Principal Engineer Contracts

Principal Engineer
UK

The median Principal Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 March 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
6 Mar 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 446 486 646
Rank change year-on-year +40 +160 +114
Contract jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 84 109 94
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.28% 0.25% 0.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.26% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 22 39
10th Percentile £430 £514 £413
25th Percentile £495 £544 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £616 £625
Median % change year-on-year -14.81% -1.40% +1.63%
75th Percentile £625 £750 £788
90th Percentile £725 £800 £930
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £600
% change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 72 18
10th Percentile £45.11 £46.18 £51.19
25th Percentile £48.99 £52.50 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £83.31
Median % change year-on-year - -18.98% +57.81%
75th Percentile £78.36 £76.53 £83.40
90th Percentile £82.73 £83.40 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £83.31
% change year-on-year - -18.98% +55.88%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 28,287 41,260 61,414
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.77% 92.95% 94.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,965 27,107 42,691
10th Percentile £291 £275 £311
25th Percentile £406 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 853 2,419 1,650
10th Percentile £16.23 £13.05 £14.22
25th Percentile £21.43 £16.25 £18.43
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.08 £40.54
Median % change year-on-year -0.23% -15.93% +84.26%
75th Percentile £64.52 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.20 £71.90 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £39.55
% change year-on-year -7.14% -11.50% +111.58%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer over the 6 months to 6 March 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Principal Engineer over the 6 months to 6 March 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK

Principal Engineer
Top 15 Contract Locations

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 over the 6 months to 6 March 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
England +49 77 £528 -15.60% 308
London +67 48 £528 -27.24% 76
UK excluding London +27 31 £525 -4.55% 253
Work from Home +63 29 £513 -15.51% 215
South West +26 12 £625 - 40
North of England +21 9 £625 +19.05% 50
South East +39 7 £450 -41.94% 69
North West +10 7 £625 +19.05% 35
East of England +16 2 - - 34
Midlands +10 2 £75 -86.05% 46
Scotland +2 2 - - 17
North East -7 2 - - 2
West Midlands +8 1 - - 30
East Midlands - 1 £75 - 15
Wales - 1 - - 5

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

For the 6 months to 6 March 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 featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 27 (32.14%) Azure
2 26 (30.95%) Python
3 23 (27.38%) CI/CD
4 20 (23.81%) DevOps
5 19 (22.62%) Security Cleared
5 19 (22.62%) Linux
5 19 (22.62%) Cisco
5 19 (22.62%) Software Engineering
6 17 (20.24%) Migration
6 17 (20.24%) Degree
7 16 (19.05%) AWS
7 16 (19.05%) SolarWinds
7 16 (19.05%) VPN
7 16 (19.05%) Social Skills
8 15 (17.86%) Agile
8 15 (17.86%) SC Cleared
8 15 (17.86%) Network Monitoring
9 14 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 14 (16.67%) Kubernetes
10 12 (14.29%) Project Delivery
10 12 (14.29%) ZABBIX
10 12 (14.29%) Broadband
10 12 (14.29%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (14.29%) CCIE
10 12 (14.29%) MPLS
11 11 (13.10%) OSPF
11 11 (13.10%) BGP
11 11 (13.10%) IPv6
11 11 (13.10%) Ansible
12 10 (11.90%) Terraform

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 3 (3.57%) Apache Spark
2 2 (2.38%) Apache
2 2 (2.38%) BizTalk Server
3 1 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (1.19%) WinCC
Applications
1 2 (2.38%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (2.38%) SAP BPC
Cloud Services
1 27 (32.14%) Azure
2 16 (19.05%) AWS
3 6 (7.14%) GitHub
4 5 (5.95%) GCP
5 3 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (3.57%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (2.38%) Amazon EC2
6 2 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (2.38%) Amazon MSK
6 2 (2.38%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (2.38%) Azure AKS
6 2 (2.38%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 2 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.38%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (2.38%) Entra ID
6 2 (2.38%) Serverless
7 1 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (1.19%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (19.05%) VPN
2 12 (14.29%) Broadband
2 12 (14.29%) MPLS
3 11 (13.10%) BGP
3 11 (13.10%) IPv6
3 11 (13.10%) OSPF
4 10 (11.90%) Cisco Firepower
4 10 (11.90%) Firewall
5 8 (9.52%) Multicast
6 6 (7.14%) Network Security
7 5 (5.95%) GPON
7 5 (5.95%) TCP/IP
8 4 (4.76%) Cisco ASA
8 4 (4.76%) Cisco ISE
8 4 (4.76%) DHCP
8 4 (4.76%) DNS
8 4 (4.76%) IPsec
8 4 (4.76%) TACACS
9 2 (2.38%) Ethernet
9 2 (2.38%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (7.14%) Big Data
2 4 (4.76%) NoSQL
3 3 (3.57%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (3.57%) MongoDB
3 3 (3.57%) OLAP
3 3 (3.57%) OLTP
3 3 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (3.57%) SAP BW
3 3 (3.57%) SAP Data Services
3 3 (3.57%) SAP HANA
4 2 (2.38%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.38%) Delta Lake
4 2 (2.38%) MariaDB
4 2 (2.38%) Relational Database
4 2 (2.38%) SQL Server
5 1 (1.19%) Hadoop
5 1 (1.19%) RDBMS
5 1 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (1.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (4.76%) GitLab
1 4 (4.76%) Rational DOORS
2 2 (2.38%) Git
2 2 (2.38%) Jenkins
2 2 (2.38%) Octopus Deploy
2 2 (2.38%) Visual Studio
3 1 (1.19%) Eclipse
3 1 (1.19%) NetBeans
General
1 16 (19.05%) Social Skills
2 7 (8.33%) Public Sector
3 6 (7.14%) Finance
4 4 (4.76%) Telecoms
5 3 (3.57%) Military
6 2 (2.38%) Aerospace
6 2 (2.38%) Back Office
6 2 (2.38%) Banking
6 2 (2.38%) Electronics
6 2 (2.38%) Financial Institution
6 2 (2.38%) Front Office
7 1 (1.19%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (1.19%) Automotive
7 1 (1.19%) Fire and Rescue
7 1 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.19%) Local Government
7 1 (1.19%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.19%) Marketing
7 1 (1.19%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.95%) Web Services
2 4 (4.76%) .NET
2 4 (4.76%) Kafka
3 3 (3.57%) AngularJS
4 2 (2.38%) .NET Core
4 2 (2.38%) Blazor
4 2 (2.38%) CSS
4 2 (2.38%) CSS3
4 2 (2.38%) HTML
4 2 (2.38%) HTML5
4 2 (2.38%) RESTful
5 1 (1.19%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (1.19%) Kedro
5 1 (1.19%) Lambda Expressions
5 1 (1.19%) OAuth
5 1 (1.19%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.19%) POSIX
5 1 (1.19%) REST
5 1 (1.19%) RxJS
Miscellaneous
1 5 (5.95%) Algorithms
2 4 (4.76%) Hedge funds
2 4 (4.76%) Private Cloud
3 3 (3.57%) Cloud Native
3 3 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (3.57%) IoT
3 3 (3.57%) Management Information System
3 3 (3.57%) Replication
4 2 (2.38%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.38%) Data Structures
4 2 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (2.38%) Life Science
4 2 (2.38%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.38%) Security Posture
4 2 (2.38%) TWAP
4 2 (2.38%) VWAP
5 1 (1.19%) Verilog
5 1 (1.19%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 19 (22.62%) Linux
2 10 (11.90%) Windows
3 6 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (4.76%) Windows Server
5 3 (3.57%) CentOS
5 3 (3.57%) Ubuntu
5 3 (3.57%) Unix
6 2 (2.38%) SUSE
6 2 (2.38%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (27.38%) CI/CD
2 20 (23.81%) DevOps
3 19 (22.62%) Software Engineering
4 17 (20.24%) Migration
5 15 (17.86%) Agile
5 15 (17.86%) Network Monitoring
6 14 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
7 12 (14.29%) Project Delivery
8 9 (10.71%) Containerisation
9 8 (9.52%) Mentoring
10 7 (8.33%) Infrastructure as Code
10 7 (8.33%) Microservices
10 7 (8.33%) Systems Engineering
11 6 (7.14%) Customer Requirements
11 6 (7.14%) Data Strategy
11 6 (7.14%) Infrastructure Automation
11 6 (7.14%) Observability
11 6 (7.14%) Test Automation
11 6 (7.14%) Validation
12 5 (5.95%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 26 (30.95%) Python
2 10 (11.90%) SQL
3 8 (9.52%) C#
4 7 (8.33%) C++
4 7 (8.33%) Java
5 5 (5.95%) JavaScript
5 5 (5.95%) T-SQL
6 4 (4.76%) C
6 4 (4.76%) PowerShell
6 4 (4.76%) TypeScript
7 3 (3.57%) Go
8 2 (2.38%) Bash
8 2 (2.38%) MATLAB
8 2 (2.38%) Perl
8 2 (2.38%) PL/SQL
8 2 (2.38%) Rust
9 1 (1.19%) Kotlin
9 1 (1.19%) Ruby
9 1 (1.19%) SystemVerilog
9 1 (1.19%) VB
Qualifications
1 19 (22.62%) Security Cleared
2 17 (20.24%) Degree
3 15 (17.86%) SC Cleared
4 12 (14.29%) CCIE
4 12 (14.29%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (5.95%) CCIE Service Provider
6 4 (4.76%) DV Cleared
7 2 (2.38%) RIBA
8 1 (1.19%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.19%) CCIE Security
8 1 (1.19%) CESG Certified Professional
8 1 (1.19%) Chartered Engineer
8 1 (1.19%) CISSP
8 1 (1.19%) RHCE
8 1 (1.19%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.76%) QA
1 4 (4.76%) SLA
2 3 (3.57%) Def Stans
3 2 (2.38%) NCSC
3 2 (2.38%) NIST
4 1 (1.19%) AUTOSAR
4 1 (1.19%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.19%) DO-254
4 1 (1.19%) GDPR
4 1 (1.19%) IEC 61508
4 1 (1.19%) MISRA
4 1 (1.19%) MISRA C
4 1 (1.19%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.19%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 10 (11.90%) Docker
2 4 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.19%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.19%) Firmware
3 1 (1.19%) LXC
Systems Management
1 14 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 12 (14.29%) ZABBIX
3 11 (13.10%) Ansible
4 10 (11.90%) Terraform
5 3 (3.57%) Nagios
5 3 (3.57%) Puppet
6 2 (2.38%) Failover Clustering
6 2 (2.38%) Progress Chef
6 2 (2.38%) Red Hat Satellite
6 2 (2.38%) SCCM
7 1 (1.19%) Functional Safety
7 1 (1.19%) Graylog
Vendors
1 19 (22.62%) Cisco
2 16 (19.05%) SolarWinds
3 6 (7.14%) Red Hat
4 5 (5.95%) Databricks
4 5 (5.95%) Microsoft
4 5 (5.95%) Nokia
4 5 (5.95%) VMware
5 4 (4.76%) Oracle
5 4 (4.76%) SAP
6 3 (3.57%) Dynatrace
7 2 (2.38%) BT
7 2 (2.38%) Confluent
7 2 (2.38%) MuleSoft
7 2 (2.38%) Wind River
8 1 (1.19%) Altera
8 1 (1.19%) Citrix
8 1 (1.19%) Foundry
8 1 (1.19%) Splunk
8 1 (1.19%) Vertica
8 1 (1.19%) Xilinx
340 Principal Engineer jobs Nationwide