Principal Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Principal Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Principal Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £675, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

 6 months to
25 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 116 118 133
Rank change year-on-year +2 +15 +53
Contract jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 3 1 2
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.16% 0.049% 0.080%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.052% 0.085%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £638 - £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 - £575
Median % change year-on-year - - +4.55%
75th Percentile £713 - £588
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median daily rate £675 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +35.00% -13.04% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £72.50
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate - - £75.00

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. 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 contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the City of London with a recognized job title 1,719 1,915 2,345
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.53% 92.96% 94.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,204 1,176 1,684
10th Percentile £328 £363 £350
25th Percentile £420 £463 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.09% - -
75th Percentile £675 £680 £688
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
Central London median daily rate £546 £575 £565
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.77% -1.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 13 13
10th Percentile £19.94 £15.60 £17.00
25th Percentile £22.96 £22.00 £18.93
Median hourly rate £28.00 £57.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -51.30% +130.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £41.85 £112.00 £46.75
90th Percentile £51.25 £132.40 £68.75
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £35.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -25.40% +37.25% -24.44%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Principal Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Principal Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Principal Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 29 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 25 December 2025, Principal Engineer contract 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 contract job ads across the City of London region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 3 (100.00%) Agile
2 2 (66.67%) Data Modelling
2 2 (66.67%) Java
2 2 (66.67%) Mentoring
2 2 (66.67%) Software Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) Apex Code
3 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 1 (33.33%) Data Privacy
3 1 (33.33%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (33.33%) Fintech
3 1 (33.33%) Integration Patterns
3 1 (33.33%) JBoss
3 1 (33.33%) Kafka
3 1 (33.33%) Lightning Web Components
3 1 (33.33%) Linux
3 1 (33.33%) Middleware
3 1 (33.33%) MuleSoft
3 1 (33.33%) Multithreading
3 1 (33.33%) Oracle
3 1 (33.33%) Oracle Database
3 1 (33.33%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (33.33%) REST
3 1 (33.33%) Salesforce
3 1 (33.33%) Scrum
3 1 (33.33%) SOAP
3 1 (33.33%) Temenos
3 1 (33.33%) Temenos T24
3 1 (33.33%) User Stories
3 1 (33.33%) Workflow

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (33.33%) JBoss
1 1 (33.33%) Oracle Workflow
Business Applications
1 1 (33.33%) Temenos T24
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (33.33%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (33.33%) Oracle Database
General
1 1 (33.33%) Banking
1 1 (33.33%) Finance
1 1 (33.33%) Public Sector
1 1 (33.33%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) Kafka
1 1 (33.33%) Lightning Web Components
1 1 (33.33%) Middleware
1 1 (33.33%) REST
1 1 (33.33%) SOAP
Operating Systems
1 1 (33.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (100.00%) Agile
2 2 (66.67%) Data Modelling
2 2 (66.67%) Mentoring
2 2 (66.67%) Software Engineering
3 1 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 1 (33.33%) Data Privacy
3 1 (33.33%) Fintech
3 1 (33.33%) Integration Patterns
3 1 (33.33%) Multithreading
3 1 (33.33%) Scrum
3 1 (33.33%) User Stories
3 1 (33.33%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 2 (66.67%) Java
2 1 (33.33%) Apex Code
Vendors
1 1 (33.33%) MuleSoft
1 1 (33.33%) Oracle
1 1 (33.33%) Salesforce
1 1 (33.33%) Temenos
Principal Engineer jobs