Lead Job Trends in Wales

Leader
UK > Wales

The median Leader salary in Wales is £52,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 17 January 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 21 30
Rank change year-on-year +9 +9 +6
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead 94 67 75
As % of all permanent jobs in Wales 8.82% 7.72% 7.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.94% 8.09% 7.67%
Number of salaries quoted 72 40 74
10th Percentile £30,550 £36,250 £34,000
25th Percentile £46,745 £43,449 £47,656
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% -3.85%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,438 £72,438
90th Percentile £80,000 £95,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £75,000 £73,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +2.74% -2.67% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
Wales

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in Wales. 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 Wales with a recognized job title 946 828 978
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 88.74% 95.39% 96.54%
Number of salaries quoted 665 418 741
10th Percentile £27,000 £30,675 £28,500
25th Percentile £33,500 £35,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,122 £49,000 £46,060
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% +6.38% -3.03%
75th Percentile £60,000 £65,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £70,750
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 Wales

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

Lead job vacancy trend in Wales

Lead
Salary Trend in Wales

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Wales.

Salary distribution trend for Lead job vacancies in Wales

Lead
Salary Histogram in Wales

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead in Wales over the 6 months to 17 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead in Wales

Lead
Job Locations in Wales

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the Wales region over the 6 months to 17 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
South Wales +2 61 £60,000 -5.46% 48
West Wales +10 18 £80,000 +113.33% 3
North Wales +7 5 £29,000 -35.56%
Lead
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 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 Wales region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 23 (24.47%) Mentoring
2 22 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (18.09%) Agile
4 14 (14.89%) Customer Service
5 13 (13.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 13 (13.83%) Risk Management
6 12 (12.77%) Microsoft
7 11 (11.70%) Decision-Making
7 11 (11.70%) Software Engineering
8 10 (10.64%) Asset Management
8 10 (10.64%) Cloud Computing
8 10 (10.64%) DBS Check
8 10 (10.64%) Degree
8 10 (10.64%) Document Management
8 10 (10.64%) Geospatial Data
8 10 (10.64%) GIS
8 10 (10.64%) Microsoft Office
8 10 (10.64%) Programme Management
8 10 (10.64%) Technical Analysis
9 8 (8.51%) Azure
9 8 (8.51%) Coaching
10 7 (7.45%) CI/CD
10 7 (7.45%) User Experience
11 6 (6.38%) C#
11 6 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
11 6 (6.38%) Deployment Automation
11 6 (6.38%) Scrum
12 5 (5.32%) Change Control
12 5 (5.32%) Configuration Management
12 5 (5.32%) Kubernetes

Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Wales 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:

Applications
1 10 (10.64%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 10 (10.64%) Cloud Computing
2 8 (8.51%) Azure
3 3 (3.19%) AWS
4 2 (2.13%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (2.13%) Entra ID
4 2 (2.13%) PaaS
4 2 (2.13%) SaaS
4 2 (2.13%) Serverless
5 1 (1.06%) Adobe Analytics
5 1 (1.06%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (1.06%) Datadog
5 1 (1.06%) dbt
5 1 (1.06%) Figma
5 1 (1.06%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.13%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (10.64%) Geospatial Data
1 10 (10.64%) GIS
2 4 (4.26%) MySQL
3 1 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.06%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (1.06%) Cucumber
1 1 (1.06%) JMeter
1 1 (1.06%) Locust
General
1 15 (15.96%) Finance
2 14 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (13.83%) Public Sector
4 11 (11.70%) Social Skills
5 9 (9.57%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.06%) Games
8 1 (1.06%) Local Government
8 1 (1.06%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.26%) CSS
1 4 (4.26%) Django
1 4 (4.26%) HTML
1 4 (4.26%) HTML5
1 4 (4.26%) React
2 2 (2.13%) Node.js
3 1 (1.06%) .NET
3 1 (1.06%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 10 (10.64%) Management Information System
1 10 (10.64%) Self-Motivation
2 6 (6.38%) Embedded Systems
3 3 (3.19%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 3 (3.19%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (3.19%) Operational Technology
3 3 (3.19%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (2.13%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.06%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.06%) IoT
5 1 (1.06%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.06%) Linux
1 1 (1.06%) Unix
1 1 (1.06%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (24.47%) Mentoring
2 22 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (18.09%) Agile
4 14 (14.89%) Customer Service
5 13 (13.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 13 (13.83%) Risk Management
6 11 (11.70%) Decision-Making
6 11 (11.70%) Software Engineering
7 10 (10.64%) Asset Management
7 10 (10.64%) Document Management
7 10 (10.64%) Programme Management
7 10 (10.64%) Technical Analysis
8 8 (8.51%) Coaching
9 7 (7.45%) CI/CD
9 7 (7.45%) User Experience
10 6 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
10 6 (6.38%) Deployment Automation
10 6 (6.38%) Scrum
11 5 (5.32%) Configuration Management
11 5 (5.32%) Software Deployment
Programming Languages
1 6 (6.38%) C#
2 5 (5.32%) Python
3 4 (4.26%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.06%) Java
Qualifications
1 10 (10.64%) DBS Check
1 10 (10.64%) Degree
2 3 (3.19%) SC Cleared
2 3 (3.19%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27005
1 3 (3.19%) NIST
1 3 (3.19%) SLA
2 2 (2.13%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.06%) QA
3 1 (1.06%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (1.06%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (5.32%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.19%) Terraform
3 2 (2.13%) Argo
4 1 (1.06%) Grafana
Vendors
1 12 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 2 (2.13%) Adobe
2 2 (2.13%) PagerDuty