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 19 March 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 237 265 191
Rank change year-on-year +28 -74 +86
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 164 136 357
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.96% 1.03% 1.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.05% 1.13% 1.73%
Number of salaries quoted 138 94 310
10th Percentile £75,525 £56,250 £67,450
25th Percentile £80,000 £64,063 £79,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £95,000 £80,000 £92,500
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -13.51% +2.78%
75th Percentile £142,500 £98,438 £114,688
90th Percentile £150,000 £136,250 £150,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -6.67% -6.25%

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 15,690 12,042 20,579
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.65% 90.87% 94.14%
Number of salaries quoted 10,474 7,560 16,361
10th Percentile £37,146 £42,000 £39,750
25th Percentile £51,250 £56,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £74,000 £75,000 £71,500
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% +4.90% -2.05%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £94,500
90th Percentile £107,500 £121,375 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.19%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 +6 27 £95,000 +8.57% 10
North London - 6 £82,500 -
West London - 3 - -
Lead Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 March 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 87 (53.05%) Python
2 71 (43.29%) Agile
3 68 (41.46%) AWS
4 58 (35.37%) React
5 54 (32.93%) Software Engineering
6 46 (28.05%) Full-Stack Development
6 46 (28.05%) JavaScript
6 46 (28.05%) Mentoring
6 46 (28.05%) Node.js
6 46 (28.05%) TypeScript
7 42 (25.61%) AI
8 39 (23.78%) Azure
9 37 (22.56%) Portfolio Management
10 36 (21.95%) Investment Management
10 36 (21.95%) Redux
11 35 (21.34%) CI/CD
12 33 (20.12%) Java
13 28 (17.07%) GraphQL
14 27 (16.46%) Continuous Improvement
15 26 (15.85%) GCP
15 26 (15.85%) RESTful
16 25 (15.24%) Technical Leadership
17 23 (14.02%) Kafka
17 23 (14.02%) PostgreSQL
18 21 (12.80%) Code Quality
18 21 (12.80%) Fintech
18 21 (12.80%) SaaS
19 20 (12.20%) Go
19 20 (12.20%) Order Management
19 20 (12.20%) Scrum

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 (0.61%) Confluence
1 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.22%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 68 (41.46%) AWS
2 39 (23.78%) Azure
3 26 (15.85%) GCP
4 21 (12.80%) SaaS
5 19 (11.59%) Serverless
6 17 (10.37%) Amazon S3
6 17 (10.37%) Amazon SQS
6 17 (10.37%) AWS Lambda
7 9 (5.49%) GitHub
8 8 (4.88%) Power Platform
9 5 (3.05%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (3.05%) Azure Logic Apps
9 5 (3.05%) GitHub Copilot
10 4 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (1.83%) Amazon Cognito
11 3 (1.83%) Amazon EventBridge
11 3 (1.83%) Azure App Service
11 3 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.83%) Power Automate
11 3 (1.83%) PowerApps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (14.02%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (5.49%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.88%) NoSQL
4 7 (4.27%) Power BI
5 4 (2.44%) Relational Database
6 3 (1.83%) MongoDB
6 3 (1.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (1.22%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.22%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.61%) DB2
8 1 (0.61%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 11 (6.71%) Git
2 4 (2.44%) webpack
3 3 (1.83%) Cypress.io
3 3 (1.83%) ESLint
3 3 (1.83%) Vite
4 2 (1.22%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.61%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.61%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.61%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.61%) JIRA
5 1 (0.61%) JUnit
5 1 (0.61%) Selenium
5 1 (0.61%) TeamCity
General
1 47 (28.66%) Finance
2 43 (26.22%) Front Office
3 41 (25.00%) Social Skills
4 19 (11.59%) Tech for Good
5 15 (9.15%) Health Technology
5 15 (9.15%) Publishing
6 14 (8.54%) Influencing Skills
6 14 (8.54%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (4.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (3.66%) Banking
9 3 (1.83%) Marketing
9 3 (1.83%) Retail
10 2 (1.22%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.22%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.61%) Electronics
11 1 (0.61%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.61%) Law
11 1 (0.61%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.61%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (35.37%) React
2 46 (28.05%) Node.js
3 36 (21.95%) Redux
4 28 (17.07%) GraphQL
5 26 (15.85%) RESTful
6 23 (14.02%) Kafka
7 16 (9.76%) Vue
8 13 (7.93%) AngularJS
9 10 (6.10%) CSS
9 10 (6.10%) REST
10 9 (5.49%) .NET
10 9 (5.49%) FastAPI
10 9 (5.49%) Flask
10 9 (5.49%) Laravel
10 9 (5.49%) React Native
11 8 (4.88%) Django
12 7 (4.27%) HTML
13 5 (3.05%) .NET Core
13 5 (3.05%) Hugging Face
13 5 (3.05%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 37 (22.56%) Fixed Income
2 19 (11.59%) Derivative
3 16 (9.76%) Equities
4 11 (6.71%) Cloud Native
5 10 (6.10%) PropTech
6 6 (3.66%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (2.44%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.83%) Low-Code
9 2 (1.22%) Credit Risk
9 2 (1.22%) Educational Technology
9 2 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.61%) Client/Server
10 1 (0.61%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 1 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.61%) Market Risk
10 1 (0.61%) Mobile App
10 1 (0.61%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.49%) Android
1 9 (5.49%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.61%) Linux
2 1 (0.61%) Unix
2 1 (0.61%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (43.29%) Agile
2 54 (32.93%) Software Engineering
3 46 (28.05%) Full-Stack Development
3 46 (28.05%) Mentoring
4 42 (25.61%) AI
5 37 (22.56%) Portfolio Management
6 36 (21.95%) Investment Management
7 35 (21.34%) CI/CD
8 27 (16.46%) Continuous Improvement
9 25 (15.24%) Technical Leadership
10 21 (12.80%) Code Quality
10 21 (12.80%) Fintech
11 20 (12.20%) Order Management
11 20 (12.20%) Scrum
12 19 (11.59%) Line Management
12 19 (11.59%) User Stories
13 18 (10.98%) Acceptance Criteria
13 18 (10.98%) Asset Management
13 18 (10.98%) Coaching
13 18 (10.98%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 87 (53.05%) Python
2 46 (28.05%) JavaScript
2 46 (28.05%) TypeScript
3 33 (20.12%) Java
4 20 (12.20%) Go
5 15 (9.15%) SQL
6 10 (6.10%) C#
7 8 (4.88%) PHP
8 3 (1.83%) Apex Code
8 3 (1.83%) Kotlin
9 2 (1.22%) Bicep
10 1 (0.61%) C
10 1 (0.61%) C++
10 1 (0.61%) RPG
10 1 (0.61%) Scala
10 1 (0.61%) SOQL
10 1 (0.61%) SOSL
10 1 (0.61%) Swift
Qualifications
1 1 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (0.61%) Degree
1 1 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (9.76%) QA
2 4 (2.44%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.22%) GAAP
3 2 (1.22%) IFRS
3 2 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.61%) Data Quality
System Software
1 12 (7.32%) Docker
2 1 (0.61%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (4.88%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.61%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (3.66%) Microsoft
1 6 (3.66%) OpenAI
2 3 (1.83%) Salesforce
3 2 (1.22%) Databricks
3 2 (1.22%) NEC
3 2 (1.22%) Northgate
3 2 (1.22%) Workday
4 1 (0.61%) Google
4 1 (0.61%) IBM
4 1 (0.61%) Revolut
4 1 (0.61%) SAP