Lead Software Engineer Job Trends in London

Lead Software Engineer
England > London

The median Lead Software Engineer salary in London is £100,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 9 May 2026.

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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 313 376
Rank change year-on-year +39 +63 +81
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Software Engineer 131 72 140
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.64% 0.57% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.63% 0.64%
Number of salaries quoted 83 70 115
10th Percentile £70,000 £77,350 £76,250
25th Percentile - £83,750 £89,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £100,000 £110,000 £125,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -12.00% +22.40%
75th Percentile £142,500 £115,000 £153,750
90th Percentile £150,000 £120,000 £169,500
England median annual salary £85,000 £95,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year -10.53% +11.76% -10.53%

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 18,740 11,387 22,017
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.97% 90.22% 94.12%
Number of salaries quoted 12,724 7,369 16,671
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year - +7.14% -3.45%
75th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
90th Percentile £102,500 £122,500 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £59,500 £54,000
% change year-on-year -7.56% +10.19% -11.18%

Lead Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Lead Software Engineer job vacancy trend in London

Lead Software Engineer
Salary Trend in London

Salary distribution trend for Lead Software Engineer job vacancies in London.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Software Engineer job vacancies in London

Lead Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Software Engineer in London over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Software Engineer in London

Lead Software Engineer
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 Software Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 9 May 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 +4 21 £100,000 -16.67% 4
Lead Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 9 May 2026, Lead Software Engineer 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 Software Engineer in the job title.

1 131 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 71 (54.20%) AWS
3 58 (44.27%) Java
4 42 (32.06%) Agile
5 41 (31.30%) React
5 41 (31.30%) TypeScript
6 37 (28.24%) Python
7 34 (25.95%) Fintech
7 34 (25.95%) GCP
7 34 (25.95%) JavaScript
8 33 (25.19%) Node.js
9 32 (24.43%) Investment Management
9 32 (24.43%) Portfolio Management
9 32 (24.43%) Redux
10 30 (22.90%) Mentoring
11 29 (22.14%) Full-Stack Development
12 28 (21.37%) Go
13 24 (18.32%) Technical Leadership
14 21 (16.03%) Azure
14 21 (16.03%) Kafka
14 21 (16.03%) Order Management
15 20 (15.27%) GraphQL
16 19 (14.50%) CI/CD
16 19 (14.50%) Kubernetes
17 18 (13.74%) Continuous Improvement
17 18 (13.74%) PostgreSQL
18 16 (12.21%) Test Automation
19 15 (11.45%) OO
19 15 (11.45%) Roadmaps
19 15 (11.45%) TDD

Lead Software Engineer 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:

Applications
1 1 (0.76%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 71 (54.20%) AWS
2 34 (25.95%) GCP
3 21 (16.03%) Azure
4 14 (10.69%) Amazon EKS
5 10 (7.63%) SaaS
6 2 (1.53%) Amazon Bedrock
6 2 (1.53%) Serverless
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon EventBridge
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon S3
7 1 (0.76%) Amazon SQS
7 1 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (0.76%) Azure API Management
7 1 (0.76%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 1 (0.76%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.76%) Azure Service Bus
7 1 (0.76%) Datadog
7 1 (0.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (9.92%) HTTP
2 3 (2.29%) Broadband
3 1 (0.76%) Internet
3 1 (0.76%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (13.74%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.76%) DB2
2 1 (0.76%) DynamoDB
2 1 (0.76%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (10.69%) TeamCity
2 1 (0.76%) Jaeger
General
1 64 (48.85%) Finance
2 33 (25.19%) Front Office
3 28 (21.37%) Banking
4 16 (12.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 15 (11.45%) Law
6 14 (10.69%) Retail
7 10 (7.63%) Back Office
7 10 (7.63%) Financial Institution
7 10 (7.63%) Public Sector
8 8 (6.11%) Social Skills
9 1 (0.76%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (31.30%) React
2 33 (25.19%) Node.js
3 32 (24.43%) Redux
4 21 (16.03%) Kafka
5 20 (15.27%) GraphQL
6 14 (10.69%) REST
7 9 (6.87%) .NET
8 5 (3.82%) React Native
8 5 (3.82%) Spring
8 5 (3.82%) Spring Boot
9 4 (3.05%) AngularJS
9 4 (3.05%) Vue
10 3 (2.29%) Django
10 3 (2.29%) FastAPI
10 3 (2.29%) Flask
11 2 (1.53%) LangChain
11 2 (1.53%) LangGraph
12 1 (0.76%) A2A Protocol
12 1 (0.76%) CrewAI
12 1 (0.76%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 32 (24.43%) Fixed Income
2 24 (18.32%) Product Ownership
3 17 (12.98%) Cloud Native
4 14 (10.69%) Public Cloud
5 13 (9.92%) Equities
6 12 (9.16%) Derivative
7 4 (3.05%) Blog
7 4 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.76%) AI Agents
10 1 (0.76%) Blockchain
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.53%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 42 (32.06%) Agile
3 34 (25.95%) Fintech
4 32 (24.43%) Investment Management
4 32 (24.43%) Portfolio Management
5 30 (22.90%) Mentoring
6 29 (22.14%) Full-Stack Development
7 24 (18.32%) Technical Leadership
8 21 (16.03%) Order Management
9 19 (14.50%) CI/CD
10 18 (13.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 16 (12.21%) Test Automation
12 15 (11.45%) OO
12 15 (11.45%) Roadmaps
12 15 (11.45%) TDD
13 14 (10.69%) Clean Code
13 14 (10.69%) Continuous Deployment
13 14 (10.69%) Deployment Automation
13 14 (10.69%) Disruptive Innovation
13 14 (10.69%) Line Management
Programming Languages
1 58 (44.27%) Java
2 41 (31.30%) TypeScript
3 37 (28.24%) Python
4 34 (25.95%) JavaScript
5 28 (21.37%) Go
6 7 (5.34%) C#
7 5 (3.82%) Rust
8 4 (3.05%) C++
8 4 (3.05%) Scala
9 2 (1.53%) C
9 2 (1.53%) PHP
10 1 (0.76%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.76%) Ruby
10 1 (0.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (3.82%) Degree
2 4 (3.05%) SC Cleared
2 4 (3.05%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (0.76%) Azure Certification
4 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.76%) QA
System Software
1 4 (3.05%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (14.50%) Kubernetes
2 15 (11.45%) Terraform
3 14 (10.69%) Grafana
4 1 (0.76%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 2 (1.53%) Microsoft
2 1 (0.76%) OpenAI