Principal Engineer Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Principal Engineer
England > East of England

The median Principal Engineer daily rate in the East of England is £63, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 84 105
Rank change year-on-year -11 +21 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 7 2 3
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 0.44% 0.18% 0.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.20% 0.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £725
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £63 - £750
75th Percentile - - £775
90th Percentile - - -
England median daily rate £603 £675 £608
% change year-on-year -10.74% +11.11% -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 2
10th Percentile - - £33.73
25th Percentile - - £38.28
Median hourly rate £75.00 £80.00 £46.90
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +70.58% -17.72%
75th Percentile £77.50 - £55.48
90th Percentile £79.00 - £59.99
England median hourly rate £81.00 £67.38 £79.35
% change year-on-year +20.21% -15.08% +41.41%

All Contract IT Job Roles
East of England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the East of England. 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 East of England with a recognized job title 1,427 1,004 1,513
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.58% 89.09% 90.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 616 447 851
10th Percentile £191 £220 £200
25th Percentile £338 £318 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £479 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.44% -5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £575
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 423 158 299
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.23 £13.90
25th Percentile £16.49 £21.46 £16.13
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.28 £40.28
Median % change year-on-year -48.97% +22.36% +94.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £69.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £80.21
England median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -22.26% -23.71% +40.01%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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 East of England.

Principal Engineer job vacancy trend in the East of England

Principal Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the East of England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the East of England

Principal Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the East of England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in the East of England

Principal Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Engineer within the East of England region over the 6 months to 1 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Bedfordshire -3 4 £63 - 1
Essex - 2 - -
Cambridgeshire - 1 - - 3
Principal Engineer
England

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England

For the 6 months to 1 January 2026, 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 East of England region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 5 (71.43%) AI
2 4 (57.14%) Actel
2 4 (57.14%) Altera
2 4 (57.14%) Computer Science
2 4 (57.14%) Cryptography
2 4 (57.14%) Degree
2 4 (57.14%) DO-254
2 4 (57.14%) Ethernet
2 4 (57.14%) Firmware
2 4 (57.14%) HNC
2 4 (57.14%) HND
2 4 (57.14%) Intel
2 4 (57.14%) Machine Learning
2 4 (57.14%) MATLAB
2 4 (57.14%) Microsemi
2 4 (57.14%) Physics
2 4 (57.14%) SC Cleared
2 4 (57.14%) Security Cleared
2 4 (57.14%) Simulink
2 4 (57.14%) SystemVerilog
2 4 (57.14%) Tcl
2 4 (57.14%) UVM
2 4 (57.14%) Xilinx
3 2 (28.57%) Validation
4 1 (14.29%) .NET
4 1 (14.29%) Agile
4 1 (14.29%) API Testing
4 1 (14.29%) Azure
4 1 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (14.29%) CI/CD

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 4 (57.14%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 1 (14.29%) Azure
1 1 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (57.14%) Ethernet
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Rational DOORS
General
1 5 (71.43%) Electronics
2 4 (57.14%) Games
3 1 (14.29%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 4 (57.14%) Algorithms
1 4 (57.14%) FPGA
1 4 (57.14%) PCIe
1 4 (57.14%) Verilog
2 1 (14.29%) Cloud Native
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (71.43%) AI
2 4 (57.14%) Computer Science
2 4 (57.14%) Cryptography
2 4 (57.14%) Machine Learning
2 4 (57.14%) Physics
2 4 (57.14%) UVM
3 2 (28.57%) Validation
4 1 (14.29%) Agile
4 1 (14.29%) DevOps
4 1 (14.29%) OO
4 1 (14.29%) OWASP
4 1 (14.29%) Performance Metrics
4 1 (14.29%) PLM
4 1 (14.29%) Rapid Prototyping
4 1 (14.29%) Requirements Management
4 1 (14.29%) Scrum
4 1 (14.29%) Security Testing
4 1 (14.29%) Software Testing
4 1 (14.29%) Test Automation
4 1 (14.29%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 4 (57.14%) MATLAB
1 4 (57.14%) SystemVerilog
1 4 (57.14%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 4 (57.14%) Degree
1 4 (57.14%) HNC
1 4 (57.14%) HND
1 4 (57.14%) SC Cleared
1 4 (57.14%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (57.14%) DO-254
2 1 (14.29%) EU AI Act
2 1 (14.29%) NIST
2 1 (14.29%) QA
System Software
1 4 (57.14%) Firmware
Vendors
1 4 (57.14%) Actel
1 4 (57.14%) Altera
1 4 (57.14%) Intel
1 4 (57.14%) Microsemi
1 4 (57.14%) Xilinx
2 1 (14.29%) IBM
2 1 (14.29%) Microsoft