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 2 July 2025.

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

6 months to
2 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 434 235 366
Rank change year-on-year -199 +131 -18
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 318 1,287 795
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 1.19% 0.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 1.26% 0.98%
Number of salaries quoted 223 1,172 670
10th Percentile £53,750 £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 £86,250 £90,313 £97,500
90th Percentile £119,000 £117,250 £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 52,512 102,387 81,388
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.85% 94.81% 91.21%
Number of salaries quoted 28,421 72,229 54,035
10th Percentile £27,000 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £38,750 £44,250
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 £50,000 £50,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +4.95%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -198 288 £72,500 +3.57% 434
UK excluding London -159 167 £70,000 +7.69% 278
London -80 139 £88,750 -6.58% 199
Work from Home -155 122 £70,000 - 279
North of England -120 50 £70,000 +7.69% 80
South East -11 36 £72,500 +3.57% 88
North West -89 34 £72,500 +3.57% 48
Midlands -42 30 £67,500 +12.50% 15
South West +51 24 £57,500 +4.22% 37
West Midlands -24 19 £70,000 +9.80% 6
Yorkshire -6 15 £67,500 +22.34% 26
Wales +8 12 £75,000 +11.11% 20
East Midlands +22 11 £67,500 +22.73% 9
Scotland +70 8 £58,000 -10.77% 12
East of England -3 7 £75,000 +25.00% 21
Northern Ireland +39 1 - - 7
North East +16 1 £80,000 +15.52% 6

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

For the 6 months to 2 July 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.

1 135 (42.45%) Agile
2 130 (40.88%) JavaScript
3 100 (31.45%) C#
4 97 (30.50%) Azure
5 94 (29.56%) AWS
6 91 (28.62%) Mentoring
7 85 (26.73%) React
7 85 (26.73%) Problem-Solving
8 83 (26.10%) .NET
9 77 (24.21%) Software Engineering
10 73 (22.96%) CI/CD
11 72 (22.64%) SQL
12 71 (22.33%) TypeScript
13 69 (21.70%) Java
14 68 (21.38%) Finance
15 67 (21.07%) DevOps
15 67 (21.07%) Full-Stack Development
15 67 (21.07%) Social Skills
16 61 (19.18%) Python
17 59 (18.55%) Microservices
18 58 (18.24%) Docker
19 49 (15.41%) Microsoft
20 48 (15.09%) CSS
20 48 (15.09%) Node.js
20 48 (15.09%) AngularJS
21 46 (14.47%) Kubernetes
22 45 (14.15%) Front End Development
22 45 (14.15%) HTML
22 45 (14.15%) SQL Server
22 45 (14.15%) Inclusion and Diversity

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 14 (4.40%) CMS
2 11 (3.46%) Confluence
2 11 (3.46%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.52%) WordPress
4 7 (2.20%) Drupal
5 4 (1.26%) Apache
6 3 (0.94%) Mule
6 3 (0.94%) Oracle Coherence
6 3 (0.94%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.94%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.63%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.63%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.31%) Appian
8 1 (0.31%) DNN
8 1 (0.31%) Kentico
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.31%) Sitecore CMS
8 1 (0.31%) Sitefinity
Applications
1 5 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.31%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.31%) Moqups
3 1 (0.31%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.31%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 14 (4.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (3.14%) Shopify
3 8 (2.52%) Magento
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 97 (30.50%) Azure
2 94 (29.56%) AWS
3 38 (11.95%) Power Platform
4 24 (7.55%) SaaS
4 24 (7.55%) Serverless
5 22 (6.92%) GitHub
5 22 (6.92%) PowerApps
6 20 (6.29%) Dynamics 365
6 20 (6.29%) Power Automate
7 16 (5.03%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (4.72%) Amazon SQS
9 14 (4.40%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (4.40%) Amazon S3
9 14 (4.40%) GCP
10 11 (3.46%) Azure Functions
11 8 (2.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 8 (2.52%) AWS KMS
11 8 (2.52%) Azure Logic Apps
11 8 (2.52%) BigCommerce
11 8 (2.52%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.46%) Network Security
2 9 (2.83%) Modbus
2 9 (2.83%) MQTT
2 9 (2.83%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (14.15%) SQL Server
2 38 (11.95%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (8.49%) Power BI
4 25 (7.86%) NoSQL
5 24 (7.55%) MongoDB
6 14 (4.40%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (4.40%) DynamoDB
7 11 (3.46%) Amazon Aurora
7 11 (3.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 10 (3.14%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (2.20%) Data Lake
9 7 (2.20%) Relational Database
10 6 (1.89%) MySQL
10 6 (1.89%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (1.57%) Big Data
12 4 (1.26%) Amazon Athena
12 4 (1.26%) Apache Iceberg
12 4 (1.26%) Tick Data
13 3 (0.94%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (10.38%) Git
2 21 (6.60%) JIRA
3 20 (6.29%) Jenkins
4 13 (4.09%) SonarQube
5 12 (3.77%) Maven
6 10 (3.14%) JUnit
7 9 (2.83%) Mockito
8 8 (2.52%) Bitbucket Server
8 8 (2.52%) DbUnit
8 8 (2.52%) jMock
9 7 (2.20%) Visual Studio
10 6 (1.89%) Bitbucket
10 6 (1.89%) Grunt
10 6 (1.89%) Jasmine
10 6 (1.89%) Mocha
10 6 (1.89%) webpack
11 4 (1.26%) Cypress.io
11 4 (1.26%) NUnit
11 4 (1.26%) Subversion
11 4 (1.26%) Vite
General
1 68 (21.38%) Finance
2 67 (21.07%) Social Skills
3 45 (14.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 26 (8.18%) Law
5 23 (7.23%) Marketing
6 22 (6.92%) Retail
7 20 (6.29%) Banking
8 15 (4.72%) Analytical Skills
8 15 (4.72%) Front Office
9 14 (4.40%) Games
10 13 (4.09%) Public Sector
11 10 (3.14%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (2.52%) Legal
13 6 (1.89%) Retail Banking
14 4 (1.26%) Back Office
14 4 (1.26%) Private Banking
14 4 (1.26%) Tech for Good
15 3 (0.94%) Automotive
15 3 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.63%) iGaming
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (26.73%) React
2 83 (26.10%) .NET
3 48 (15.09%) AngularJS
3 48 (15.09%) CSS
3 48 (15.09%) Node.js
4 45 (14.15%) HTML
5 31 (9.75%) REST
5 31 (9.75%) RESTful
6 30 (9.43%) .NET Core
7 27 (8.49%) Vue
8 24 (7.55%) Kafka
9 23 (7.23%) GraphQL
9 23 (7.23%) Spring
9 23 (7.23%) Web Services
10 22 (6.92%) Spring Boot
11 21 (6.60%) Redux
12 20 (6.29%) SOAP
13 19 (5.97%) Bootstrap
14 16 (5.03%) ASP.NET
15 14 (4.40%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.92%) Cloud Native
2 18 (5.66%) Legacy Systems
3 16 (5.03%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.46%) Fixed Income
4 11 (3.46%) Mobile App
5 10 (3.14%) Device Driver
5 10 (3.14%) IoT
6 8 (2.52%) EPoS
7 7 (2.20%) Distributed Architecture
8 6 (1.89%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.89%) Clustering
8 6 (1.89%) Derivative
9 5 (1.57%) e-Learning
9 5 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.26%) Data Structures
10 4 (1.26%) Distributed Applications
10 4 (1.26%) Equities
10 4 (1.26%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.26%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.26%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 34 (10.69%) Linux
2 16 (5.03%) Unix
3 11 (3.46%) Windows
4 7 (2.20%) Android
5 6 (1.89%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.31%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (42.45%) Agile
2 91 (28.62%) Mentoring
3 85 (26.73%) Problem-Solving
4 77 (24.21%) Software Engineering
5 73 (22.96%) CI/CD
6 67 (21.07%) DevOps
6 67 (21.07%) Full-Stack Development
7 59 (18.55%) Microservices
8 45 (14.15%) Front End Development
9 44 (13.84%) SDLC
10 42 (13.21%) TDD
11 36 (11.32%) Scrum
12 34 (10.69%) Containerisation
12 34 (10.69%) Continuous Improvement
13 31 (9.75%) Technical Leadership
14 29 (9.12%) Business Intelligence
15 28 (8.81%) Test Automation
16 27 (8.49%) Code Quality
17 26 (8.18%) Computer Science
18 23 (7.23%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 130 (40.88%) JavaScript
2 100 (31.45%) C#
3 72 (22.64%) SQL
4 71 (22.33%) TypeScript
5 69 (21.70%) Java
6 61 (19.18%) Python
7 24 (7.55%) C++
8 21 (6.60%) C
9 18 (5.66%) PowerShell
10 12 (3.77%) Go
10 12 (3.77%) PHP
11 8 (2.52%) Delphi
12 6 (1.89%) T-SQL
13 5 (1.57%) Kotlin
14 4 (1.26%) PL/SQL
14 4 (1.26%) Swift
15 3 (0.94%) Apex Code
15 3 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 3 (0.94%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.94%) XQuery
Qualifications
1 40 (12.58%) Degree
2 25 (7.86%) Security Cleared
3 20 (6.29%) SC Cleared
4 18 (5.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.26%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.26%) AWS Certified Developer
5 4 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 4 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.26%) PhD
6 3 (0.94%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.94%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.63%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.63%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.63%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.31%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (7.23%) QA
2 6 (1.89%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.31%) GDPR
4 1 (0.31%) PMO
System Software
1 58 (18.24%) Docker
2 10 (3.14%) Firmware
3 1 (0.31%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 46 (14.47%) Kubernetes
2 21 (6.60%) Terraform
3 3 (0.94%) Argo
3 3 (0.94%) Grafana
3 3 (0.94%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.31%) Ansible
4 1 (0.31%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 49 (15.41%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.52%) Atlassian
3 7 (2.20%) Google
3 7 (2.20%) Oracle
4 6 (1.89%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.26%) Salesforce
5 4 (1.26%) Splunk
6 3 (0.94%) Adobe
6 3 (0.94%) Databricks
6 3 (0.94%) IFS
6 3 (0.94%) Solace
7 2 (0.63%) Informatica
7 2 (0.63%) Mercator
7 2 (0.63%) MuleSoft
7 2 (0.63%) New Relic
8 1 (0.31%) Apple
8 1 (0.31%) Bloomberg
8 1 (0.31%) Dell
8 1 (0.31%) IBM
8 1 (0.31%) Sitecore