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 1 December 2025.

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

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 339 286 287
Rank change year-on-year -53 +1 +35
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 291 581 505
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.62% 1.00% 1.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.68% 1.06% 1.17%
Number of salaries quoted 222 460 435
10th Percentile £58,773 - £57,750
25th Percentile £67,500 £47,000 £64,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £70,000 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £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 42,665 54,684 43,142
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.68% 94.11% 95.19%
Number of salaries quoted 27,522 30,487 33,687
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £58,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.17% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £94,913 £95,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £54,656 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.95% -4.17% -

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 1 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 1 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 -34 125 £92,500 -2.63% 28
North of England -22 70 £70,000 +9.38% 17
North West -2 34 £70,000 +7.69% 6
Midlands +13 33 £75,000 +57.89% 18
West Midlands +31 32 £75,000 +59.57% 15
Yorkshire +5 30 £70,000 +48.94% 6
South East +12 28 £90,000 +30.91% 33
South West -9 20 £70,000 +48.94% 11
East of England +9 8 £71,250 -6.56% 6
North East +7 6 £68,500 +5.38% 5
East Midlands +9 1 - - 2
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 111 (38.14%) AWS
2 106 (36.43%) Azure
3 103 (35.40%) Agile
4 87 (29.90%) Python
5 80 (27.49%) Mentoring
6 71 (24.40%) CI/CD
7 65 (22.34%) React
8 64 (21.99%) C#
9 61 (20.96%) Technical Leadership
10 60 (20.62%) Full-Stack Development
11 57 (19.59%) .NET
12 56 (19.24%) Software Engineering
13 52 (17.87%) Java
14 50 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
15 49 (16.84%) JavaScript
16 48 (16.49%) Microservices
17 46 (15.81%) AI
17 46 (15.81%) Continuous Improvement
18 43 (14.78%) SQL
19 41 (14.09%) Docker
19 41 (14.09%) TypeScript
20 39 (13.40%) DevOps
21 38 (13.06%) Containerisation
21 38 (13.06%) QA
22 35 (12.03%) Node.js
23 34 (11.68%) Roadmaps
24 33 (11.34%) Serverless
25 31 (10.65%) Power Platform
25 31 (10.65%) SaaS
26 30 (10.31%) 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 (1.03%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.69%) Apache
2 2 (0.69%) WordPress
3 1 (0.34%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.34%) Appian
3 1 (0.34%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 14 (4.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.69%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.34%) Endur
3 1 (0.34%) Magento
3 1 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.34%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 111 (38.14%) AWS
2 106 (36.43%) Azure
3 33 (11.34%) Serverless
4 31 (10.65%) Power Platform
4 31 (10.65%) SaaS
5 21 (7.22%) GCP
5 21 (7.22%) GitHub
6 19 (6.53%) Amazon S3
7 18 (6.19%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (6.19%) PowerApps
8 17 (5.84%) Amazon SQS
8 17 (5.84%) Dynamics 365
9 12 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
10 11 (3.78%) Power Automate
11 8 (2.75%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 8 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (2.06%) Azure Functions
12 6 (2.06%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (1.72%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (1.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.34%) Broadband
1 1 (0.34%) MQTT
1 1 (0.34%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (10.31%) SQL Server
2 29 (9.97%) MongoDB
3 28 (9.62%) NoSQL
4 26 (8.93%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (5.50%) Power BI
6 11 (3.78%) MySQL
7 7 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (2.41%) Relational Database
7 7 (2.41%) Tick Data
8 6 (2.06%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (1.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (1.37%) Data Lake
10 4 (1.37%) RDBMS
11 3 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (1.03%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 2 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
12 2 (0.69%) Apache Iceberg
12 2 (0.69%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 15 (5.15%) Git
2 4 (1.37%) Jenkins
2 4 (1.37%) SonarQube
3 3 (1.03%) Maven
3 3 (1.03%) Xcode
4 2 (0.69%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.69%) GitLab
4 2 (0.69%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.69%) Vite
5 1 (0.34%) Bitbucket Server
5 1 (0.34%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.34%) DbUnit
5 1 (0.34%) JIRA
5 1 (0.34%) jMock
5 1 (0.34%) JUnit
5 1 (0.34%) Mockito
5 1 (0.34%) MSTest
5 1 (0.34%) Selenium
5 1 (0.34%) Spinnaker
5 1 (0.34%) Storybook
General
1 56 (19.24%) Social Skills
2 44 (15.12%) Finance
3 22 (7.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 21 (7.22%) Marketing
5 20 (6.87%) Front Office
6 18 (6.19%) Tech for Good
7 15 (5.15%) Health Technology
8 14 (4.81%) Analytical Skills
8 14 (4.81%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (4.81%) Publishing
9 13 (4.47%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (4.47%) Public Sector
10 12 (4.12%) Retail
11 10 (3.44%) Law
12 7 (2.41%) Electronics
13 5 (1.72%) Back Office
13 5 (1.72%) Games
14 4 (1.37%) Legal
14 4 (1.37%) Manufacturing
14 4 (1.37%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (22.34%) React
2 57 (19.59%) .NET
3 35 (12.03%) Node.js
4 28 (9.62%) RESTful
5 23 (7.90%) Kafka
6 20 (6.87%) Flask
7 19 (6.53%) AngularJS
8 18 (6.19%) GraphQL
8 18 (6.19%) Vue
9 17 (5.84%) .NET Core
9 17 (5.84%) Redux
9 17 (5.84%) REST
10 16 (5.50%) FastAPI
11 13 (4.47%) .NET Framework
11 13 (4.47%) CSS
11 13 (4.47%) HTML
11 13 (4.47%) Laravel
12 12 (4.12%) Blazor
13 10 (3.44%) Django
14 8 (2.75%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.84%) Fixed Income
3 16 (5.50%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (5.15%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (4.81%) Product Ownership
6 9 (3.09%) Marketing Technology
7 8 (2.75%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (2.41%) Clustering
8 7 (2.41%) Data Structures
9 6 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.72%) Derivative
11 4 (1.37%) AI Agents
11 4 (1.37%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.37%) Hedge funds
11 4 (1.37%) Market Risk
11 4 (1.37%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.37%) PKI
12 3 (1.03%) Credit Risk
12 3 (1.03%) e-Learning
12 3 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.75%) Apple iOS
2 6 (2.06%) Linux
3 5 (1.72%) Android
4 3 (1.03%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (35.40%) Agile
2 80 (27.49%) Mentoring
3 71 (24.40%) CI/CD
4 61 (20.96%) Technical Leadership
5 60 (20.62%) Full-Stack Development
6 56 (19.24%) Software Engineering
7 50 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (16.49%) Microservices
9 46 (15.81%) AI
9 46 (15.81%) Continuous Improvement
10 39 (13.40%) DevOps
11 38 (13.06%) Containerisation
12 34 (11.68%) Roadmaps
13 30 (10.31%) Code Quality
13 30 (10.31%) TDD
14 28 (9.62%) Scrum
15 27 (9.28%) Coaching
16 26 (8.93%) Clean Code
17 25 (8.59%) Test Automation
18 20 (6.87%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 87 (29.90%) Python
2 64 (21.99%) C#
3 52 (17.87%) Java
4 49 (16.84%) JavaScript
5 43 (14.78%) SQL
6 41 (14.09%) TypeScript
7 22 (7.56%) Go
8 15 (5.15%) PHP
9 11 (3.78%) Scala
10 8 (2.75%) Kotlin
11 7 (2.41%) C++
12 4 (1.37%) Swift
13 3 (1.03%) C
14 2 (0.69%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.69%) PowerShell
14 2 (0.69%) Ruby
15 1 (0.34%) Bash
15 1 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.34%) Groovy
15 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (4.47%) Degree
2 12 (4.12%) Security Cleared
3 10 (3.44%) SC Cleared
4 6 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.03%) AWS Certification
5 3 (1.03%) AWS Certified Developer
6 2 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.34%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.34%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.34%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.34%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (13.06%) QA
2 6 (2.06%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.34%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.34%) HL7
System Software
1 41 (14.09%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (6.53%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.15%) Terraform
3 2 (0.69%) HP Fortify
4 1 (0.34%) Argo
Vendors
1 29 (9.97%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.06%) Databricks
3 4 (1.37%) Google
3 4 (1.37%) SAP
4 3 (1.03%) OpenAI
4 3 (1.03%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.69%) NEC
5 2 (0.69%) Northgate
5 2 (0.69%) Splunk
6 1 (0.34%) Adobe
6 1 (0.34%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.34%) Blue Prism
6 1 (0.34%) eFront
6 1 (0.34%) Informatica
6 1 (0.34%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.34%) OpenLink
6 1 (0.34%) ServiceNow