Principal Software Engineer Contracts in England

Principal Software Engineer
UK > England

As of 1 May 2025, there is not enough information available from job vacancies posted within the last 6 months to determine the median Principal Software Engineer daily rate in England.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 480 515 643
Rank change year-on-year +35 +128 +127
Contract jobs requiring a Principal Software Engineer 5 27 10
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.021% 0.073% 0.020%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.022% 0.078% 0.021%
Number of daily rates quoted 0 7 2
10th Percentile - £570 £483
25th Percentile - £575 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) - £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% +15.00%
75th Percentile - £625 £638
90th Percentile - - £668
UK median daily rate - £600 £713
% change year-on-year - -15.79% +42.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 20 1
Median hourly rate - £80.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year - +14.29% +35.16%
UK median hourly rate - £80.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - +14.29% +35.16%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in 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 England with a recognized job title 22,549 34,488 47,741
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 92.73% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,007 22,894 33,903
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £643 £663
90th Percentile £750 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 2,432 1,409
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.00 £14.35
25th Percentile £18.51 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £76.60
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Principal Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured Principal Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in England.

Daily rate trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in England.

Hourly rate trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Software Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +36 4 - - 26
East of England +18 1 - - 11
Principal Software Engineer
UK

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Principal Software Engineer contract 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 contract job ads across the England region featuring Principal Software Engineer in the job title.

1 5 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 3 (60.00%) Rust
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
3 2 (40.00%) Go
3 2 (40.00%) TypeScript
3 2 (40.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 2 (40.00%) Amazon EKS
3 2 (40.00%) GitHub Actions
3 2 (40.00%) Platform Engineering
3 2 (40.00%) Kubernetes
3 2 (40.00%) React
3 2 (40.00%) Continuous Delivery
3 2 (40.00%) AWS Lambda
3 2 (40.00%) Node.js
3 2 (40.00%) GitHub
3 2 (40.00%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (40.00%) Terraform
3 2 (40.00%) GraphQL
3 2 (40.00%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (40.00%) Amazon Aurora
3 2 (40.00%) Jest
3 2 (40.00%) Serverless
3 2 (40.00%) AWS
3 2 (40.00%) SaaS
3 2 (40.00%) JavaScript
3 2 (40.00%) Linux
3 2 (40.00%) Python
4 1 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
4 1 (20.00%) Microsoft
4 1 (20.00%) Siemens

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 1 (20.00%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 2 (40.00%) Amazon EKS
1 2 (40.00%) AWS
1 2 (40.00%) AWS Lambda
1 2 (40.00%) GitHub
1 2 (40.00%) GitHub Actions
1 2 (40.00%) SaaS
1 2 (40.00%) Serverless
2 1 (20.00%) Azure
2 1 (20.00%) Azure DevOps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (40.00%) Amazon Aurora
1 2 (40.00%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Rational DOORS
1 1 (20.00%) Visual Studio
General
1 1 (20.00%) Aerospace
1 1 (20.00%) Electronics
1 1 (20.00%) Finance
1 1 (20.00%) Manufacturing
1 1 (20.00%) Marketing
1 1 (20.00%) Public Sector
1 1 (20.00%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (40.00%) GraphQL
1 2 (40.00%) Jest
1 2 (40.00%) Node.js
1 2 (40.00%) React
Miscellaneous
1 2 (40.00%) Greenfield Project
2 1 (20.00%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 2 (40.00%) Linux
2 1 (20.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 1 (20.00%) VxWorks
2 1 (20.00%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
3 2 (40.00%) Continuous Delivery
3 2 (40.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 2 (40.00%) Platform Engineering
4 1 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
4 1 (20.00%) Customer Requirements
4 1 (20.00%) DevOps
4 1 (20.00%) Digital Marketing
4 1 (20.00%) Programme Management
4 1 (20.00%) Requirements Management
4 1 (20.00%) Software Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 3 (60.00%) Rust
2 2 (40.00%) Go
2 2 (40.00%) JavaScript
2 2 (40.00%) Python
2 2 (40.00%) TypeScript
3 1 (20.00%) C#
3 1 (20.00%) C++
3 1 (20.00%) SQL
3 1 (20.00%) VB
Qualifications
1 1 (20.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
Systems Management
1 2 (40.00%) Kubernetes
1 2 (40.00%) Terraform
2 1 (20.00%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 1 (20.00%) Microsoft
1 1 (20.00%) Oracle
1 1 (20.00%) Red Hat
1 1 (20.00%) SAP
1 1 (20.00%) Siemens
1 1 (20.00%) Wind River