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 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 351 247
Rank change year-on-year +64 -104 +56
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 444 285 900
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.64% 0.78% 1.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.87% 1.23%
Number of salaries quoted 377 227 822
10th Percentile £56,250 £47,000 £53,346
25th Percentile £70,000 £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 63,758 32,852 73,138
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 89.98% 94.39%
Number of salaries quoted 41,794 21,037 57,181
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,500 £38,734
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.19%
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 28 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 28 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 +35 171 £95,000 +18.75% 32
North of England -22 93 £75,000 +15.38% 25
North West -2 71 £70,000 +7.69% 18
South East -3 59 £90,000 +28.57% 15
South West -14 52 £65,000 +8.33% 8
Midlands -4 48 £75,000 +17.65% 8
West Midlands +6 31 £71,000 +51.06% 6
East of England -18 18 £65,000 -18.75%
East Midlands -35 17 £75,000 +11.11% 2
Yorkshire -49 14 £80,000 - 2
North East -20 8 £67,500 +20.00% 6
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 128 (28.83%) Full-Stack Development
2 114 (25.68%) AWS
3 111 (25.00%) Python
4 105 (23.65%) Agile
5 99 (22.30%) Software Engineering
6 93 (20.95%) Mentoring
7 91 (20.50%) React
8 87 (19.59%) Azure
9 85 (19.14%) JavaScript
10 77 (17.34%) .NET
11 73 (16.44%) Technical Leadership
12 71 (15.99%) TypeScript
13 66 (14.86%) Node.js
14 65 (14.64%) C#
15 57 (12.84%) AI
16 56 (12.61%) SaaS
17 54 (12.16%) CI/CD
18 52 (11.71%) Java
19 45 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
20 41 (9.23%) SQL
21 39 (8.78%) Serverless
22 38 (8.56%) Coaching
22 38 (8.56%) Portfolio Management
23 37 (8.33%) Redux
24 36 (8.11%) Investment Management
25 34 (7.66%) DevOps
26 33 (7.43%) Microservices
27 32 (7.21%) Problem-Solving
28 31 (6.98%) GraphQL
28 31 (6.98%) 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 (1.13%) Appian
2 3 (0.68%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.45%) Confluence
3 2 (0.45%) WordPress
4 1 (0.23%) CMS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.80%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.45%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.23%) Magento
3 1 (0.23%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 114 (25.68%) AWS
2 87 (19.59%) Azure
3 56 (12.61%) SaaS
4 39 (8.78%) Serverless
5 30 (6.76%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (6.31%) Amazon S3
7 26 (5.86%) GCP
8 19 (4.28%) Amazon SQS
9 15 (3.38%) Power Platform
10 14 (3.15%) GitHub
11 11 (2.48%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (1.35%) Power Automate
14 6 (1.35%) PowerApps
15 5 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
15 5 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
16 4 (0.90%) Amazon ECS
16 4 (0.90%) Amazon EventBridge
16 4 (0.90%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.45%) Network Security
2 1 (0.23%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (5.86%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (5.63%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.80%) MongoDB
3 8 (1.80%) NoSQL
3 8 (1.80%) Power BI
4 5 (1.13%) MySQL
5 4 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
5 4 (0.90%) DB2
5 4 (0.90%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.90%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.23%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.23%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.23%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (3.60%) Git
2 6 (1.35%) Cypress.io
3 4 (0.90%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.90%) Maven
3 4 (0.90%) webpack
4 3 (0.68%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.68%) ESLint
4 3 (0.68%) GitLab
4 3 (0.68%) JIRA
4 3 (0.68%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.68%) Vite
5 2 (0.45%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.45%) Selenium
5 2 (0.45%) Subversion
5 2 (0.45%) 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 61 (13.74%) Finance
2 50 (11.26%) Social Skills
3 43 (9.68%) Front Office
4 28 (6.31%) Tech for Good
5 19 (4.28%) Health Technology
6 15 (3.38%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.38%) Publishing
7 14 (3.15%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.03%) Public Sector
9 8 (1.80%) Games
10 7 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.35%) Banking
12 4 (0.90%) Local Government
12 4 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.68%) Law
13 3 (0.68%) Marketing
13 3 (0.68%) Retail
14 2 (0.45%) Aerospace
14 2 (0.45%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (20.50%) React
2 77 (17.34%) .NET
3 66 (14.86%) Node.js
4 37 (8.33%) Redux
5 31 (6.98%) GraphQL
5 31 (6.98%) RESTful
6 25 (5.63%) .NET Core
6 25 (5.63%) HTML
6 25 (5.63%) Vue
7 24 (5.41%) AngularJS
7 24 (5.41%) Kafka
8 22 (4.95%) CSS
9 19 (4.28%) React Native
10 17 (3.83%) Laravel
11 15 (3.38%) ASP.NET
11 15 (3.38%) Flask
12 14 (3.15%) REST
12 14 (3.15%) Spring
13 13 (2.93%) .NET Framework
13 13 (2.93%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 37 (8.33%) Fixed Income
2 20 (4.50%) Product Ownership
3 19 (4.28%) Derivative
4 17 (3.83%) Cloud Native
5 16 (3.60%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (3.60%) Equities
6 14 (3.15%) Mobile App
7 11 (2.48%) PropTech
8 8 (1.80%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.58%) Credit Risk
10 6 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.13%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.13%) Data Structures
11 5 (1.13%) Low-Code
12 4 (0.90%) AI Agents
12 4 (0.90%) Legacy Applications
13 3 (0.68%) AS400
13 3 (0.68%) iSeries
13 3 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
14 2 (0.45%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 27 (6.08%) Apple iOS
2 20 (4.50%) Android
3 3 (0.68%) Linux
4 1 (0.23%) Unix
4 1 (0.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (28.83%) Full-Stack Development
2 105 (23.65%) Agile
3 99 (22.30%) Software Engineering
4 93 (20.95%) Mentoring
5 73 (16.44%) Technical Leadership
6 57 (12.84%) AI
7 54 (12.16%) CI/CD
8 45 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 38 (8.56%) Coaching
9 38 (8.56%) Portfolio Management
10 36 (8.11%) Investment Management
11 34 (7.66%) DevOps
12 33 (7.43%) Microservices
13 32 (7.21%) Problem-Solving
14 28 (6.31%) Line Management
15 24 (5.41%) Fintech
16 23 (5.18%) Code Quality
16 23 (5.18%) Scrum
17 22 (4.95%) Design Patterns
18 21 (4.73%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 111 (25.00%) Python
2 85 (19.14%) JavaScript
3 71 (15.99%) TypeScript
4 65 (14.64%) C#
5 52 (11.71%) Java
6 41 (9.23%) SQL
7 21 (4.73%) Go
8 14 (3.15%) PHP
9 9 (2.03%) Swift
10 8 (1.80%) C++
11 7 (1.58%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.90%) Bicep
12 4 (0.90%) RPG
13 3 (0.68%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.68%) C
13 3 (0.68%) COBOL
14 2 (0.45%) Bash
14 2 (0.45%) Groovy
15 1 (0.23%) R
15 1 (0.23%) Scala
Qualifications
1 14 (3.15%) Degree
2 5 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (0.90%) DBS Check
4 2 (0.45%) PhD
4 2 (0.45%) 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 26 (5.86%) QA
2 9 (2.03%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.45%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.45%) GAAP
3 2 (0.45%) IFRS
3 2 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (4.73%) Docker
2 2 (0.45%) Firmware
3 1 (0.23%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 10 (2.25%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.80%) Terraform
3 3 (0.68%) HP Fortify
4 2 (0.45%) Ansible
5 1 (0.23%) Grafana
5 1 (0.23%) Kibana
5 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (5.41%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.58%) OpenAI
2 7 (1.58%) Salesforce
3 4 (0.90%) Apple
4 2 (0.45%) Databricks
4 2 (0.45%) Foundry
4 2 (0.45%) NEC
4 2 (0.45%) Northgate
4 2 (0.45%) Workday
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe
5 1 (0.23%) DevExpress
5 1 (0.23%) Google
5 1 (0.23%) HubSpot
5 1 (0.23%) IBM
5 1 (0.23%) Revolut
5 1 (0.23%) SAP