Lead Developer Job Trends in London

Lead Developer
England > London

The median Lead Developer salary in London is £95,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 20 December 2025.

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

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 262 281 202
Rank change year-on-year +19 -79 +93
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 115 167 285
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.85% 1.04% 1.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.94% 1.11% 1.69%
Number of salaries quoted 87 138 232
10th Percentile £75,000 £49,975 £65,375
25th Percentile £76,000 £65,000 £82,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £95,000 £88,750 £92,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.04% -4.05% +2.78%
75th Percentile £112,500 £124,375 £115,000
90th Percentile £142,500 £156,500 £150,000
England median annual salary £76,250 £67,500 £80,000
% change year-on-year +12.96% -15.63% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 12,268 15,027 16,854
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.80% 93.51% 95.03%
Number of salaries quoted 8,140 8,910 13,617
10th Percentile £35,750 £42,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,434 £75,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.42% - +3.45%
75th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £115,000 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

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 20 December 2025.

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 20 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
Central London +38 16 £107,500 +26.47% 9
West London - 5 - - 2
Lead Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 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 London region featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 58 (50.43%) Python
2 50 (43.48%) Agile
3 45 (39.13%) AWS
4 44 (38.26%) CI/CD
5 37 (32.17%) Azure
6 34 (29.57%) Full-Stack Development
7 31 (26.96%) Mentoring
8 30 (26.09%) React
9 27 (23.48%) AI
9 27 (23.48%) Java
10 23 (20.00%) Code Quality
11 22 (19.13%) QA
11 22 (19.13%) Scrum
12 21 (18.26%) TDD
13 20 (17.39%) Coaching
13 20 (17.39%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
14 19 (16.52%) Containerisation
14 19 (16.52%) Docker
14 19 (16.52%) Node.js
14 19 (16.52%) Process Improvement
14 19 (16.52%) SQL
15 18 (15.65%) Technical Leadership
16 17 (14.78%) C#
16 17 (14.78%) DevOps
16 17 (14.78%) RESTful
16 17 (14.78%) Serverless
17 16 (13.91%) Amazon S3
17 16 (13.91%) Amazon SQS
17 16 (13.91%) AWS Lambda

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 (0.87%) Confluence
1 1 (0.87%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (2.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.74%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.87%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 45 (39.13%) AWS
2 37 (32.17%) Azure
3 17 (14.78%) Serverless
4 16 (13.91%) Amazon S3
4 16 (13.91%) Amazon SQS
4 16 (13.91%) AWS Lambda
5 12 (10.43%) GCP
6 11 (9.57%) Power Platform
7 10 (8.70%) GitHub
8 8 (6.96%) Azure Data Factory
9 7 (6.09%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 7 (6.09%) SaaS
10 5 (4.35%) GitHub Copilot
11 4 (3.48%) Dynamics 365
11 4 (3.48%) PowerApps
12 3 (2.61%) Azure Logic Apps
12 3 (2.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 3 (2.61%) Power Automate
13 2 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.87%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (10.43%) NoSQL
2 10 (8.70%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (8.70%) Power BI
3 9 (7.83%) SQL Server
4 8 (6.96%) Relational Database
5 6 (5.22%) Tick Data
6 5 (4.35%) MongoDB
7 4 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (3.48%) RDBMS
7 4 (3.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (2.61%) Data Lake
8 3 (2.61%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.87%) DB2
9 1 (0.87%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 8 (6.96%) Git
2 2 (1.74%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.74%) Visual Studio
3 1 (0.87%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.87%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.87%) ESLint
3 1 (0.87%) JIRA
3 1 (0.87%) Selenium
3 1 (0.87%) TeamCity
3 1 (0.87%) webpack
General
1 39 (33.91%) Social Skills
2 26 (22.61%) Finance
3 16 (13.91%) Front Office
3 16 (13.91%) Health Technology
3 16 (13.91%) Publishing
3 16 (13.91%) Tech for Good
4 15 (13.04%) Influencing Skills
4 15 (13.04%) Organisational Skills
5 14 (12.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (6.09%) Marketing
7 5 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (4.35%) Public Sector
8 4 (3.48%) Back Office
8 4 (3.48%) Electronics
8 4 (3.48%) Manufacturing
8 4 (3.48%) Retail
8 4 (3.48%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.74%) Banking
10 1 (0.87%) Games
10 1 (0.87%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (26.09%) React
2 19 (16.52%) Node.js
3 17 (14.78%) RESTful
4 14 (12.17%) FastAPI
4 14 (12.17%) Flask
4 14 (12.17%) Kafka
5 13 (11.30%) REST
5 13 (11.30%) Vue
6 10 (8.70%) Django
6 10 (8.70%) GraphQL
6 10 (8.70%) Redux
7 8 (6.96%) AngularJS
8 7 (6.09%) Blazor
9 6 (5.22%) .NET
9 6 (5.22%) Laravel
9 6 (5.22%) Tailwind CSS
10 5 (4.35%) Alpine.js
10 5 (4.35%) SOAP
11 4 (3.48%) Flutter
11 4 (3.48%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 16 (13.91%) Cloud Native
2 12 (10.43%) Fixed Income
3 7 (6.09%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (4.35%) Algorithms
5 4 (3.48%) Derivative
5 4 (3.48%) Hedge funds
6 3 (2.61%) Credit Risk
6 3 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.74%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (1.74%) Market Risk
7 2 (1.74%) Renewable Energy
8 1 (0.87%) Client/Server
8 1 (0.87%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.87%) Educational Technology
8 1 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.87%) IoT
8 1 (0.87%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.87%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.87%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.87%) Linux
1 1 (0.87%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (43.48%) Agile
2 44 (38.26%) CI/CD
3 34 (29.57%) Full-Stack Development
4 31 (26.96%) Mentoring
5 27 (23.48%) AI
6 23 (20.00%) Code Quality
7 22 (19.13%) Scrum
8 21 (18.26%) TDD
9 20 (17.39%) Coaching
9 20 (17.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 20 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
10 19 (16.52%) Containerisation
10 19 (16.52%) Process Improvement
11 18 (15.65%) Technical Leadership
12 17 (14.78%) DevOps
13 16 (13.91%) Continuous Integration
13 16 (13.91%) Software Engineering
13 16 (13.91%) User Stories
14 15 (13.04%) Pair Programming
14 15 (13.04%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 58 (50.43%) Python
2 27 (23.48%) Java
3 19 (16.52%) SQL
4 17 (14.78%) C#
5 15 (13.04%) TypeScript
6 14 (12.17%) Go
6 14 (12.17%) JavaScript
7 6 (5.22%) Kotlin
7 6 (5.22%) PHP
8 5 (4.35%) Scala
9 2 (1.74%) Apex Code
9 2 (1.74%) C++
10 1 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.87%) RPG
10 1 (0.87%) Ruby
10 1 (0.87%) SOQL
10 1 (0.87%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 2 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
1 2 (1.74%) Degree
2 1 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
2 1 (0.87%) Master's Degree
2 1 (0.87%) SC Cleared
2 1 (0.87%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (19.13%) QA
2 1 (0.87%) Accessibility
2 1 (0.87%) Data Quality
System Software
1 19 (16.52%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (10.43%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.48%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (4.35%) Databricks
2 4 (3.48%) Google
2 4 (3.48%) Microsoft
2 4 (3.48%) OpenAI
2 4 (3.48%) SAP
3 2 (1.74%) NEC
3 2 (1.74%) Northgate
3 2 (1.74%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.87%) eFront
4 1 (0.87%) IBM
4 1 (0.87%) Informatica
4 1 (0.87%) OpenLink
4 1 (0.87%) ServiceNow