03%) Microservices
10 46 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
11 39 (6.52%) Portfolio Management
12 38 (6.35%) Investment Management
13 35 (5.85%) Roadmaps
14 34 (5.69%) Coaching
15 32 (5.35%) Fintech
16 31 (5.18%) Machine Learning
17 30 (5.02%) Infrastructure as Code
18 29 (4.85%) Event-Driven
19 28 (4.68%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 122 (20.40%) JavaScript
2 117 (19.57%) TypeScript
3 113 (18.90%) C#
4 103 (17.22%) Python
5 68 (11.37%) Java
6 64 (10.70%) SQL
7 26 (4.35%) Go
8 12 (2.01%) C++
8 12 (2.01%) PHP
8 12 (2.01%) Swift
9 10 (1.67%) Kotlin
10 9 (1.51%) RPG
11 7 (1.17%) Bicep
12 5 (0.84%) Bash
13 4 (0.67%) C
13 4 (0.67%) DataWeave
13 4 (0.67%) PowerShell
13 4 (0.67%) Ruby
14 3 (0.50%) COBOL
14 3 (0.50%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 23 (3.85%) Degree
2 15 (2.51%) SC Cleared
2 15 (2.51%) Security Cleared
3 12 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.51%) DBS Check
5 4 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.18%) QA
2 12 (2.01%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.17%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.33%) GAAP
4 2 (0.33%) IFRS
4 2 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.17%) GDPR
5 1 (0.17%) NCSC
5 1 (0.17%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (4.68%) Docker
2 3 (0.50%) Firmware
3 1 (0.17%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 23 (3.85%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.51%) Terraform
3 4 (0.67%) Ansible
3 4 (0.67%) CloudHub
4 1 (0.17%) Grafana
4 1 (0.17%) HP Fortify
4 1 (0.17%) Kibana
4 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 51 (8.53%) Microsoft
2 11 (1.84%) Salesforce
3 9 (1.51%) MuleSoft
4 7 (1.17%) HubSpot
5 6 (1.00%) IBM
5 6 (1.00%) OpenAI
5 6 (1.00%) Oracle
6 5 (0.84%) Apple
7 4 (0.67%) SAP
7 4 (0.67%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.50%) Bloomberg
8 3 (0.50%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.33%) Foundry
9 2 (0.33%) Google
9 2 (0.33%) Refinitiv
9 2 (0.33%) TikTok
9 2 (0.33%) Workday
10 1 (0.17%) Citrix
10 1 (0.17%) Reuters
10 1 (0.17%) Revolut