Lead Job Trends in Manchester

Leader
North West > Manchester

The median Leader salary in Manchester is £75,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 12 January 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 18 22
Rank change year-on-year -16 +4 +9
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead 144 257 211
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 5.01% 9.66% 8.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.62% 10.30% 8.71%
Number of salaries quoted 117 145 157
10th Percentile £46,250 £38,750 £42,500
25th Percentile £65,000 £46,250 £55,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £68,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.49% -2.14% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £86,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,822 £96,539
North West median annual salary £70,000 £64,843 £67,500
% change year-on-year +7.95% -3.94% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 2,561 2,494 2,422
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.17% 93.76% 95.09%
Number of salaries quoted 1,659 1,200 1,954
10th Percentile £29,750 £35,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £39,875 £41,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £72,500 £72,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £89,200 £85,000 £84,056
North West median annual salary £50,000 £51,000 £50,396
% change year-on-year -1.96% +1.20% -4.91%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

Lead job vacancy trend in Manchester

Lead
Salary Trend in Manchester

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Manchester.

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Manchester

Lead
Salary Histogram in Manchester

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead in Manchester over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead in Manchester

Lead
Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 12 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
Rochdale +5 4 £47,500 -12.84%
Salford -9 3 £77,217 +15.01% 1
Altrincham -11 2 - -
Lead
North West

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

For the 6 months to 12 January 2026, Lead 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 Manchester region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 39 (27.08%) Agile
2 37 (25.69%) Azure
3 36 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
4 34 (23.61%) Mentoring
5 33 (22.92%) AWS
6 32 (22.22%) .NET
6 32 (22.22%) C#
7 31 (21.53%) Technical Leadership
8 26 (18.06%) SaaS
8 26 (18.06%) Software Engineering
9 22 (15.28%) Roadmaps
10 20 (13.89%) CI/CD
11 18 (12.50%) Microservices
12 16 (11.11%) Coaching
13 15 (10.42%) Microsoft
14 14 (9.72%) Business Strategy
14 14 (9.72%) React
14 14 (9.72%) TDD
14 14 (9.72%) TypeScript
15 13 (9.03%) Java
15 13 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
15 13 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
16 12 (8.33%) Full-Stack Development
16 12 (8.33%) NoSQL
17 11 (7.64%) DevOps
17 11 (7.64%) Python
17 11 (7.64%) QA
18 10 (6.94%) Design Patterns
18 10 (6.94%) JavaScript
19 9 (6.25%) AI

Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 (1.39%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (3.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.69%) Global One
2 1 (0.69%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 37 (25.69%) Azure
2 33 (22.92%) AWS
3 26 (18.06%) SaaS
4 8 (5.56%) Serverless
5 6 (4.17%) Azure Logic Apps
6 5 (3.47%) GCP
6 5 (3.47%) Power Platform
7 4 (2.78%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 4 (2.78%) Azure Functions
7 4 (2.78%) Azure Service Bus
7 4 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.08%) GitHub
9 2 (1.39%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.39%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.39%) PaaS
10 1 (0.69%) Cloud Composer
10 1 (0.69%) dbt
10 1 (0.69%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.33%) NoSQL
2 7 (4.86%) MongoDB
3 6 (4.17%) MySQL
4 5 (3.47%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.39%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.69%) Big Data
7 1 (0.69%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.69%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.69%) Power BI
7 1 (0.69%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 3 (2.08%) Git
1 3 (2.08%) Selenium
1 3 (2.08%) Xcode
2 1 (0.69%) Appium
2 1 (0.69%) Bitbucket
2 1 (0.69%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.69%) Cypress.io
2 1 (0.69%) JIRA
2 1 (0.69%) JMeter
2 1 (0.69%) Locust
2 1 (0.69%) Postman
2 1 (0.69%) REST Assured
General
1 15 (10.42%) Finance
2 14 (9.72%) Social Skills
3 9 (6.25%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.17%) Games
5 5 (3.47%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (3.47%) Banking
5 5 (3.47%) Marketing
5 5 (3.47%) Retail
6 4 (2.78%) Manufacturing
6 4 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
7 3 (2.08%) Electronics
7 3 (2.08%) Legal
7 3 (2.08%) Local Government
8 2 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.39%) Police
9 1 (0.69%) Aeronautics
9 1 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.69%) Social Housing
9 1 (0.69%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (22.22%) .NET
2 14 (9.72%) React
3 6 (4.17%) .NET Framework
4 5 (3.47%) REST
5 4 (2.78%) CSS
5 4 (2.78%) HTML
5 4 (2.78%) RESTful
5 4 (2.78%) Web Services
6 3 (2.08%) AngularJS
6 3 (2.08%) iOS SDK
6 3 (2.08%) PyTorch
6 3 (2.08%) SwiftUI
6 3 (2.08%) TensorFlow
6 3 (2.08%) UIKit
7 2 (1.39%) Blazor
7 2 (1.39%) Entity Framework
7 2 (1.39%) Node.js
7 2 (1.39%) Razor View Engine
7 2 (1.39%) Software Packaging
8 1 (0.69%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 11 (7.64%) Distributed Systems
2 10 (6.94%) Product Ownership
3 8 (5.56%) Mobile App
4 7 (4.86%) Cloud Native
4 7 (4.86%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (4.17%) Cyber Threat
6 5 (3.47%) Clustering
6 5 (3.47%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (2.78%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 4 (2.78%) Operational Technology
8 3 (2.08%) Distributed Computing
8 3 (2.08%) Low-Code
9 2 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.39%) Marketing Technology
9 2 (1.39%) NHS
9 2 (1.39%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.39%) Sports Betting
10 1 (0.69%) Cybercrime
10 1 (0.69%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.69%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 6 (4.17%) Windows
2 3 (2.08%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.39%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.69%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (27.08%) Agile
2 36 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 34 (23.61%) Mentoring
4 31 (21.53%) Technical Leadership
5 26 (18.06%) Software Engineering
6 22 (15.28%) Roadmaps
7 20 (13.89%) CI/CD
8 18 (12.50%) Microservices
9 16 (11.11%) Coaching
10 14 (9.72%) Business Strategy
10 14 (9.72%) TDD
11 13 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
11 13 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
12 12 (8.33%) Full-Stack Development
13 11 (7.64%) DevOps
14 10 (6.94%) Design Patterns
15 9 (6.25%) AI
15 9 (6.25%) Project Delivery
16 8 (5.56%) Analytics
16 8 (5.56%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 32 (22.22%) C#
2 14 (9.72%) TypeScript
3 13 (9.03%) Java
4 11 (7.64%) Python
5 10 (6.94%) JavaScript
6 8 (5.56%) SQL
7 3 (2.08%) Go
7 3 (2.08%) Swift
8 1 (0.69%) PHP
8 1 (0.69%) Scala
Qualifications
1 8 (5.56%) Degree
1 8 (5.56%) Security Cleared
2 5 (3.47%) SC Cleared
3 4 (2.78%) CISM
4 2 (1.39%) CompTIA Security+
4 2 (1.39%) CRISC
5 1 (0.69%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.69%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.69%) CISSP
5 1 (0.69%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.69%) GCFA
5 1 (0.69%) GCFE
5 1 (0.69%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.69%) MBA
5 1 (0.69%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.64%) QA
2 6 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.17%) NIST
3 4 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 3 (2.08%) GRC
5 2 (1.39%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.39%) SLA
6 1 (0.69%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.69%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (4.86%) Docker
2 4 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.69%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 7 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.39%) Terraform
3 1 (0.69%) Ansible
3 1 (0.69%) Grafana
3 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 15 (10.42%) Microsoft
2 7 (4.86%) SAP
3 2 (1.39%) Ariba
4 1 (0.69%) Adaptive Insights
4 1 (0.69%) Anaplan
4 1 (0.69%) Databricks
4 1 (0.69%) Openreach
4 1 (0.69%) Salesforce