Lead Job Trends in Scotland

Leader
UK > Scotland

The median Leader salary in Scotland is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 30 25
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +7
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead 120 174 331
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 4.34% 6.79% 10.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.88% 7.23% 10.90%
Number of salaries quoted 78 75 102
10th Percentile £29,000 £43,000 £53,197
25th Percentile £36,438 £58,250 £63,452
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £72,500 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.24% -3.33% -5.82%
75th Percentile £74,767 £90,000 £96,539
90th Percentile £100,000 £125,000 £137,913
UK median annual salary £75,000 £72,500 £75,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 2,460 2,406 3,036
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.03% 93.87% 96.44%
Number of salaries quoted 1,211 1,060 1,881
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,301 £25,000
25th Percentile £31,000 £41,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £88,750 £83,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

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

Lead job vacancy trend in Scotland

Lead
Salary Trend in Scotland

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Scotland.

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Scotland

Lead
Salary Histogram in Scotland

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead in Scotland over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead in Scotland

Lead
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 within the Scotland region over the 6 months to 14 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
Edinburgh -31 41 £67,550 -9.93% 25
Glasgow -3 30 £67,500 -10.00% 16
West Lothian +15 9 £30,000 - 2
Aberdeen +9 9 £55,000 -26.67% 10
North Lanarkshire -5 9 £36,000 -37.39% 1
Clackmannanshire - 7 - -
Dumfries and Galloway - 6 - -
South Ayrshire +10 3 £55,498 -
Stirling - 2 £34,000 - 3
Fife - 1 - - 1
Renfrewshire - 1 £49,433 - 1
Lead
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 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 Scotland region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 18 (15.00%) Degree
2 16 (13.33%) Azure
3 15 (12.50%) Software Engineering
4 14 (11.67%) Microsoft
4 14 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 12 (10.00%) AWS
6 11 (9.17%) Analytics
6 11 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement
6 11 (9.17%) Java
6 11 (9.17%) Roadmaps
7 10 (8.33%) Agile
7 10 (8.33%) B2B
7 10 (8.33%) Customer Service
7 10 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
7 10 (8.33%) E-Commerce
7 10 (8.33%) Telesales
8 9 (7.50%) Asset Management
8 9 (7.50%) Business Development
8 9 (7.50%) Business Intelligence
8 9 (7.50%) CI/CD
8 9 (7.50%) Data Engineering
8 9 (7.50%) ERP
8 9 (7.50%) Lead Generation
8 9 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (6.67%) Coaching
9 8 (6.67%) Mentoring
10 7 (5.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (5.83%) Budget Management
10 7 (5.83%) Business Strategy
10 7 (5.83%) C#

Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Scotland 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 (1.67%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (1.67%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 5 (4.17%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.83%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.83%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 16 (13.33%) Azure
2 12 (10.00%) AWS
3 5 (4.17%) GCP
4 4 (3.33%) Entra ID
4 4 (3.33%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (3.33%) Power Platform
4 4 (3.33%) SaaS
5 3 (2.50%) dbt
6 2 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.67%) Azure Stack
6 2 (1.67%) PaaS
7 1 (0.83%) Amazon Bedrock
7 1 (0.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.83%) Amazon SageMaker
7 1 (0.83%) Datadog
7 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 6 (5.00%) Firewall
2 1 (0.83%) BGP
2 1 (0.83%) Broadband
2 1 (0.83%) LAN
2 1 (0.83%) MPLS
2 1 (0.83%) WAN
2 1 (0.83%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.33%) Power BI
2 3 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.67%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.83%) Metadata
4 1 (0.83%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 3 (2.50%) JIRA
2 2 (1.67%) Git
2 2 (1.67%) Visual Studio
3 1 (0.83%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.83%) JMeter
3 1 (0.83%) Locust
3 1 (0.83%) Rational DOORS
3 1 (0.83%) Rational Rhapsody
3 1 (0.83%) Rational Statemate
General
1 26 (21.67%) Finance
2 21 (17.50%) Social Skills
3 9 (7.50%) Games
4 8 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (5.83%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 6 (5.00%) Retail
7 5 (4.17%) Banking
7 5 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (3.33%) Law
8 4 (3.33%) Legal
8 4 (3.33%) Military
8 4 (3.33%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.50%) Avionics
10 2 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.67%) Private Banking
11 1 (0.83%) Billing
11 1 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.83%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.83%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.50%) .NET
2 2 (1.67%) .NET Framework
2 2 (1.67%) AngularJS
2 2 (1.67%) Kafka
2 2 (1.67%) React
2 2 (1.67%) RESTful
3 1 (0.83%) Gherkin
3 1 (0.83%) Hugging Face
3 1 (0.83%) LangChain
3 1 (0.83%) Next.js
3 1 (0.83%) Node.js
3 1 (0.83%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 7 (5.83%) Driving Licence
2 4 (3.33%) Management Information System
3 3 (2.50%) Cloud Native
4 2 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (1.67%) Life Science
4 2 (1.67%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.67%) Product Ownership
4 2 (1.67%) Robotics
4 2 (1.67%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (0.83%) AI Agents
5 1 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (0.83%) e-Learning
5 1 (0.83%) Operational Technology
5 1 (0.83%) PMI
5 1 (0.83%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.83%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 3 (2.50%) Windows
2 2 (1.67%) Linux
2 2 (1.67%) Ubuntu
3 1 (0.83%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (12.50%) Software Engineering
2 14 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 11 (9.17%) Analytics
3 11 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement
3 11 (9.17%) Roadmaps
4 10 (8.33%) Agile
4 10 (8.33%) B2B
4 10 (8.33%) Customer Service
4 10 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
4 10 (8.33%) E-Commerce
4 10 (8.33%) Telesales
5 9 (7.50%) Asset Management
5 9 (7.50%) Business Development
5 9 (7.50%) Business Intelligence
5 9 (7.50%) CI/CD
5 9 (7.50%) Data Engineering
5 9 (7.50%) ERP
5 9 (7.50%) Lead Generation
5 9 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
6 8 (6.67%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.17%) Java
2 7 (5.83%) C#
3 6 (5.00%) Python
4 4 (3.33%) Ada
4 4 (3.33%) C
4 4 (3.33%) PowerShell
4 4 (3.33%) SQL
5 2 (1.67%) Scala
6 1 (0.83%) Bash
6 1 (0.83%) C++
6 1 (0.83%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 18 (15.00%) Degree
2 7 (5.83%) BPSS Clearance
3 6 (5.00%) HNC
4 4 (3.33%) SC Cleared
4 4 (3.33%) Security Cleared
5 3 (2.50%) CISM
5 3 (2.50%) CISSP
6 2 (1.67%) CCNA
6 2 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.83%) ACCA
7 1 (0.83%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.83%) Chartered Engineer
7 1 (0.83%) HND
7 1 (0.83%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.83%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.17%) SLA
2 3 (2.50%) GDPR
3 2 (1.67%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.67%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.67%) PMO
4 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.83%) QA
4 1 (0.83%) WCAG
System Software
1 5 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.67%) Firmware
3 1 (0.83%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.83%) Docker
3 1 (0.83%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 5 (4.17%) Cisco CUCM
2 3 (2.50%) Ansible
2 3 (2.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (1.67%) Grafana
3 2 (1.67%) Terraform
4 1 (0.83%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.83%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.83%) SCCM
Vendors
1 14 (11.67%) Microsoft
2 7 (5.83%) Cisco
3 5 (4.17%) VMware
4 2 (1.67%) Databricks
4 2 (1.67%) Oracle
5 1 (0.83%) Citrix
5 1 (0.83%) Computacenter
5 1 (0.83%) F5
5 1 (0.83%) Fortinet
5 1 (0.83%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.83%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.83%) Openreach
5 1 (0.83%) ServiceNow
5 1 (0.83%) SolarWinds
5 1 (0.83%) Splunk