Lead Developer Job Trends

Lead Developer
UK

The median Lead Developer salary in the UK is £75,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 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
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 394 246 324
Rank change year-on-year -148 +78 +39
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Developer 310 862 608
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.63% 1.10% 1.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 1.16% 1.07%
Number of salaries quoted 219 726 541
10th Percentile £54,850 £47,000 £56,250
25th Percentile £65,000 £52,539 £63,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £77,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -9.68% -3.13%
75th Percentile £90,000 £90,000 £97,500
90th Percentile £124,000 £142,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% -7.14% -

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 44,309 74,419 56,988
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.65% 95.24% 94.21%
Number of salaries quoted 26,050 44,613 44,179
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

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

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Developer job vacancies in the UK

Lead Developer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Developer over the 6 months to 19 September 2025.

Salary histogram for Lead Developer in the UK

Lead Developer
Top 16 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 19 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
England -121 283 £75,000 +7.14% 119
UK excluding London -112 172 £70,000 +7.69% 108
London -55 123 £100,000 - 32
Work from Home -120 116 £75,000 +15.38% 63
North of England -50 69 £70,000 +7.69% 31
North West -48 37 £70,000 - 10
Midlands -13 34 £72,500 +45.00% 16
South East -21 33 £75,000 +7.14% 26
West Midlands -2 27 £72,500 +52.63% 9
Yorkshire -8 27 £67,500 +43.62% 16
South West +24 17 £50,000 +6.38% 16
Scotland +39 9 £52,500 -19.23% 2
East Midlands +13 7 £67,500 +12.50% 4
Wales -2 6 £75,000 +11.11% 11
North East +11 5 £80,000 +15.52% 5
East of England -46 5 £55,000 -4.35% 9

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

For the 6 months to 19 September 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.

1 119 (38.39%) Agile
2 108 (34.84%) AWS
3 107 (34.52%) Azure
4 86 (27.74%) C#
5 76 (24.52%) JavaScript
5 76 (24.52%) Problem-Solving
6 75 (24.19%) CI/CD
6 75 (24.19%) Mentoring
7 72 (23.23%) .NET
8 70 (22.58%) Java
8 70 (22.58%) Software Engineering
9 68 (21.94%) Finance
9 68 (21.94%) React
10 66 (21.29%) Microservices
10 66 (21.29%) DevOps
11 65 (20.97%) SQL
12 64 (20.65%) TypeScript
13 62 (20.00%) Python
14 60 (19.35%) Social Skills
15 59 (19.03%) Full-Stack Development
16 51 (16.45%) Docker
17 49 (15.81%) SQL Server
18 46 (14.84%) Technical Leadership
19 44 (14.19%) PostgreSQL
19 44 (14.19%) Node.js
20 43 (13.87%) RESTful
21 41 (13.23%) Roadmaps
22 40 (12.90%) Containerisation
23 38 (12.26%) Test Automation
23 38 (12.26%) Microsoft

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 9 (2.90%) Confluence
2 7 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.29%) Apache
4 3 (0.97%) CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.32%) Appian
5 1 (0.32%) Mule
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Coherence
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.32%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.32%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 14 (4.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.26%) Shopify
3 5 (1.61%) Magento
4 1 (0.32%) Endur
4 1 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 108 (34.84%) AWS
2 107 (34.52%) Azure
3 35 (11.29%) SaaS
4 32 (10.32%) Power Platform
5 24 (7.74%) GCP
5 24 (7.74%) GitHub
5 24 (7.74%) Serverless
6 23 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (6.45%) PowerApps
8 17 (5.48%) Dynamics 365
9 16 (5.16%) Amazon S3
10 15 (4.84%) Amazon SQS
11 14 (4.52%) Amazon EC2
12 12 (3.87%) Power Automate
13 8 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (2.58%) AWS KMS
13 8 (2.58%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 8 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (2.58%) Route 53
14 7 (2.26%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.32%) Broadband
1 1 (0.32%) MQTT
1 1 (0.32%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (15.81%) SQL Server
2 44 (14.19%) PostgreSQL
3 37 (11.94%) MongoDB
3 37 (11.94%) NoSQL
4 22 (7.10%) Power BI
5 14 (4.52%) Amazon RDS
5 14 (4.52%) DynamoDB
6 12 (3.87%) Data Warehouse
6 12 (3.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 11 (3.55%) Amazon Aurora
8 10 (3.23%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (3.23%) MySQL
9 8 (2.58%) Relational Database
9 8 (2.58%) Tick Data
10 6 (1.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (1.61%) Big Data
12 4 (1.29%) Amazon Athena
12 4 (1.29%) Apache Iceberg
12 4 (1.29%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.97%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 33 (10.65%) Git
2 16 (5.16%) Jenkins
2 16 (5.16%) JIRA
3 12 (3.87%) Maven
4 10 (3.23%) JUnit
4 10 (3.23%) SonarQube
5 9 (2.90%) Mockito
6 8 (2.58%) Bitbucket Server
6 8 (2.58%) DbUnit
6 8 (2.58%) jMock
7 6 (1.94%) Visual Studio
8 4 (1.29%) Vite
9 3 (0.97%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.97%) Selenium
9 3 (0.97%) Spinnaker
9 3 (0.97%) Xcode
10 2 (0.65%) Subversion
11 1 (0.32%) NUnit
11 1 (0.32%) TestComplete
11 1 (0.32%) TestNG
General
1 68 (21.94%) Finance
2 60 (19.35%) Social Skills
3 37 (11.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 26 (8.39%) Marketing
5 24 (7.74%) Law
6 20 (6.45%) Front Office
6 20 (6.45%) Public Sector
6 20 (6.45%) Retail
7 17 (5.48%) Analytical Skills
8 14 (4.52%) Banking
9 9 (2.90%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (2.26%) Electronics
10 7 (2.26%) Games
10 7 (2.26%) Legal
11 5 (1.61%) Back Office
12 4 (1.29%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.29%) Private Banking
13 3 (0.97%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.97%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.65%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (23.23%) .NET
2 68 (21.94%) React
3 44 (14.19%) Node.js
4 43 (13.87%) RESTful
5 27 (8.71%) GraphQL
5 27 (8.71%) Kafka
6 26 (8.39%) AngularJS
7 24 (7.74%) REST
8 22 (7.10%) .NET Core
9 21 (6.77%) Spring Boot
10 19 (6.13%) .NET Framework
10 19 (6.13%) HTML
10 19 (6.13%) Spring
11 18 (5.81%) CSS
11 18 (5.81%) SOAP
12 17 (5.48%) Web Services
13 16 (5.16%) Redux
14 14 (4.52%) Blazor
14 14 (4.52%) Bootstrap
14 14 (4.52%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.35%) Cloud Native
2 20 (6.45%) Legacy Systems
3 16 (5.16%) Fixed Income
4 12 (3.87%) Product Ownership
5 10 (3.23%) Clustering
6 9 (2.90%) Marketing Technology
7 8 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (2.26%) Derivative
8 7 (2.26%) Distributed Architecture
9 6 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.61%) EPoS
10 5 (1.61%) Hedge funds
10 5 (1.61%) Market Risk
10 5 (1.61%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.29%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.29%) Distributed Applications
11 4 (1.29%) e-Learning
11 4 (1.29%) Equities
11 4 (1.29%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.81%) Linux
2 10 (3.23%) Apple iOS
3 6 (1.94%) Unix
4 5 (1.61%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (38.39%) Agile
2 76 (24.52%) Problem-Solving
3 75 (24.19%) CI/CD
3 75 (24.19%) Mentoring
4 70 (22.58%) Software Engineering
5 66 (21.29%) DevOps
5 66 (21.29%) Microservices
6 59 (19.03%) Full-Stack Development
7 46 (14.84%) Technical Leadership
8 41 (13.23%) Roadmaps
9 40 (12.90%) Containerisation
10 38 (12.26%) Continuous Improvement
10 38 (12.26%) SDLC
10 38 (12.26%) Test Automation
11 36 (11.61%) Artificial Intelligence
12 35 (11.29%) TDD
13 32 (10.32%) Scrum
14 31 (10.00%) Front End Development
15 29 (9.35%) Clean Code
16 28 (9.03%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 86 (27.74%) C#
2 76 (24.52%) JavaScript
3 70 (22.58%) Java
4 65 (20.97%) SQL
5 64 (20.65%) TypeScript
6 62 (20.00%) Python
7 23 (7.42%) Go
8 14 (4.52%) C++
9 12 (3.87%) PHP
10 11 (3.55%) Scala
11 10 (3.23%) PowerShell
12 7 (2.26%) C
12 7 (2.26%) Kotlin
13 6 (1.94%) Swift
13 6 (1.94%) T-SQL
14 5 (1.61%) Delphi
15 3 (0.97%) Ruby
16 2 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 2 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.65%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 32 (10.32%) Degree
2 23 (7.42%) Security Cleared
3 21 (6.77%) SC Cleared
4 18 (5.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (1.94%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.29%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.29%) AWS Certified Developer
6 4 (1.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.65%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.32%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.32%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.32%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (9.68%) QA
2 7 (2.26%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.32%) GDPR
4 1 (0.32%) HL7
System Software
1 51 (16.45%) Docker
2 5 (1.61%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.65%) Firmware
4 1 (0.32%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 37 (11.94%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.45%) Terraform
3 3 (0.97%) Argo
4 2 (0.65%) Grafana
4 2 (0.65%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 38 (12.26%) Microsoft
2 8 (2.58%) Atlassian
3 7 (2.26%) Google
4 6 (1.94%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.61%) Databricks
5 5 (1.61%) Oracle
6 4 (1.29%) Splunk
7 3 (0.97%) IFS
7 3 (0.97%) Salesforce
7 3 (0.97%) SAP
8 2 (0.65%) Informatica
9 1 (0.32%) Apple
9 1 (0.32%) Bloomberg
9 1 (0.32%) Blue Prism
9 1 (0.32%) Jaspersoft
9 1 (0.32%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.32%) OpenLink
9 1 (0.32%) Pardot
9 1 (0.32%) Solace
9 1 (0.32%) Workday