Principal Engineer Contract Job Trends in the North East
Principal Engineer
England > North East
The median Principal Engineer daily rate in the North East is £650, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 November 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 13 Nov 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 81 | - | 38 |
| Rank change year-on-year | - | - | - |
| Contract Principal Engineer jobs | 3 | 0 | 2 |
| As % of all contract jobs in the North East | 0.36% | - | 0.69% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 0.39% | - | 0.78% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £650 | - | - |
| England median daily rate | £638 | £608 | £650 |
| % change year-on-year | +4.94% | -6.54% | +4.00% |
All Contract IT Job Roles
North East
For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job adverts in the North East matching a recognised job title. The table also shows what proportion of all contract IT job adverts they make up.
| 6 months to 13 Nov 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract job adverts in the North East matching a recognised job title | 763 | 330 | 256 |
| % of contract job adverts matching a recognised job title | 92.37% | 93.75% | 88.28% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 404 | 224 | 118 |
| 10th Percentile | £313 | £170 | £196 |
| 25th Percentile | £363 | £344 | £359 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £460 | £450 | £450 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +2.22% | - | +3.45% |
| 75th Percentile | £600 | £541 | £582 |
| 90th Percentile | £675 | £618 | £650 |
| England median daily rate | £525 | £510 | £525 |
| % change year-on-year | +2.94% | -2.86% | -1.87% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 126 | 18 | 20 |
| 10th Percentile | £13.84 | £14.28 | £25.65 |
| 25th Percentile | £35.76 | £17.88 | £43.54 |
| Median hourly rate | £65.00 | £25.71 | £46.18 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +152.87% | -44.34% | +43.19% |
| 75th Percentile | £70.00 | £53.19 | £50.00 |
| 90th Percentile | £82.50 | £54.13 | £70.00 |
| England median hourly rate | £41.71 | £25.15 | £40.00 |
| % change year-on-year | +65.84% | -37.13% | -11.11% |
Principal Engineer Job Vacancy Trend in the North East
Historical trend showing the proportion of contract Principal Engineer job postings relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North East.
Principal Engineer Contract Job Locations in the North East
The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in Principal Engineer jobs within the North East region over the 6 months to 13 November 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 |
Job Ads Past 6 Months |
Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months |
Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year |
Live Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyne and Wear | - | 3 | £650 | - | 5 |
| Principal Engineer England |
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Principal Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North East
For the 6 months to 13 November 2026, Principal Engineer contract job ads cited 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 Principal Engineer job ads across the North East region.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AWS | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | CI/CD | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Coaching | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | DevOps | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | GitHub | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Grafana | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Kafka | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Kubernetes | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Observability | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Relational Database | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Security Cleared | 66.7% | 2 |
| 1 | Technical Leadership | 66.7% | 2 |
| 13 | Accessibility | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Agile | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Amazon EKS | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | API Testing | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Architectural Design | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Architectural Patterns | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Argo | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Business Analysis | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Containerisation | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Continuous Improvement | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Datadog | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Design Patterns | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Digital Transformation Programme | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Disaster Recovery | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Docker | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | End-to-End Testing | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Full-Stack Development | 33.3% | 1 |
| 13 | Gatling | 33.3% | 1 |
Principal Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North East by Category
The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.
Job Titles
| Rank | Job Title | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloud Platform Engineer | 33.3% | 1 |
| 1 | Full-Stack Engineer | 33.3% | 1 |
| 1 | GCP Engineer | 33.3% | 1 |
| 1 | Lead Test Engineer | 33.3% | 1 |
| 1 | Principal Test Engineer | 33.3% | 1 |