Lead Developer Job Trends in England

Lead Developer
UK > England

The median Lead Developer salary in England is £82,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 387 241
Rank change year-on-year +117 -146 +87
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 569 258 1,010
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.68% 0.67% 1.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.73% 0.74% 1.22%
Number of salaries quoted 470 188 920
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £70,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £82,500 £72,500 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year +13.79% - -8.81%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £91,250
90th Percentile £110,000 £109,125 £115,000
UK median annual salary £82,500 £72,500 £71,500
% change year-on-year +13.79% +1.40% -10.63%

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 77,699 34,696 83,000
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.44% 89.68% 94.64%
Number of salaries quoted 52,970 19,964 62,604
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,615 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,500 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.48% +9.52% -13.65%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £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 30 May 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 30 May 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 +60 225 £95,000 +11.76% 13
North of England +25 125 £71,500 -1.38% 9
North West +61 95 £71,500 -1.38% 4
South East +29 85 £90,000 +24.14% 12
Midlands +5 65 £70,000 +3.70% 15
South West -33 44 £65,000 +8.33% 3
East Midlands +2 34 £70,000 +5.66% 6
West Midlands -16 31 £65,000 -3.70% 9
East of England -2 20 £60,100 -19.87% 3
Yorkshire -35 20 £75,000 +7.14% 3
North East -34 10 £67,500 -15.63% 2
Lead Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 May 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.

1 177 (31.11%) Full-Stack Development
2 125 (21.97%) AWS
3 117 (20.56%) JavaScript
3 117 (20.56%) Mentoring
4 112 (19.68%) Software Engineering
4 112 (19.68%) TypeScript
5 109 (19.16%) .NET
5 109 (19.16%) Agile
6 108 (18.98%) React
7 105 (18.45%) C#
8 103 (18.10%) Azure
9 98 (17.22%) Python
10 97 (17.05%) Technical Leadership
11 88 (15.47%) Node.js
12 71 (12.48%) CI/CD
13 70 (12.30%) AI
13 70 (12.30%) SaaS
14 69 (12.13%) DevOps
15 66 (11.60%) Java
16 56 (9.84%) SQL
17 54 (9.49%) Continuous Improvement
18 50 (8.79%) Microservices
19 49 (8.61%) RESTful
20 45 (7.91%) Problem-Solving
21 43 (7.56%) GraphQL
21 43 (7.56%) Microsoft
22 39 (6.85%) Portfolio Management
22 39 (6.85%) Redux
23 38 (6.68%) Investment Management
24 36 (6.33%) Apple iOS

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 (1.58%) Anypoint
1 9 (1.58%) Mule
2 6 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.88%) Appian
3 5 (0.88%) Confluence
4 1 (0.18%) CMS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.18%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 125 (21.97%) AWS
2 103 (18.10%) Azure
3 70 (12.30%) SaaS
4 29 (5.10%) Serverless
5 27 (4.75%) Power Platform
6 26 (4.57%) Dynamics 365
7 24 (4.22%) GCP
8 22 (3.87%) AWS Lambda
9 17 (2.99%) Azure Logic Apps
10 15 (2.64%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (2.46%) Amazon S3
12 13 (2.28%) Amazon SQS
13 10 (1.76%) Amazon EventBridge
14 9 (1.58%) GitHub
15 8 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
15 8 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (1.41%) PowerApps
16 7 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (1.23%) Datadog
16 7 (1.23%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.70%) SSL
2 3 (0.53%) Broadband
3 1 (0.18%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.18%) Network Security
3 1 (0.18%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (6.33%) PostgreSQL
2 32 (5.62%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.76%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.58%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.23%) MySQL
6 6 (1.05%) Power BI
6 6 (1.05%) Redis
7 5 (0.88%) DB2
7 5 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.53%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.53%) Metadata
9 3 (0.53%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.53%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.35%) InterSystems Cache
11 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.18%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.18%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 19 (3.34%) Git
2 6 (1.05%) Bitbucket
2 6 (1.05%) JIRA
3 5 (0.88%) Cypress.io
3 5 (0.88%) Maven
4 4 (0.70%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.70%) JUnit
4 4 (0.70%) webpack
5 3 (0.53%) ESLint
5 3 (0.53%) GitLab
5 3 (0.53%) Mockito
5 3 (0.53%) NUnit
5 3 (0.53%) Vite
6 2 (0.35%) XCUITest
7 1 (0.18%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.18%) Postman
7 1 (0.18%) Selenium
7 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 93 (16.34%) Finance
2 51 (8.96%) Social Skills
3 42 (7.38%) Front Office
4 17 (2.99%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (2.46%) Banking
6 13 (2.28%) Tech for Good
7 11 (1.93%) Games
8 10 (1.76%) Law
8 10 (1.76%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.23%) Health Technology
10 6 (1.05%) Retail
11 5 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.70%) Local Government
12 4 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.53%) Marketing
13 3 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.53%) Publishing
14 2 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.35%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (19.16%) .NET
2 108 (18.98%) React
3 88 (15.47%) Node.js
4 49 (8.61%) RESTful
5 43 (7.56%) GraphQL
6 39 (6.85%) Redux
7 30 (5.27%) Kafka
8 28 (4.92%) .NET Core
8 28 (4.92%) Spring
9 27 (4.75%) ASP.NET
10 26 (4.57%) React Native
10 26 (4.57%) Vue
11 24 (4.22%) AngularJS
11 24 (4.22%) CSS
12 23 (4.04%) HTML
13 15 (2.64%) Laravel
13 15 (2.64%) REST
14 14 (2.46%) .NET Framework
14 14 (2.46%) Spring Boot
15 10 (1.76%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 36 (6.33%) Fixed Income
2 32 (5.62%) Cloud Native
3 24 (4.22%) Product Ownership
4 19 (3.34%) Mobile App
5 18 (3.16%) Derivative
6 16 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (2.81%) Equities
7 14 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (2.28%) PropTech
9 9 (1.58%) Legacy Applications
10 8 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (1.41%) Low-Code
11 5 (0.88%) Credit Risk
12 4 (0.70%) AS400
13 3 (0.53%) Greenfield Project
13 3 (0.53%) iSeries
13 3 (0.53%) Operational Technology
13 3 (0.53%) Photography
13 3 (0.53%) Video\Live Streaming
14 2 (0.35%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 36 (6.33%) Apple iOS
2 30 (5.27%) Android
3 5 (0.88%) Linux
4 2 (0.35%) Windows
5 1 (0.18%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (31.11%) Full-Stack Development
2 117 (20.56%) Mentoring
3 112 (19.68%) Software Engineering
4 109 (19.16%) Agile
5 97 (17.05%) Technical Leadership
6 71 (12.48%) CI/CD
7 70 (12.30%) AI
8 69 (12.13%) DevOps
9 54 (9.49%) Continuous Improvement
10 50 (8.79%) Microservices
11 45 (7.91%) Problem-Solving
12 39 (6.85%) Portfolio Management
13 38 (6.68%) Investment Management
14 35 (6.15%) Coaching
15 29 (5.10%) Event-Driven
15 29 (5.10%) Fintech
16 27 (4.75%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 27 (4.75%) Infrastructure as Code
16 27 (4.75%) Roadmaps
17 25 (4.39%) Line Management
Programming Languages
1 117 (20.56%) JavaScript
2 112 (19.68%) TypeScript
3 105 (18.45%) C#
4 98 (17.22%) Python
5 66 (11.60%) Java
6 56 (9.84%) SQL
7 25 (4.39%) Go
8 13 (2.28%) PHP
9 12 (2.11%) C++
9 12 (2.11%) Swift
10 10 (1.76%) Kotlin
11 8 (1.41%) RPG
12 6 (1.05%) Bicep
13 5 (0.88%) Bash
13 5 (0.88%) C
14 4 (0.70%) DataWeave
15 3 (0.53%) COBOL
15 3 (0.53%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.53%) PowerShell
15 3 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 21 (3.69%) Degree
2 15 (2.64%) Security Cleared
3 14 (2.46%) SC Cleared
4 9 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.58%) DBS Check
5 4 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.18%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.34%) QA
2 11 (1.93%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.23%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.35%) GAAP
4 2 (0.35%) IFRS
4 2 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.18%) GDPR
5 1 (0.18%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 25 (4.39%) Docker
2 3 (0.53%) Firmware
3 1 (0.18%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 23 (4.04%) Kubernetes
2 13 (2.28%) Terraform
3 4 (0.70%) Ansible
3 4 (0.70%) CloudHub
4 1 (0.18%) Grafana
4 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
4 1 (0.18%) Kibana
4 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 43 (7.56%) Microsoft
2 11 (1.93%) Salesforce
3 9 (1.58%) MuleSoft
4 7 (1.23%) HubSpot
5 6 (1.05%) OpenAI
5 6 (1.05%) Oracle
6 5 (0.88%) Apple
6 5 (0.88%) IBM
7 4 (0.70%) SAP
7 4 (0.70%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.53%) Bloomberg
8 3 (0.53%) DevExpress
9 2 (0.35%) Foundry
9 2 (0.35%) Google
9 2 (0.35%) Refinitiv
9 2 (0.35%) TikTok
9 2 (0.35%) Workday
10 1 (0.18%) Citrix
10 1 (0.18%) Reuters
10 1 (0.18%) Revolut