Lead Software Engineer Job Trends in Scotland

Lead Software Engineer
UK > Scotland

The median Lead Software Engineer salary in Scotland is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 September 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 96 47 130
Rank change year-on-year -49 +83 +72
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Software Engineer 59 236 33
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 2.31% 5.47% 1.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.82% 5.66% 1.30%
Number of salaries quoted 4 25 32
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £77,500 £65,000 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £75,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +15.38% -18.75%
75th Percentile £82,500 £98,474 -
90th Percentile - £100,000 £137,913
UK median annual salary £90,000 £90,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
Scotland

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in Scotland. 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 Scotland with a recognized job title 2,089 4,173 2,529
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 81.79% 96.73% 95.15%
Number of salaries quoted 883 1,910 2,015
10th Percentile £26,250 £30,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £32,000 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £66,250 £68,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £83,541 £80,000 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - -8.33% -

Lead Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

Job postings that featured Lead Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Scotland.

Job vacancy trend for Lead Software Engineer in Scotland

Lead Software Engineer
Salary Trend in Scotland

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

Salary distribution trend for Lead Software Engineer job vacancies in Scotland

Lead Software Engineer
Job Locations in Scotland

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 Scotland region over the 6 months to 18 September 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
Glasgow -4 57 £80,000 +6.67% 2
Edinburgh -13 2 - -
Lead Software Engineer
UK

Lead Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Scotland

For the 6 months to 18 September 2025, Lead Software Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the Scotland region featuring Lead Software Engineer in the job title.

1 59 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 53 (89.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 53 (89.83%) Finance
2 53 (89.83%) Law
3 47 (79.66%) Agile
4 45 (76.27%) Operational Stability
5 37 (62.71%) SDLC
6 36 (61.02%) Banking
6 36 (61.02%) Cloud Native
7 33 (55.93%) CI/CD
8 32 (54.24%) Java
9 29 (49.15%) Artificial Intelligence
10 28 (47.46%) Community of Practice
11 27 (45.76%) Architectural Design
11 27 (45.76%) Information Architecture
12 25 (42.37%) Machine Learning
13 24 (40.68%) Kafka
14 22 (37.29%) Python
14 22 (37.29%) AWS
15 20 (33.90%) Spring
16 19 (32.20%) Problem-Solving
17 18 (30.51%) SQL
18 17 (28.81%) Marketing
19 16 (27.12%) RESTful
20 15 (25.42%) Decision-Making
21 14 (23.73%) Kubernetes
22 13 (22.03%) Mathematics
22 13 (22.03%) Computer Science
23 12 (20.34%) React
23 12 (20.34%) Azure

Lead Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Scotland by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (13.56%) Apache
1 8 (13.56%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 22 (37.29%) AWS
2 12 (20.34%) Azure
3 8 (13.56%) GCP
3 8 (13.56%) GitHub
4 5 (8.47%) Amazon EKS
5 4 (6.78%) Amazon S3
5 4 (6.78%) Azure AI
5 4 (6.78%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (6.78%) ChatGPT
5 4 (6.78%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (6.78%) Microsoft Copilot
6 1 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (1.69%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.39%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (20.34%) Big Data
2 8 (13.56%) Amazon Athena
2 8 (13.56%) KDB
2 8 (13.56%) Kdb+
2 8 (13.56%) NoSQL
2 8 (13.56%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (6.78%) Amazon Redshift
3 4 (6.78%) Apache Hudi
3 4 (6.78%) Apache Iceberg
3 4 (6.78%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (6.78%) InterSystems Cache
3 4 (6.78%) Parquet
3 4 (6.78%) Relational Database
4 3 (5.08%) Data Mart
5 2 (3.39%) DB2
6 1 (1.69%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (1.69%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 4 (6.78%) Jenkins
1 4 (6.78%) JUnit
General
1 53 (89.83%) Finance
1 53 (89.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
1 53 (89.83%) Law
2 36 (61.02%) Banking
3 17 (28.81%) Marketing
4 7 (11.86%) Private Banking
5 4 (6.78%) Front Office
5 4 (6.78%) Investment Banking
5 4 (6.78%) Organisational Skills
5 4 (6.78%) Social Skills
6 2 (3.39%) Analytical Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (40.68%) Kafka
2 20 (33.90%) Spring
3 16 (27.12%) RESTful
4 12 (20.34%) React
5 8 (13.56%) Spring Boot
5 8 (13.56%) Web Services
6 5 (8.47%) PySpark
7 4 (6.78%) .NET
7 4 (6.78%) .NET Core
7 4 (6.78%) AngularJS
7 4 (6.78%) Blazor
7 4 (6.78%) FIX Protocol
7 4 (6.78%) J2EE
7 4 (6.78%) OAuth
7 4 (6.78%) OAuth2
7 4 (6.78%) OpenID
7 4 (6.78%) REST
7 4 (6.78%) SAML
8 1 (1.69%) NumPy
8 1 (1.69%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 36 (61.02%) Cloud Native
2 9 (15.25%) Algorithms
3 8 (13.56%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (6.78%) Credit Risk
4 4 (6.78%) Derivative
4 4 (6.78%) Distributed Applications
4 4 (6.78%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (6.78%) Fixed Income
4 4 (6.78%) Onboarding
5 2 (3.39%) AS400
5 2 (3.39%) iSeries
6 1 (1.69%) Public Cloud
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 47 (79.66%) Agile
3 45 (76.27%) Operational Stability
4 37 (62.71%) SDLC
5 33 (55.93%) CI/CD
6 29 (49.15%) Artificial Intelligence
7 28 (47.46%) Community of Practice
8 27 (45.76%) Architectural Design
8 27 (45.76%) Information Architecture
9 25 (42.37%) Machine Learning
10 19 (32.20%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (25.42%) Decision-Making
12 13 (22.03%) Computer Science
12 13 (22.03%) Mathematics
13 12 (20.34%) Full-Stack Development
14 9 (15.25%) Tech Ops
14 9 (15.25%) Visualisation
15 8 (13.56%) Analytics
15 8 (13.56%) Continuous Improvement
15 8 (13.56%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 32 (54.24%) Java
2 22 (37.29%) Python
3 18 (30.51%) SQL
4 8 (13.56%) C#
4 8 (13.56%) JavaScript
5 4 (6.78%) Go
5 4 (6.78%) TypeScript
6 2 (3.39%) RPG
6 2 (3.39%) RPG IV
Qualifications
1 1 (1.69%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (6.78%) Data Quality
System Software
1 8 (13.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (23.73%) Kubernetes
2 9 (15.25%) Terraform
3 4 (6.78%) Grafana
3 4 (6.78%) Netcool
3 4 (6.78%) Netcool/OMNIbus
3 4 (6.78%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 8 (13.56%) Oracle
2 6 (10.17%) IBM
3 4 (6.78%) Databricks
3 4 (6.78%) Dynatrace
3 4 (6.78%) Facebook
3 4 (6.78%) Google
3 4 (6.78%) ServiceNow
3 4 (6.78%) Splunk
4 3 (5.08%) Murex