Principal Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Principal Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 297 292 413
Rank change year-on-year -5 +121 +67
Contract jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 39 108 49
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.31% 0.52% 0.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.56% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 12 18
10th Percentile £368 £434 £413
25th Percentile £496 £522 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £608
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -9.47% +5.65%
75th Percentile £638 £575 £628
90th Percentile £725 £778 £811
UK median daily rate £540 £600 £725
% change year-on-year -10.00% -17.24% +20.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 89 16
10th Percentile £48.54 £50.00 £51.77
25th Percentile £59.81 £56.25 £65.00
Median hourly rate £67.83 £67.50 £83.31
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -18.98% +54.82%
75th Percentile £76.93 £80.00 £83.40
90th Percentile £82.77 - -
UK median hourly rate £67.83 £67.50 £83.31
% change year-on-year +0.49% -18.98% +56.95%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 11,767 19,240 22,667
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 92.63% 94.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,552 11,748 15,893
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £595
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 829 2,243 1,165
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.45
25th Percentile £17.61 £15.75 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Principal Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London 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
South West +46 12 £575 - 40
North of England +18 9 £625 +19.05% 83
North West +17 9 £625 +19.05% 62
East of England +11 9 - - 57
South East +18 7 £500 -35.48% 93
Midlands +13 3 £75 -86.36% 23
Scotland +4 2 - - 14
East Midlands - 2 £75 - 6
West Midlands +3 1 - - 17
Wales - 1 - - 3
Principal Engineer
UK

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Principal 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 UK excluding London region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 17 (43.59%) Security Cleared
2 15 (38.46%) SC Cleared
2 15 (38.46%) Problem-Solving
2 15 (38.46%) Social Skills
3 14 (35.90%) Degree
4 11 (28.21%) Systems Engineering
5 10 (25.64%) Agile
6 8 (20.51%) Software Engineering
6 8 (20.51%) Validation
6 8 (20.51%) CI/CD
6 8 (20.51%) Verification and Validation
7 7 (17.95%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (17.95%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (17.95%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
7 7 (17.95%) Azure
8 6 (15.38%) Cisco
9 5 (12.82%) SharePoint
9 5 (12.82%) Management Information System
9 5 (12.82%) PDM
9 5 (12.82%) Teamcenter
9 5 (12.82%) MATLAB
9 5 (12.82%) Test Automation
9 5 (12.82%) Confluence
9 5 (12.82%) Data Management
10 4 (10.26%) MPLS
10 4 (10.26%) Scrum
10 4 (10.26%) Risk Management
10 4 (10.26%) Linux
10 4 (10.26%) UML
10 4 (10.26%) DevOps

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 5 (12.82%) Confluence
1 5 (12.82%) SharePoint
2 2 (5.13%) Apache
2 2 (5.13%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (7.69%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 5 (12.82%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 7 (17.95%) Azure
2 3 (7.69%) AWS
3 2 (5.13%) GCP
4 1 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (2.56%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 4 (10.26%) MPLS
2 3 (7.69%) BGP
2 3 (7.69%) Broadband
2 3 (7.69%) Cisco Firepower
2 3 (7.69%) Ethernet
2 3 (7.69%) IPv6
2 3 (7.69%) OSPF
2 3 (7.69%) VPN
3 2 (5.13%) Multicast
4 1 (2.56%) 2G
4 1 (2.56%) 3G
4 1 (2.56%) 4G
4 1 (2.56%) 5G
4 1 (2.56%) Network Security
4 1 (2.56%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (2.56%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.13%) Delta Lake
2 1 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (2.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 3 (7.69%) Rational DOORS
2 1 (2.56%) Eclipse
2 1 (2.56%) NetBeans
2 1 (2.56%) Visual Studio
General
1 15 (38.46%) Social Skills
2 7 (17.95%) Presentation Skills
3 3 (7.69%) Aerospace
4 2 (5.13%) Electronics
5 1 (2.56%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (2.56%) Automotive
5 1 (2.56%) Banking
5 1 (2.56%) Games
5 1 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (2.56%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (7.69%) AngularJS
1 3 (7.69%) CSS
1 3 (7.69%) HTML
2 2 (5.13%) CSS3
2 2 (5.13%) HTML5
2 2 (5.13%) RESTful
2 2 (5.13%) Web Services
3 1 (2.56%) POSIX
3 1 (2.56%) React
Miscellaneous
1 7 (17.95%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (12.82%) Management Information System
3 4 (10.26%) Product Ownership
4 2 (5.13%) Algorithms
4 2 (5.13%) FPGA
4 2 (5.13%) PCIe
4 2 (5.13%) Verilog
5 1 (2.56%) IoT
5 1 (2.56%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 4 (10.26%) Linux
2 3 (7.69%) Windows
3 2 (5.13%) Windows Server
4 1 (2.56%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (38.46%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (28.21%) Systems Engineering
3 10 (25.64%) Agile
4 8 (20.51%) CI/CD
4 8 (20.51%) Software Engineering
4 8 (20.51%) Validation
4 8 (20.51%) Verification and Validation
5 7 (17.95%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 5 (12.82%) Data Management
6 5 (12.82%) PDM
6 5 (12.82%) Test Automation
7 4 (10.26%) DevOps
7 4 (10.26%) Infrastructure as Code
7 4 (10.26%) Project Delivery
7 4 (10.26%) Risk Management
7 4 (10.26%) Scrum
7 4 (10.26%) UML
8 3 (7.69%) Migration
8 3 (7.69%) Product Strategy
8 3 (7.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 5 (12.82%) MATLAB
2 4 (10.26%) Rust
3 3 (7.69%) JavaScript
3 3 (7.69%) SQL
4 2 (5.13%) Python
4 2 (5.13%) SystemVerilog
4 2 (5.13%) TypeScript
5 1 (2.56%) C
5 1 (2.56%) C++
5 1 (2.56%) Tcl
5 1 (2.56%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 17 (43.59%) Security Cleared
2 15 (38.46%) SC Cleared
3 14 (35.90%) Degree
4 3 (7.69%) CCIE
4 3 (7.69%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (5.13%) DV Cleared
5 2 (5.13%) RIBA
6 1 (2.56%) CESG Certified Professional
6 1 (2.56%) Chartered Engineer
6 1 (2.56%) CISSP
6 1 (2.56%) HNC
6 1 (2.56%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.13%) DO-254
1 2 (5.13%) NCSC
2 1 (2.56%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.56%) AUTOSAR
2 1 (2.56%) GDPR
2 1 (2.56%) IEC 61508
2 1 (2.56%) MISRA
2 1 (2.56%) MISRA C
2 1 (2.56%) QA
2 1 (2.56%) SLA
2 1 (2.56%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 2 (5.13%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (5.13%) Ansible
1 2 (5.13%) Nagios
1 2 (5.13%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (15.38%) Cisco
2 2 (5.13%) Altera
2 2 (5.13%) Databricks
2 2 (5.13%) Microsemi
2 2 (5.13%) Microsoft
2 2 (5.13%) SolarWinds
2 2 (5.13%) Xilinx
3 1 (2.56%) Actel
3 1 (2.56%) Intel
3 1 (2.56%) QNX
3 1 (2.56%) Wind River