Leader
UK

The median Leader salary in the UK is £75,174 per year according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 2 December 2023.

The first table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 27 28 33
Rank change year-on-year +1 +5 -3
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead 4,087 10,342 10,113
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.66% 8.25% 7.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.03% 8.66% 8.22%
Number of salaries quoted 3,088 6,762 6,712
10th Percentile £47,940 £46,250 £43,750
25th Percentile £60,200 £57,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,174 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.23% +7.14% +3.70%
75th Percentile £96,250 £93,750 £90,000
90th Percentile £115,000 £115,000 £110,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +8.33% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 50,923 119,491 123,020
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 95.43% 95.34% 95.11%
Number of salaries quoted 37,248 74,881 84,496
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,750 £32,005
25th Percentile £42,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £98,750 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% +5.26%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the UK

Lead
Salary Trend

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

Salary trend for Lead in the UK

Lead
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead over the 6 months to 2 December 2023.

Salary histogram for Lead in the UK

Lead
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the UK over the 6 months to 2 December 2023. 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 +3 3,640 £77,500 +3.33% 2,167
UK excluding London -8 2,069 £65,000 - 1,394
Work from Home 0 1,879 £75,000 -3.23% 1,240
London +9 1,746 £90,000 +2.86% 883
North of England +3 604 £65,000 -7.14% 343
South East -7 409 £65,000 -3.70% 342
Midlands -8 350 £63,000 +5.00% 267
South West -7 324 £70,000 +16.67% 176
North West +1 308 £65,000 -3.70% 189
Yorkshire -5 270 £67,500 -3.57% 112
West Midlands -8 247 £60,500 +10.00% 199
Scotland -5 182 £70,000 -6.67% 82
East of England +4 114 £70,000 +16.67% 176
East Midlands -14 100 £65,000 - 67
Wales -13 66 £57,291 -4.52% 35
Northern Ireland +8 32 £57,291 -2.48% 15
North East +8 29 £57,291 -16.67% 45
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 December 2023, Lead 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 in the job title.

1 1,171 (28.65%) Agile
2 1,099 (26.89%) Social Skills
3 1,096 (26.82%) Azure
4 1,062 (25.98%) Finance
5 819 (20.04%) Mentoring
6 758 (18.55%) DevOps
7 731 (17.89%) AWS
8 601 (14.71%) SQL
9 598 (14.63%) Software Engineering
10 581 (14.22%) Microsoft
11 558 (13.65%) CI/CD
12 546 (13.36%) Python
13 528 (12.92%) C#
14 518 (12.67%) Degree
15 516 (12.63%) JavaScript
16 479 (11.72%) Java
17 477 (11.67%) Continuous Improvement
18 468 (11.45%) .NET
19 446 (10.91%) Problem-Solving
20 445 (10.89%) Roadmaps
21 367 (8.98%) Technical Leadership
22 353 (8.64%) Coaching
23 352 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
24 351 (8.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
25 346 (8.47%) Kubernetes
26 330 (8.07%) Analytics
27 324 (7.93%) Microservices
28 316 (7.73%) Test Automation
29 310 (7.59%) Line Management
30 299 (7.32%) React

Lead 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
1 101 (2.47%) SharePoint
2 92 (2.25%) Confluence
3 65 (1.59%) Apache Spark
4 21 (0.51%) Apache
5 19 (0.46%) IIS
6 17 (0.42%) CMS
7 16 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.39%) MS Exchange
8 11 (0.27%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.20%) NServiceBus
10 6 (0.15%) nginx
10 6 (0.15%) WordPress
11 5 (0.12%) IBM HTTP Server
12 4 (0.098%) Camunda
12 4 (0.098%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.073%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.073%) Headless CMS
13 3 (0.073%) JBoss
13 3 (0.073%) Mule
13 3 (0.073%) Tomcat
Applications
1 80 (1.96%) Microsoft Office
2 49 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (0.91%) Simulink
4 25 (0.61%) Stateflow
5 22 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 14 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
8 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.20%) Sketch
10 7 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
10 7 (0.17%) Photoshop
10 7 (0.17%) SPSS
11 6 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
11 6 (0.15%) OrCAD
12 4 (0.098%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.098%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.098%) Trello
13 3 (0.073%) 3ds Max
13 3 (0.073%) InVision
13 3 (0.073%) Maya
Business Applications
1 74 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.34%) SAP ERP
4 13 (0.32%) SAP CO
5 12 (0.29%) SAP FI
5 12 (0.29%) SAP FI/CO
6 11 (0.27%) Workday HCM
7 9 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
7 9 (0.22%) Unit4 Business World
8 8 (0.20%) SAP Business One
8 8 (0.20%) SAP MM
9 6 (0.15%) Adaptiv
9 6 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
9 6 (0.15%) SAP MDG
9 6 (0.15%) SAP Retail
10 5 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.12%) SAP SCM
10 5 (0.12%) SAP SD
11 4 (0.098%) Oracle Assets
11 4 (0.098%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 1,096 (26.82%) Azure
2 731 (17.89%) AWS
3 268 (6.56%) Azure DevOps
4 266 (6.51%) GCP
5 229 (5.60%) Power Platform
6 197 (4.82%) Microsoft 365
7 193 (4.72%) SaaS
8 114 (2.79%) Serverless
9 88 (2.15%) PaaS
10 80 (1.96%) GitHub
11 79 (1.93%) PowerApps
12 70 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
13 61 (1.49%) IaaS
14 60 (1.47%) Entra ID
15 53 (1.30%) OpenShift
15 53 (1.30%) Power Automate
16 48 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
17 47 (1.15%) Cloud Computing
18 43 (1.05%) Azure Service Bus
19 39 (0.95%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 137 (3.35%) Firewall
2 64 (1.57%) DNS
3 61 (1.49%) Network Security
4 55 (1.35%) WAN
5 49 (1.20%) DHCP
6 46 (1.13%) LAN
7 43 (1.05%) VPN
8 33 (0.81%) SD-WAN
9 30 (0.73%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.71%) Wireless
11 28 (0.69%) HTTP
11 28 (0.69%) Internet
11 28 (0.69%) MPLS
12 25 (0.61%) IPv4
12 25 (0.61%) VLAN
13 22 (0.54%) BGP
14 19 (0.46%) Intrusion Detection
14 19 (0.46%) OSPF
15 18 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 263 (6.44%) SQL Server
2 163 (3.99%) Power BI
3 125 (3.06%) NoSQL
4 93 (2.28%) Big Data
5 74 (1.81%) Relational Database
6 72 (1.76%) MongoDB
7 70 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
7 70 (1.71%) Tableau
8 65 (1.59%) Data Lake
9 62 (1.52%) MySQL
10 61 (1.49%) BigQuery
11 48 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
12 47 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
13 43 (1.05%) Hadoop
14 41 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 40 (0.98%) Elasticsearch
16 32 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 25 (0.61%) Metadata
18 23 (0.56%) Looker
19 22 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 171 (4.18%) JIRA
2 164 (4.01%) Git
3 152 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 94 (2.30%) Selenium
5 74 (1.81%) Cucumber
6 50 (1.22%) Cypress.io
7 41 (1.00%) GitLab
8 37 (0.91%) Postman
9 32 (0.78%) JUnit
10 28 (0.69%) Gradle
10 28 (0.69%) Maven
11 24 (0.59%) JMeter
12 22 (0.54%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 21 (0.51%) Visual Studio Team System
14 20 (0.49%) Visual Studio
15 18 (0.44%) Bitbucket
15 18 (0.44%) WebDriver
16 17 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
17 14 (0.34%) Artifactory
18 13 (0.32%) SoapUI
General
1 1,099 (26.89%) Social Skills
2 1,062 (25.98%) Finance
3 351 (8.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 294 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 290 (7.10%) Banking
6 230 (5.63%) Retail
7 160 (3.91%) Marketing
8 133 (3.25%) Law
9 130 (3.18%) Public Sector
10 120 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
11 116 (2.84%) Legal
12 105 (2.57%) Manufacturing
13 75 (1.84%) Automotive
14 68 (1.66%) Organisational Skills
15 66 (1.61%) Telecoms
16 60 (1.47%) Games
17 56 (1.37%) Financial Institution
18 53 (1.30%) Aerospace
19 49 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
20 45 (1.10%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 468 (11.45%) .NET
2 299 (7.32%) React
3 226 (5.53%) HTML
4 192 (4.70%) REST
5 178 (4.36%) CSS
6 154 (3.77%) AngularJS
7 122 (2.99%) Node.js
8 116 (2.84%) Spring
9 104 (2.54%) Kafka
10 101 (2.47%) RESTful
11 97 (2.37%) .NET Core
12 95 (2.32%) ASP.NET
13 89 (2.18%) Spring Boot
14 73 (1.79%) JSON
15 72 (1.76%) Web Services
16 67 (1.64%) .NET Framework
17 53 (1.30%) Vue
18 50 (1.22%) XML
19 43 (1.05%) YAML
20 38 (0.93%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 222 (5.43%) Product Ownership
2 132 (3.23%) Greenfield Project
3 131 (3.21%) Management Information System
4 106 (2.59%) Public Cloud
5 105 (2.57%) Algorithms
6 90 (2.20%) Cloud Native
7 75 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
8 66 (1.61%) Renewable Energy
9 64 (1.57%) Mobile App
10 53 (1.30%) Data Centre
11 52 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.13%) Data Structures
13 45 (1.10%) Onboarding
14 43 (1.05%) Virtual Team
15 42 (1.03%) Cyberattack
16 40 (0.98%) Fixed Income
17 38 (0.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 36 (0.88%) Hedge funds
19 34 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
20 30 (0.73%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 253 (6.19%) Windows
2 240 (5.87%) Linux
3 100 (2.45%) Windows Server
4 50 (1.22%) Unix
5 41 (1.00%) Android
5 41 (1.00%) Apple iOS
6 29 (0.71%) Windows 10
7 16 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
8 15 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
9 12 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
12 5 (0.12%) Windows Vista
13 4 (0.098%) Mac OS
13 4 (0.098%) Windows 8
13 4 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
14 3 (0.073%) CentOS
14 3 (0.073%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,171 (28.65%) Agile
2 819 (20.04%) Mentoring
3 758 (18.55%) DevOps
4 598 (14.63%) Software Engineering
5 558 (13.65%) CI/CD
6 477 (11.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 446 (10.91%) Problem-Solving
8 445 (10.89%) Roadmaps
9 367 (8.98%) Technical Leadership
10 353 (8.64%) Coaching
11 352 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
12 330 (8.07%) Analytics
13 324 (7.93%) Microservices
14 316 (7.73%) Test Automation
15 310 (7.59%) Line Management
16 286 (7.00%) Scrum
17 265 (6.48%) Project Management
18 264 (6.46%) ITIL
19 261 (6.39%) Project Delivery
20 245 (5.99%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 601 (14.71%) SQL
2 546 (13.36%) Python
3 528 (12.92%) C#
4 516 (12.63%) JavaScript
5 479 (11.72%) Java
6 202 (4.94%) PowerShell
7 175 (4.28%) TypeScript
8 137 (3.35%) C++
9 108 (2.64%) Bash
10 77 (1.88%) PHP
11 73 (1.79%) Go
12 62 (1.52%) MATLAB
13 51 (1.25%) T-SQL
14 42 (1.03%) C
15 40 (0.98%) Scala
16 38 (0.93%) Ruby
17 31 (0.76%) R
18 28 (0.69%) Rust
19 23 (0.56%) Kotlin
20 14 (0.34%) Perl
Qualifications
1 518 (12.67%) Degree
2 297 (7.27%) Security Cleared
3 158 (3.87%) SC Cleared
4 137 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 79 (1.93%) Master's Degree
6 66 (1.61%) DV Cleared
7 65 (1.59%) CISSP
8 40 (0.98%) Azure Certification
9 38 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
10 36 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
10 36 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
11 33 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
12 27 (0.66%) AWS Certification
13 25 (0.61%) CISM
13 25 (0.61%) ISTQB
14 24 (0.59%) CCNP
15 23 (0.56%) CISMP
16 22 (0.54%) CCNA
17 21 (0.51%) PMI Certification
18 19 (0.46%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (6.14%) QA
2 90 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 79 (1.93%) Data Quality
4 65 (1.59%) SLA
5 60 (1.47%) PMO
6 55 (1.35%) NIST
7 38 (0.93%) Accessibility
8 33 (0.81%) GDPR
9 25 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (0.44%) NCSC
11 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 14 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 12 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 12 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.27%) IFRS
15 10 (0.24%) GRC
16 9 (0.22%) COBIT
16 9 (0.22%) WCAG
17 7 (0.17%) SOC 2
18 6 (0.15%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 292 (7.14%) Docker
2 164 (4.01%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.51%) Firmware
5 17 (0.42%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.29%) vSphere
7 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.098%) Apache ZooKeeper
11 3 (0.073%) IAG
11 3 (0.073%) XenApp
12 2 (0.049%) HDFS
12 2 (0.049%) NFS
13 1 (0.024%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.024%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.024%) Terminal Server
13 1 (0.024%) Terminal Services
13 1 (0.024%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 346 (8.47%) Kubernetes
2 247 (6.04%) Terraform
3 112 (2.74%) Ansible
4 67 (1.64%) SCCM
5 49 (1.20%) Puppet
6 33 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.59%) Istio
8 13 (0.32%) FortiGate
9 12 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.24%) Grafana
10 10 (0.24%) Prometheus
11 9 (0.22%) Nessus
12 8 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.17%) Control-M
13 7 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 7 (0.17%) HP Quality Center
14 6 (0.15%) AirWatch
14 6 (0.15%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 6 (0.15%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 581 (14.22%) Microsoft
2 186 (4.55%) SAP
3 155 (3.79%) Google
4 116 (2.84%) Oracle
5 88 (2.15%) Salesforce
6 85 (2.08%) Cisco
7 84 (2.06%) Databricks
8 79 (1.93%) VMware
9 69 (1.69%) ServiceNow
10 34 (0.83%) Adobe
11 27 (0.66%) Meraki
12 25 (0.61%) CheckPoint
12 25 (0.61%) IBM
13 22 (0.54%) CyberArk
13 22 (0.54%) Splunk
13 22 (0.54%) Sun
14 20 (0.49%) Carbon Black
14 20 (0.49%) Red Hat
14 20 (0.49%) SolarWinds
15 19 (0.46%) McAfee