Lead Job Trends in England

Leader
UK > England

The median Leader salary in England is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 25 19
Rank change year-on-year +12 -6 +5
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead 7,899 3,116 5,148
As % of all permanent jobs in England 7.62% 7.18% 7.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.22% 7.93% 8.32%
Number of salaries quoted 5,319 1,741 3,358
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,000 £45,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £55,000 £54,439
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £75,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +3.45% -3.33%
75th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £90,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £116,250 £112,500
UK median annual salary £77,500 £75,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +3.33% +7.14% -4.76%

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 96,140 39,294 61,877
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.71% 90.57% 95.23%
Number of salaries quoted 67,276 23,232 35,571
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,019 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,828 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,235
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% -0.42% -7.94%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £58,210 £53,688 £55,000
% change year-on-year +8.42% -2.39% -8.33%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Lead job vacancy trend in England

Lead
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in England

Lead
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead in England over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead in England

Lead
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 within the England region over the 6 months to 9 October 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 +15 2,564 £95,000 - 7,563
North of England +52 1,723 £75,000 +7.14% 1,737
South East +3 1,385 £75,000 +7.14% 1,512
Midlands +16 952 £65,000 +8.33% 969
North West +63 928 £75,000 +7.14% 968
South West +16 752 £75,000 +7.14% 570
Yorkshire +24 567 £75,000 +11.11% 583
West Midlands +13 561 £65,000 +8.33% 602
East of England +28 453 £65,000 +18.18% 652
East Midlands +31 391 £65,000 +8.33% 367
North East +34 228 £83,774 +39.62% 189
Lead
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 October 2026, Lead 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 in the job title.

1 970 (12.28%) Mentoring
2 969 (12.27%) Continuous Improvement
3 957 (12.12%) AI
4 951 (12.04%) Azure
5 915 (11.58%) Software Engineering
6 877 (11.10%) Agile
7 857 (10.85%) Technical Leadership
8 720 (9.12%) Microsoft
9 711 (9.00%) Stakeholder Management
10 675 (8.55%) Roadmaps
11 644 (8.15%) CI/CD
12 643 (8.14%) AWS
13 608 (7.70%) Python
14 578 (7.32%) DevOps
15 577 (7.30%) Security Cleared
16 571 (7.23%) Decision-Making
17 538 (6.81%) Analytics
18 530 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
19 517 (6.55%) Degree
20 488 (6.18%) Coaching
21 479 (6.06%) SQL
22 409 (5.18%) Cybersecurity
23 384 (4.86%) SaaS
24 379 (4.80%) Full-Stack Development
25 374 (4.73%) Java
26 358 (4.53%) SC Cleared
27 322 (4.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
28 316 (4.00%) Microservices
29 314 (3.98%) C#
30 295 (3.73%) QA

Lead 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 89 (1.13%) SharePoint
2 45 (0.57%) Apache
3 43 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 42 (0.53%) Confluence
5 41 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.35%) CMS
8 18 (0.23%) Anypoint
8 18 (0.23%) Mule
9 17 (0.22%) WordPress
10 8 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.089%) Camunda
11 7 (0.089%) SAS
12 6 (0.076%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.063%) WinCC
14 4 (0.051%) IIS
14 4 (0.051%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.038%) nginx
15 3 (0.038%) WebLogic
16 2 (0.025%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 73 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (0.58%) Simulink
3 39 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.23%) Chatbot
4 18 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
5 15 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.19%) UserZoom
6 11 (0.14%) Revit
7 9 (0.11%) AutoCAD
8 7 (0.089%) Navisworks
8 7 (0.089%) SPSS
9 4 (0.051%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.051%) MS Visio
9 4 (0.051%) Notion
10 2 (0.025%) Fusion 360
10 2 (0.025%) SOLIDWORKS
10 2 (0.025%) Weka
11 1 (0.013%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 53 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
3 42 (0.53%) Workday HCM
4 40 (0.51%) SAP EHS
5 25 (0.32%) Primavera
6 16 (0.20%) SAP Oil and Gas
7 15 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.18%) Endur
9 12 (0.15%) Dynamics NAV
10 10 (0.13%) SAP Business One
10 10 (0.13%) SAP HCM
11 8 (0.10%) Oracle Applications
11 8 (0.10%) SAP IBP
12 7 (0.089%) Actimize
12 7 (0.089%) Infor M3
12 7 (0.089%) SAP Payroll
13 6 (0.076%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.076%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.076%) SAP Travel Management
13 6 (0.076%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 951 (12.04%) Azure
2 643 (8.14%) AWS
3 384 (4.86%) SaaS
4 273 (3.46%) Power Platform
5 205 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
6 169 (2.14%) GCP
7 150 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
8 139 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
9 123 (1.56%) GitHub
10 118 (1.49%) Serverless
11 104 (1.32%) Entra ID
12 100 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
13 89 (1.13%) PaaS
14 60 (0.76%) Azure Service Bus
14 60 (0.76%) Power Automate
15 59 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
16 57 (0.72%) Snowflake
17 50 (0.63%) Amazon S3
18 49 (0.62%) AWS Lambda
19 46 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 116 (1.47%) Firewall
2 77 (0.97%) Network Security
3 69 (0.87%) Broadband
4 58 (0.73%) VPN
5 53 (0.67%) DNS
6 48 (0.61%) Wireless
7 45 (0.57%) TCP/IP
8 42 (0.53%) WAN
9 41 (0.52%) LAN
10 39 (0.49%) VoIP
11 37 (0.47%) DHCP
12 36 (0.46%) VLAN
13 32 (0.41%) HTTP
14 28 (0.35%) Internet
14 28 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
15 22 (0.28%) SSL
16 19 (0.24%) Wireshark
17 16 (0.20%) DMARC
17 16 (0.20%) Unified Communications
18 15 (0.19%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (2.05%) Power BI
2 100 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
3 96 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
4 81 (1.03%) SQL Server
5 72 (0.91%) Metadata
6 56 (0.71%) Data Lake
7 49 (0.62%) MongoDB
8 48 (0.61%) Big Data
9 46 (0.58%) NoSQL
10 45 (0.57%) MySQL
11 43 (0.54%) Redis
12 41 (0.52%) Relational Database
13 32 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
14 31 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
15 24 (0.30%) Tableau
16 20 (0.25%) BigQuery
17 18 (0.23%) DynamoDB
18 17 (0.22%) Amazon Redshift
18 17 (0.22%) Looker
18 17 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 112 (1.42%) JIRA
2 103 (1.30%) Git
3 46 (0.58%) GitLab
4 42 (0.53%) Rational DOORS
5 35 (0.44%) Jenkins
6 27 (0.34%) Claude Code
7 21 (0.27%) JUnit
8 17 (0.22%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.19%) Mockito
10 14 (0.18%) Selenium
11 13 (0.16%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.14%) TeamCity
13 10 (0.13%) LabVIEW
13 10 (0.13%) Maven
14 9 (0.11%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.11%) Postman
15 8 (0.10%) Subversion
16 6 (0.076%) Cucumber
17 5 (0.063%) Appium
17 5 (0.063%) Yeoman
General
1 1,300 (16.46%) Finance
2 1,026 (12.99%) Social Skills
3 404 (5.11%) Public Sector
4 384 (4.86%) Analytical Skills
5 310 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 262 (3.32%) Banking
7 213 (2.70%) Manufacturing
8 208 (2.63%) Law
8 208 (2.63%) Marketing
9 206 (2.61%) Legal
10 205 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
11 188 (2.38%) Aerospace
12 187 (2.37%) Retail
13 162 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
14 144 (1.82%) Electronics
15 75 (0.95%) Telecoms
16 69 (0.87%) Aviation
17 65 (0.82%) Games
18 59 (0.75%) Financial Institution
19 55 (0.70%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (3.54%) .NET
2 204 (2.58%) Terraform
3 180 (2.28%) Node.js
4 152 (1.92%) React
5 142 (1.80%) REST
6 103 (1.30%) Spring
7 96 (1.22%) RESTful
8 77 (0.97%) Spring Boot
9 59 (0.75%) Kafka
10 58 (0.73%) PyTorch
11 56 (0.71%) TensorFlow
12 51 (0.65%) AngularJS
13 48 (0.61%) OAuth
14 47 (0.60%) OAuth2
14 47 (0.60%) Vue
15 46 (0.58%) .NET Core
16 41 (0.52%) CSS
16 41 (0.52%) HTML
17 39 (0.49%) GraphQL
17 39 (0.49%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 261 (3.30%) Cloud Native
2 212 (2.68%) Onboarding
3 149 (1.89%) Product Ownership
4 139 (1.76%) Data Centre
5 114 (1.44%) Management Information System
6 112 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
7 88 (1.11%) AI Agents
8 76 (0.96%) Public Cloud
9 66 (0.84%) Security Posture
10 65 (0.82%) Social Media
11 59 (0.75%) SCADA
12 58 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
13 55 (0.70%) Driving Licence
13 55 (0.70%) Virtual Team
14 52 (0.66%) Algorithms
15 49 (0.62%) Embedded Systems
15 49 (0.62%) Hybrid Cloud
16 48 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
17 46 (0.58%) Mobile App
18 43 (0.54%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 168 (2.13%) Windows
2 121 (1.53%) Linux
3 59 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 56 (0.71%) Android
4 56 (0.71%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.23%) Windows 10
6 17 (0.22%) VMS
7 12 (0.15%) Mac OS
7 12 (0.15%) Unix
8 8 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.063%) Debian
10 4 (0.051%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.038%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.038%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.025%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.013%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.013%) SUSE
13 1 (0.013%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.013%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 970 (12.28%) Mentoring
2 969 (12.27%) Continuous Improvement
3 957 (12.12%) AI
4 915 (11.58%) Software Engineering
5 877 (11.10%) Agile
6 857 (10.85%) Technical Leadership
7 711 (9.00%) Stakeholder Management
8 675 (8.55%) Roadmaps
9 644 (8.15%) CI/CD
10 578 (7.32%) DevOps
11 571 (7.23%) Decision-Making
12 538 (6.81%) Analytics
13 530 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
14 488 (6.18%) Coaching
15 409 (5.18%) Cybersecurity
16 379 (4.80%) Full-Stack Development
17 322 (4.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 316 (4.00%) Microservices
19 278 (3.52%) Service Delivery
20 275 (3.48%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 608 (7.70%) Python
2 479 (6.06%) SQL
3 374 (4.73%) Java
4 314 (3.98%) C#
5 235 (2.98%) JavaScript
6 212 (2.68%) TypeScript
7 82 (1.04%) C++
8 68 (0.86%) C
8 68 (0.86%) PowerShell
9 46 (0.58%) MATLAB
10 39 (0.49%) Go
11 34 (0.43%) Bash
12 29 (0.37%) Scala
13 23 (0.29%) ABAP
14 22 (0.28%) Bicep
14 22 (0.28%) R
14 22 (0.28%) Rust
15 21 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 21 (0.27%) Kotlin
16 19 (0.24%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 577 (7.30%) Security Cleared
2 517 (6.55%) Degree
3 358 (4.53%) SC Cleared
4 212 (2.68%) DV Cleared
5 146 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 87 (1.10%) CISSP
7 71 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 69 (0.87%) PMI Certification
9 56 (0.71%) Master's Degree
10 54 (0.68%) Azure Certification
10 54 (0.68%) DBS Check
11 49 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
12 48 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
13 42 (0.53%) CISM
14 41 (0.52%) NVQ Level 3
15 34 (0.43%) HND
16 29 (0.37%) AWS Certification
17 27 (0.34%) PMP
18 26 (0.33%) Chartered Engineer
18 26 (0.33%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 295 (3.73%) QA
2 229 (2.90%) Data Quality
3 152 (1.92%) Accessibility
4 149 (1.89%) GDPR
5 132 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 119 (1.51%) SLA
7 87 (1.10%) NIST
8 48 (0.61%) GRC
9 39 (0.49%) PMO
10 34 (0.43%) NCSC
11 30 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 28 (0.35%) ISO 9001
13 18 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
13 18 (0.23%) PCI DSS
14 17 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 14 (0.18%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.14%) WCAG
17 10 (0.13%) GMP
17 10 (0.13%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 169 (2.14%) Docker
2 90 (1.14%) Active Directory
3 74 (0.94%) Firmware
4 50 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
5 27 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
6 19 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.10%) IAG
8 8 (0.10%) vSphere
9 7 (0.089%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.076%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.063%) VMware ESXi
12 4 (0.051%) ProxySG
13 3 (0.038%) NDS
13 3 (0.038%) Squid
14 2 (0.025%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.025%) Snort
14 2 (0.025%) UAG
14 2 (0.025%) VMware Workstation
15 1 (0.013%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 185 (2.34%) Kubernetes
2 70 (0.89%) Ansible
3 44 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (0.32%) Grafana
5 19 (0.24%) SCCM
6 14 (0.18%) CloudHub
7 13 (0.16%) FortiGate
8 10 (0.13%) Functional Safety
8 10 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.10%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.089%) Argo
10 7 (0.089%) Kubeflow
10 7 (0.089%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.076%) Kibana
11 6 (0.076%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.063%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.063%) Packer
13 4 (0.051%) Nessus
13 4 (0.051%) Puppet
13 4 (0.051%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 720 (9.12%) Microsoft
2 211 (2.67%) SAP
3 148 (1.87%) Oracle
4 134 (1.70%) Databricks
5 99 (1.25%) Salesforce
6 93 (1.18%) ServiceNow
7 88 (1.11%) Google
8 81 (1.03%) Workday
9 73 (0.92%) Cisco
10 49 (0.62%) VMware
11 47 (0.60%) Adobe
11 47 (0.60%) Siemens
12 36 (0.46%) Palo Alto
13 35 (0.44%) YouTube
14 31 (0.39%) MuleSoft
15 30 (0.38%) OpenAI
16 29 (0.37%) Fortinet
17 26 (0.33%) HubSpot
18 24 (0.30%) Splunk
19 22 (0.28%) NEC