Lead Developer Jobs

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer salary in the UK is £72,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 21 June 2025.

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

6 months to
21 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 426 239 384
Rank change year-on-year -187 +145 -43
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 303 1,277 792
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 1.14% 0.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.60% 1.20% 0.95%
Number of salaries quoted 209 1,159 666
10th Percentile £53,500 £48,750 £53,750
25th Percentile £62,500 £56,250 £63,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £70,000 £77,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -9.68% +3.33%
75th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £97,500
90th Percentile £110,500 £112,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £67,500
% change year-on-year +7.69% -3.70% +3.85%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 the UK with a recognized job title 50,509 106,005 83,096
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.73% 94.81% 91.13%
Number of salaries quoted 26,760 74,939 54,346
10th Percentile £27,500 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,750 £38,680 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,055 £50,000 £53,500
% change year-on-year +0.11% -6.54% +6.63%

Lead Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead Developer in the UK

Lead Developer
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Lead Developer.

Salary trend for Lead Developer in the UK

Lead Developer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer over the 6 months to 21 June 2025.

Salary histogram for Lead Developer in the UK

Lead Developer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 21 June 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
England -184 277 £72,500 +3.57% 474
UK excluding London -160 154 £70,000 +7.69% 283
London -85 136 £85,000 -7.61% 225
Work from Home -154 117 £70,000 - 308
North of England -135 44 £72,500 +11.54% 90
South East -21 35 £71,250 +1.79% 79
North West -100 31 £72,500 +3.57% 57
Midlands -9 28 £67,500 +12.50% 30
South West +55 24 £57,500 +0.80% 34
West Midlands -12 17 £70,000 +9.80% 20
Yorkshire -5 12 £68,750 +24.61% 28
East Midlands +25 11 £66,250 +20.45% 10
Wales +12 10 £75,000 +15.38% 10
East of England +7 7 £75,000 +25.00% 21
Scotland +85 6 £50,500 -22.31% 14
Northern Ireland +40 1 - - 9
North East +24 1 £80,000 +14.29% 5

Lead Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 June 2025, Lead Developer 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 featuring Lead Developer in the job title.

1 131 (43.23%) Agile
2 127 (41.91%) JavaScript
3 96 (31.68%) Mentoring
4 93 (30.69%) C#
5 88 (29.04%) Azure
5 88 (29.04%) AWS
6 86 (28.38%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (28.05%) React
8 78 (25.74%) .NET
9 77 (25.41%) Software Engineering
10 75 (24.75%) CI/CD
11 70 (23.10%) TypeScript
12 69 (22.77%) DevOps
13 68 (22.44%) SQL
13 68 (22.44%) Social Skills
14 67 (22.11%) Full-Stack Development
15 66 (21.78%) Java
16 60 (19.80%) Finance
16 60 (19.80%) Microservices
17 58 (19.14%) Docker
18 56 (18.48%) Python
19 54 (17.82%) CSS
20 49 (16.17%) HTML
21 48 (15.84%) AngularJS
22 47 (15.51%) Kubernetes
23 46 (15.18%) Microsoft
24 45 (14.85%) TDD
24 45 (14.85%) Node.js
25 44 (14.52%) SDLC
25 44 (14.52%) Front End Development

Lead Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 16 (5.28%) CMS
2 12 (3.96%) Confluence
3 10 (3.30%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.97%) WordPress
5 8 (2.64%) Drupal
6 4 (1.32%) Apache
7 3 (0.99%) Mule
7 3 (0.99%) Oracle Coherence
7 3 (0.99%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.99%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.66%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.66%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.33%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.33%) Appian
9 1 (0.33%) CICS
9 1 (0.33%) DNN
9 1 (0.33%) Oracle Application Server
9 1 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.33%) Sitecore CMS
9 1 (0.33%) Sitefinity
Applications
1 5 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.33%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.33%) Moqups
2 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.33%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 11 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (3.63%) Shopify
2 9 (2.97%) Magento
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 88 (29.04%) AWS
1 88 (29.04%) Azure
2 37 (12.21%) Power Platform
3 25 (8.25%) GitHub
4 23 (7.59%) Serverless
5 22 (7.26%) SaaS
6 20 (6.60%) Power Automate
6 20 (6.60%) PowerApps
7 17 (5.61%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (5.28%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (4.62%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (4.62%) Amazon S3
9 14 (4.62%) Amazon SQS
10 13 (4.29%) GCP
11 11 (3.63%) Azure Functions
12 10 (3.30%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (2.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (2.64%) AWS KMS
13 8 (2.64%) Azure Logic Apps
13 8 (2.64%) BigCommerce
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.63%) Network Security
2 9 (2.97%) Modbus
2 9 (2.97%) MQTT
2 9 (2.97%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (14.19%) SQL Server
2 38 (12.54%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (8.91%) Power BI
4 22 (7.26%) NoSQL
5 21 (6.93%) MongoDB
6 14 (4.62%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (4.29%) DynamoDB
8 12 (3.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 11 (3.63%) Data Warehouse
10 10 (3.30%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (3.30%) Azure SQL Database
11 9 (2.97%) Relational Database
12 7 (2.31%) Data Lake
12 7 (2.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (1.98%) MySQL
14 5 (1.65%) Big Data
15 4 (1.32%) Amazon Athena
15 4 (1.32%) Apache Iceberg
16 3 (0.99%) Tableau
17 2 (0.66%) Redis
Development Applications
1 35 (11.55%) Git
2 24 (7.92%) Jenkins
3 22 (7.26%) JIRA
4 17 (5.61%) SonarQube
5 12 (3.96%) Maven
6 10 (3.30%) JUnit
7 9 (2.97%) Mockito
8 8 (2.64%) Bitbucket Server
8 8 (2.64%) DbUnit
8 8 (2.64%) Grunt
8 8 (2.64%) jMock
8 8 (2.64%) webpack
9 7 (2.31%) Visual Studio
10 6 (1.98%) Bitbucket
10 6 (1.98%) Gradle
10 6 (1.98%) Jasmine
10 6 (1.98%) Mocha
11 4 (1.32%) Cypress.io
11 4 (1.32%) NUnit
11 4 (1.32%) Subversion
General
1 68 (22.44%) Social Skills
2 60 (19.80%) Finance
3 43 (14.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 26 (8.58%) Law
5 24 (7.92%) Retail
6 22 (7.26%) Marketing
7 20 (6.60%) Banking
8 19 (6.27%) Games
9 15 (4.95%) Analytical Skills
10 12 (3.96%) Public Sector
11 10 (3.30%) Front Office
11 10 (3.30%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (2.64%) Legal
13 6 (1.98%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.65%) Tech for Good
15 4 (1.32%) iGaming
15 4 (1.32%) Private Banking
16 3 (0.99%) Advertising
16 3 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
17 2 (0.66%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (28.05%) React
2 78 (25.74%) .NET
3 54 (17.82%) CSS
4 49 (16.17%) HTML
5 48 (15.84%) AngularJS
6 45 (14.85%) Node.js
7 33 (10.89%) RESTful
8 32 (10.56%) REST
9 29 (9.57%) .NET Core
10 26 (8.58%) Vue
11 24 (7.92%) Spring
12 23 (7.59%) Spring Boot
12 23 (7.59%) Web Services
13 20 (6.60%) SOAP
14 19 (6.27%) Bootstrap
14 19 (6.27%) Kafka
15 18 (5.94%) GraphQL
16 17 (5.61%) Redux
17 14 (4.62%) ActiveMQ
17 14 (4.62%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.60%) Cloud Native
2 19 (6.27%) Legacy Systems
3 16 (5.28%) Mobile App
3 16 (5.28%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.30%) Device Driver
4 10 (3.30%) IoT
5 8 (2.64%) EPoS
6 7 (2.31%) Algorithms
6 7 (2.31%) Distributed Architecture
7 6 (1.98%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.98%) Derivative
7 6 (1.98%) Fixed Income
7 6 (1.98%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.98%) Mobile Games
8 5 (1.65%) Clustering
8 5 (1.65%) e-Learning
8 5 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.32%) Distributed Applications
9 4 (1.32%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.32%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 33 (10.89%) Linux
2 16 (5.28%) Unix
3 11 (3.63%) Android
3 11 (3.63%) Windows
4 10 (3.30%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.33%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (43.23%) Agile
2 96 (31.68%) Mentoring
3 86 (28.38%) Problem-Solving
4 77 (25.41%) Software Engineering
5 75 (24.75%) CI/CD
6 69 (22.77%) DevOps
7 67 (22.11%) Full-Stack Development
8 60 (19.80%) Microservices
9 45 (14.85%) TDD
10 44 (14.52%) Front End Development
10 44 (14.52%) SDLC
11 39 (12.87%) Scrum
12 34 (11.22%) Continuous Improvement
13 33 (10.89%) Technical Leadership
14 32 (10.56%) Containerisation
15 29 (9.57%) Business Intelligence
15 29 (9.57%) Computer Science
15 29 (9.57%) Design Patterns
16 26 (8.58%) Test Automation
17 25 (8.25%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 127 (41.91%) JavaScript
2 93 (30.69%) C#
3 70 (23.10%) TypeScript
4 68 (22.44%) SQL
5 66 (21.78%) Java
6 56 (18.48%) Python
7 23 (7.59%) C++
8 21 (6.93%) C
9 18 (5.94%) PowerShell
10 12 (3.96%) PHP
11 9 (2.97%) Kotlin
12 8 (2.64%) Delphi
12 8 (2.64%) Swift
13 7 (2.31%) Go
14 6 (1.98%) Objective-C
14 6 (1.98%) T-SQL
15 4 (1.32%) PL/SQL
16 3 (0.99%) Apex Code
16 3 (0.99%) Shell Script
16 3 (0.99%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 42 (13.86%) Degree
2 24 (7.92%) Security Cleared
3 21 (6.93%) Computer Science Degree
4 19 (6.27%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.32%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.32%) AWS Certified Developer
5 4 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 4 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.32%) PhD
6 3 (0.99%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.99%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.66%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.66%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.66%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.33%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (8.58%) QA
2 6 (1.98%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.33%) GDPR
4 1 (0.33%) PMO
System Software
1 58 (19.14%) Docker
2 10 (3.30%) Firmware
3 1 (0.33%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 47 (15.51%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.60%) Terraform
3 3 (0.99%) Argo
3 3 (0.99%) Grafana
3 3 (0.99%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.33%) Ansible
4 1 (0.33%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 46 (15.18%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.64%) Atlassian
3 7 (2.31%) Google
3 7 (2.31%) Oracle
4 6 (1.98%) New Relic
4 6 (1.98%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.32%) Salesforce
5 4 (1.32%) Splunk
6 3 (0.99%) Adobe
6 3 (0.99%) Databricks
6 3 (0.99%) IFS
6 3 (0.99%) Solace
7 2 (0.66%) Informatica
7 2 (0.66%) Mercator
7 2 (0.66%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.33%) Apple
8 1 (0.33%) Bloomberg
8 1 (0.33%) Dell
8 1 (0.33%) IBM
8 1 (0.33%) Sitecore