Lead Developer Job Trends in London

Lead Developer
England > London

The median Lead Developer salary in London is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 24 January 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 268 307 178
Rank change year-on-year +39 -129 +104
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 118 133 326
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.81% 0.86% 1.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.88% 0.93% 1.72%
Number of salaries quoted 86 92 274
10th Percentile £75,000 £51,250 £63,750
25th Percentile £76,000 £59,063 £80,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £80,000 £92,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -13.51% +2.78%
75th Percentile £110,000 £105,000 £115,000
90th Percentile £122,500 £145,000 £150,000
England median annual salary £76,000 £67,500 £80,000
% change year-on-year +12.59% -15.63% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in London. 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 London with a recognized job title 13,364 14,309 18,996
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.31% 92.06% 94.96%
Number of salaries quoted 8,828 8,223 15,327
10th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £56,250 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £75,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +3.45% -2.03%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,000
90th Percentile £112,500 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,173
% change year-on-year -8.33% +8.75% -11.72%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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 London.

Lead Developer job vacancy trend in London

Lead Developer
Salary Trend in London

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in London.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in London

Lead Developer
Salary Histogram in London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer in London over the 6 months to 24 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Developer in London

Lead Developer
Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Developer within the London region over the 6 months to 24 January 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
Central London +28 25 £107,500 +24.64% 4
North London - 4 £80,000 - 4
West London - 4 - -
Lead Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 January 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 London region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 51 (43.22%) Python
2 40 (33.90%) CI/CD
3 38 (32.20%) AI
4 37 (31.36%) Agile
5 36 (30.51%) AWS
6 33 (27.97%) Mentoring
7 31 (26.27%) Full-Stack Development
8 27 (22.88%) Azure
9 24 (20.34%) Technical Leadership
10 23 (19.49%) Code Quality
11 21 (17.80%) QA
11 21 (17.80%) React
11 21 (17.80%) Scrum
12 20 (16.95%) Continuous Improvement
12 20 (16.95%) RESTful
13 19 (16.10%) Coaching
13 19 (16.10%) TDD
14 18 (15.25%) Process Improvement
14 18 (15.25%) Serverless
15 17 (14.41%) Amazon S3
15 17 (14.41%) Amazon SQS
15 17 (14.41%) AWS Lambda
15 17 (14.41%) Problem-Solving
15 17 (14.41%) User Stories
16 16 (13.56%) Acceptance Criteria
16 16 (13.56%) Docker
16 16 (13.56%) SQL
17 15 (12.71%) Containerisation
17 15 (12.71%) Continuous Integration
17 15 (12.71%) FastAPI

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 1 (0.85%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 3 (2.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.69%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.85%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 36 (30.51%) AWS
2 27 (22.88%) Azure
3 18 (15.25%) Serverless
4 17 (14.41%) Amazon S3
4 17 (14.41%) Amazon SQS
4 17 (14.41%) AWS Lambda
5 12 (10.17%) SaaS
6 11 (9.32%) GitHub
7 10 (8.47%) GCP
7 10 (8.47%) Power Platform
8 7 (5.93%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (4.24%) GitHub Copilot
10 4 (3.39%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 4 (3.39%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (2.54%) Amazon Cognito
11 3 (2.54%) Amazon EventBridge
11 3 (2.54%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (2.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 3 (2.54%) Power Automate
11 3 (2.54%) PowerApps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (10.17%) NoSQL
2 10 (8.47%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (7.63%) Power BI
3 9 (7.63%) SQL Server
4 8 (6.78%) Relational Database
5 5 (4.24%) MongoDB
6 4 (3.39%) RDBMS
6 4 (3.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (2.54%) Data Lake
7 3 (2.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.85%) DB2
Development Applications
1 6 (5.08%) Git
2 3 (2.54%) ESLint
3 2 (1.69%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.69%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.85%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.85%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.85%) JIRA
4 1 (0.85%) JUnit
4 1 (0.85%) Selenium
4 1 (0.85%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.85%) webpack
General
1 39 (33.05%) Social Skills
2 19 (16.10%) Tech for Good
3 15 (12.71%) Health Technology
3 15 (12.71%) Publishing
4 14 (11.86%) Finance
4 14 (11.86%) Influencing Skills
4 14 (11.86%) Organisational Skills
5 10 (8.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (6.78%) Front Office
7 7 (5.93%) Marketing
8 6 (5.08%) Public Sector
9 4 (3.39%) Analytical Skills
9 4 (3.39%) Banking
9 4 (3.39%) Electronics
9 4 (3.39%) Manufacturing
9 4 (3.39%) Retail
9 4 (3.39%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.69%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.85%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (17.80%) React
2 20 (16.95%) RESTful
3 15 (12.71%) FastAPI
3 15 (12.71%) Flask
4 14 (11.86%) REST
5 11 (9.32%) Django
5 11 (9.32%) Node.js
6 10 (8.47%) Vue
7 8 (6.78%) Laravel
8 6 (5.08%) .NET
8 6 (5.08%) AngularJS
8 6 (5.08%) Hugging Face
8 6 (5.08%) Tailwind CSS
9 5 (4.24%) CSS
9 5 (4.24%) SOAP
10 4 (3.39%) .NET Core
10 4 (3.39%) Alpine.js
10 4 (3.39%) Blazor
10 4 (3.39%) Kafka
11 3 (2.54%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 14 (11.86%) Cloud Native
2 7 (5.93%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (4.24%) Algorithms
4 4 (3.39%) Derivative
5 3 (2.54%) Credit Risk
5 3 (2.54%) Low-Code
5 3 (2.54%) PropTech
6 2 (1.69%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.69%) Fixed Income
6 2 (1.69%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 2 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.69%) Market Risk
6 2 (1.69%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.85%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.85%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.85%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.69%) Android
1 2 (1.69%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.85%) Linux
2 1 (0.85%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (33.90%) CI/CD
2 38 (32.20%) AI
3 37 (31.36%) Agile
4 33 (27.97%) Mentoring
5 31 (26.27%) Full-Stack Development
6 24 (20.34%) Technical Leadership
7 23 (19.49%) Code Quality
8 21 (17.80%) Scrum
9 20 (16.95%) Continuous Improvement
10 19 (16.10%) Coaching
10 19 (16.10%) TDD
11 18 (15.25%) Process Improvement
12 17 (14.41%) Problem-Solving
12 17 (14.41%) User Stories
13 16 (13.56%) Acceptance Criteria
14 15 (12.71%) Containerisation
14 15 (12.71%) Continuous Integration
14 15 (12.71%) Microservices
15 14 (11.86%) Operational Stability
15 14 (11.86%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 51 (43.22%) Python
2 16 (13.56%) SQL
3 15 (12.71%) Java
4 10 (8.47%) C#
5 9 (7.63%) PHP
6 6 (5.08%) TypeScript
7 5 (4.24%) JavaScript
7 5 (4.24%) Kotlin
8 4 (3.39%) Scala
9 3 (2.54%) Apex Code
9 3 (2.54%) Go
10 1 (0.85%) C++
10 1 (0.85%) RPG
10 1 (0.85%) SOQL
10 1 (0.85%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 2 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
1 2 (1.69%) Degree
2 1 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
2 1 (0.85%) Master's Degree
2 1 (0.85%) SC Cleared
2 1 (0.85%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (17.80%) QA
2 2 (1.69%) GAAP
2 2 (1.69%) IFRS
2 2 (1.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (0.85%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.85%) Data Quality
System Software
1 16 (13.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 11 (9.32%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.39%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (5.08%) OpenAI
2 4 (3.39%) Google
2 4 (3.39%) SAP
3 3 (2.54%) Databricks
3 3 (2.54%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.54%) Salesforce
4 2 (1.69%) NEC
4 2 (1.69%) Northgate
4 2 (1.69%) Workday
5 1 (0.85%) IBM
5 1 (0.85%) Informatica
5 1 (0.85%) OpenLink
5 1 (0.85%) ServiceNow