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 3 April 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 274 187
Rank change year-on-year +43 -87 +88
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 179 128 366
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.98% 1.00% 1.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 1.10% 1.74%
Number of salaries quoted 154 88 317
10th Percentile £75,750 £56,250 £65,000
25th Percentile £80,000 £61,875 £77,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £95,000 £78,750 £92,500
Median % change year-on-year +20.63% -14.86% +2.78%
75th Percentile £142,500 £95,625 £110,000
90th Percentile £150,000 £116,125 £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 16,674 11,654 21,039
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 90.78% 94.08%
Number of salaries quoted 11,198 7,515 16,527
10th Percentile £38,000 £42,000 £39,000
25th Percentile £52,500 £56,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year - +7.14% -3.45%
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £93,750
90th Percentile £107,500 £122,500 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.71%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 +17 37 £90,000 +2.86% 14
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 3 April 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 (48.60%) Python
2 73 (40.78%) Agile
3 69 (38.55%) AWS
4 62 (34.64%) React
5 53 (29.61%) Full-Stack Development
5 53 (29.61%) Software Engineering
6 50 (27.93%) JavaScript
7 48 (26.82%) TypeScript
8 46 (25.70%) Node.js
9 45 (25.14%) AI
9 45 (25.14%) Mentoring
10 41 (22.91%) Azure
11 39 (21.79%) Portfolio Management
12 36 (20.11%) Investment Management
12 36 (20.11%) Redux
13 34 (18.99%) CI/CD
14 33 (18.44%) Java
15 30 (16.76%) GraphQL
16 28 (15.64%) RESTful
17 26 (14.53%) GCP
18 25 (13.97%) Continuous Improvement
18 25 (13.97%) PostgreSQL
18 25 (13.97%) Technical Leadership
19 23 (12.85%) Kafka
19 23 (12.85%) SaaS
20 22 (12.29%) Fintech
20 22 (12.29%) Scrum
21 21 (11.73%) Go
22 20 (11.17%) Order Management
23 19 (10.61%) Code Quality

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 2 (1.12%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.56%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 4 (2.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.12%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 69 (38.55%) AWS
2 41 (22.91%) Azure
3 26 (14.53%) GCP
4 23 (12.85%) SaaS
5 19 (10.61%) Serverless
6 17 (9.50%) Amazon S3
6 17 (9.50%) Amazon SQS
6 17 (9.50%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (5.59%) Azure Logic Apps
8 9 (5.03%) GitHub
8 9 (5.03%) Power Platform
9 8 (4.47%) Dynamics 365
10 5 (2.79%) GitHub Copilot
10 5 (2.79%) PowerApps
11 4 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (2.23%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.68%) Amazon Cognito
12 3 (1.68%) Azure App Service
12 3 (1.68%) Azure Data Factory
12 3 (1.68%) PaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (13.97%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (3.91%) NoSQL
3 5 (2.79%) Power BI
3 5 (2.79%) SQL Server
4 4 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.68%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.68%) MySQL
6 2 (1.12%) MariaDB
6 2 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.56%) DB2
7 1 (0.56%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 12 (6.70%) Git
2 4 (2.23%) webpack
3 3 (1.68%) Cypress.io
3 3 (1.68%) ESLint
3 3 (1.68%) Vite
4 2 (1.12%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.56%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.56%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.56%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.56%) JIRA
5 1 (0.56%) JUnit
5 1 (0.56%) Selenium
5 1 (0.56%) TeamCity
General
1 49 (27.37%) Finance
2 43 (24.02%) Front Office
3 40 (22.35%) Social Skills
4 19 (10.61%) Tech for Good
5 15 (8.38%) Health Technology
5 15 (8.38%) Publishing
6 14 (7.82%) Influencing Skills
6 14 (7.82%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (3.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (3.35%) Banking
9 3 (1.68%) Retail
10 2 (1.12%) General Ledger
10 2 (1.12%) Marketing
10 2 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.12%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.56%) Analytical Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Games
11 1 (0.56%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.56%) Law
11 1 (0.56%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (34.64%) React
2 46 (25.70%) Node.js
3 36 (20.11%) Redux
4 30 (16.76%) GraphQL
5 28 (15.64%) RESTful
6 23 (12.85%) Kafka
7 17 (9.50%) Vue
8 13 (7.26%) AngularJS
8 13 (7.26%) React Native
9 12 (6.70%) CSS
9 12 (6.70%) Laravel
10 11 (6.15%) .NET
10 11 (6.15%) REST
11 9 (5.03%) FastAPI
11 9 (5.03%) Flask
11 9 (5.03%) HTML
12 8 (4.47%) Django
13 5 (2.79%) Hugging Face
13 5 (2.79%) SOAP
13 5 (2.79%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 37 (20.67%) Fixed Income
2 18 (10.06%) Derivative
3 16 (8.94%) Equities
4 13 (7.26%) Cloud Native
5 12 (6.70%) PropTech
6 6 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (2.23%) Algorithms
7 4 (2.23%) Low-Code
8 3 (1.68%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.12%) Educational Technology
9 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.56%) Credit Risk
10 1 (0.56%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.56%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.56%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.56%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.56%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 13 (7.26%) Android
1 13 (7.26%) Apple iOS
2 2 (1.12%) Windows
3 1 (0.56%) Linux
3 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (40.78%) Agile
2 53 (29.61%) Full-Stack Development
2 53 (29.61%) Software Engineering
3 45 (25.14%) AI
3 45 (25.14%) Mentoring
4 39 (21.79%) Portfolio Management
5 36 (20.11%) Investment Management
6 34 (18.99%) CI/CD
7 25 (13.97%) Continuous Improvement
7 25 (13.97%) Technical Leadership
8 22 (12.29%) Fintech
8 22 (12.29%) Scrum
9 20 (11.17%) Order Management
10 19 (10.61%) Code Quality
10 19 (10.61%) Line Management
10 19 (10.61%) User Stories
11 18 (10.06%) Acceptance Criteria
11 18 (10.06%) Asset Management
11 18 (10.06%) TDD
12 17 (9.50%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 87 (48.60%) Python
2 50 (27.93%) JavaScript
3 48 (26.82%) TypeScript
4 33 (18.44%) Java
5 21 (11.73%) Go
6 17 (9.50%) C#
7 16 (8.94%) SQL
8 9 (5.03%) PHP
9 5 (2.79%) Kotlin
10 3 (1.68%) Bicep
10 3 (1.68%) Swift
11 2 (1.12%) Apex Code
11 2 (1.12%) C
11 2 (1.12%) C++
12 1 (0.56%) RPG
12 1 (0.56%) Scala
12 1 (0.56%) SOQL
12 1 (0.56%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 2 (1.12%) Degree
1 2 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
2 1 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.50%) QA
2 4 (2.23%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.12%) GAAP
3 2 (1.12%) IFRS
3 2 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.56%) Data Quality
System Software
1 11 (6.15%) Docker
2 1 (0.56%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 7 (3.91%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.12%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (5.03%) Microsoft
2 6 (3.35%) OpenAI
3 2 (1.12%) NEC
3 2 (1.12%) Northgate
3 2 (1.12%) Salesforce
3 2 (1.12%) Workday
4 1 (0.56%) Databricks
4 1 (0.56%) Google
4 1 (0.56%) IBM
4 1 (0.56%) Revolut
4 1 (0.56%) SAP