Principal Software Engineer Jobs in England

Principal Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Principal Software Engineer salary in England is £67,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 9 May 2025.

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

6 months to
9 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 494 686 812
Rank change year-on-year +192 +126 -114
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Software Engineer 178 145 119
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 0.37% 0.17% 0.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.41% 0.18% 0.14%
Number of salaries quoted 100 119 94
10th Percentile - £65,000 £52,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £71,250 £69,063
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,000 £85,000 £84,500
Median % change year-on-year -21.18% +0.59% -3.43%
75th Percentile £77,500 £100,000 £113,438
90th Percentile £112,750 £115,250 £160,000
UK median annual salary £67,000 £85,000 £84,500
% change year-on-year -21.18% +0.59% -3.43%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in England with a recognized job title 43,417 81,048 82,564
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.53% 94.49% 91.47%
Number of salaries quoted 24,595 60,528 52,373
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,000 £38,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £53,500 £60,800
Median % change year-on-year +7.48% -12.01% +1.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £71,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £91,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £52,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.52% -12.50% -

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
Salary Trend in England

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

Salary trend for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 9 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Software Engineer in England

Principal Software Engineer
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Software Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 9 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +152 79 £65,000 -13.33% 34
Midlands +120 65 £76,250 -10.29% 4
West Midlands +99 43 £80,000 -13.51% 3
East Midlands +62 22 £72,500 -14.71% 1
London +81 16 £112,500 +12.50% 34
North of England +35 9 £75,000 +15.38% 13
East of England +37 8 £67,000 -13.55% 11
North West +9 8 £75,000 +11.11% 8
Yorkshire +50 1 - - 2
Principal Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 May 2025, Principal Software Engineer 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 permanent job ads across the England region featuring Principal Software Engineer in the job title.

1 136 (76.40%) Agile
2 115 (64.61%) Software Engineering
3 112 (62.92%) BPSS Clearance
4 81 (45.51%) Degree
5 74 (41.57%) Computer Science
6 69 (38.76%) UML
7 67 (37.64%) Aerospace
8 66 (37.08%) Validation
8 66 (37.08%) MATLAB
8 66 (37.08%) Simulink
8 66 (37.08%) Chartered Engineer
9 64 (35.96%) Software Testing
9 64 (35.96%) Automotive
9 64 (35.96%) Systems Engineering
10 62 (34.83%) Waterfall
11 28 (15.73%) Python
12 22 (12.36%) Ada
12 22 (12.36%) Ada 95
13 21 (11.80%) Configuration Management
14 18 (10.11%) ISO/IEC 12207
15 17 (9.55%) C
15 17 (9.55%) AWS
15 17 (9.55%) Kubernetes
15 17 (9.55%) Microservices
16 16 (8.99%) CI/CD
17 15 (8.43%) React
18 14 (7.87%) Node.js
18 14 (7.87%) C++
19 12 (6.74%) Java
19 12 (6.74%) Terraform

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 2 (1.12%) Confluence
2 1 (0.56%) CMS
Applications
1 66 (37.08%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 17 (9.55%) AWS
2 7 (3.93%) SaaS
3 6 (3.37%) Azure
4 3 (1.69%) GitHub
4 3 (1.69%) Serverless
5 2 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
5 2 (1.12%) GCP
5 2 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (1.12%) PaaS
6 1 (0.56%) Azure API Management
6 1 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (0.56%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (0.56%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.12%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.62%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (1.69%) MongoDB
2 3 (1.69%) Redis
2 3 (1.69%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.12%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.56%) MySQL
4 1 (0.56%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (3.93%) Git
2 4 (2.25%) JIRA
3 3 (1.69%) GitLab
3 3 (1.69%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.69%) Subversion
4 1 (0.56%) CMake
General
1 67 (37.64%) Aerospace
2 64 (35.96%) Automotive
3 6 (3.37%) Banking
3 6 (3.37%) Military
4 5 (2.81%) Finance
5 4 (2.25%) Law
5 4 (2.25%) Retail
6 3 (1.69%) Electronics
6 3 (1.69%) Social Skills
7 2 (1.12%) Front Office
7 2 (1.12%) Games
7 2 (1.12%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.56%) Advertising
8 1 (0.56%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.56%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.56%) Marketing
8 1 (0.56%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.56%) Tech for Good
8 1 (0.56%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (8.43%) React
2 14 (7.87%) Node.js
3 6 (3.37%) .NET
3 6 (3.37%) Flutter
4 4 (2.25%) Lambda Expressions
5 3 (1.69%) React Native
5 3 (1.69%) RESTful
6 2 (1.12%) .NET Core
6 2 (1.12%) AngularJS
6 2 (1.12%) Boost C++ Libraries
6 2 (1.12%) CSS
6 2 (1.12%) Express.js
6 2 (1.12%) FIX Protocol
6 2 (1.12%) GraphQL
6 2 (1.12%) HTML
6 2 (1.12%) Kafka
6 2 (1.12%) pytest
6 2 (1.12%) REST
6 2 (1.12%) Socket.IO
6 2 (1.12%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 6 (3.37%) Cloud Native
2 5 (2.81%) Algorithms
2 5 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (2.81%) Product Ownership
3 3 (1.69%) Embedded Systems
3 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (1.12%) Derivative
4 2 (1.12%) Equities
4 2 (1.12%) Fixed Income
4 2 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (0.56%) Client/Server
5 1 (0.56%) Data Structures
5 1 (0.56%) FPGA
5 1 (0.56%) Housing Association
5 1 (0.56%) Marketing Technology
5 1 (0.56%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.56%) NHS
5 1 (0.56%) Robotics
5 1 (0.56%) Verilog
5 1 (0.56%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.25%) Linux
2 1 (0.56%) Android
2 1 (0.56%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 1 (0.56%) VMS
2 1 (0.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (76.40%) Agile
2 115 (64.61%) Software Engineering
3 74 (41.57%) Computer Science
4 69 (38.76%) UML
5 66 (37.08%) Validation
6 64 (35.96%) Software Testing
6 64 (35.96%) Systems Engineering
7 62 (34.83%) Waterfall
8 21 (11.80%) Configuration Management
9 17 (9.55%) Microservices
10 16 (8.99%) CI/CD
11 11 (6.18%) Mentoring
12 9 (5.06%) Mathematics
12 9 (5.06%) Problem-Solving
13 8 (4.49%) Artificial Intelligence
13 8 (4.49%) Roadmaps
13 8 (4.49%) Technical Leadership
14 7 (3.93%) Collaborative Working
14 7 (3.93%) DevOps
14 7 (3.93%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 66 (37.08%) MATLAB
2 28 (15.73%) Python
3 22 (12.36%) Ada
3 22 (12.36%) Ada 95
4 17 (9.55%) C
5 14 (7.87%) C++
6 12 (6.74%) Go
6 12 (6.74%) Java
7 11 (6.18%) C#
7 11 (6.18%) Rust
8 10 (5.62%) TypeScript
9 8 (4.49%) JavaScript
9 8 (4.49%) Perl
10 7 (3.93%) Ruby
11 5 (2.81%) SQL
12 3 (1.69%) Kotlin
13 2 (1.12%) PHP
14 1 (0.56%) R
14 1 (0.56%) Scala
Qualifications
1 112 (62.92%) BPSS Clearance
2 81 (45.51%) Degree
3 66 (37.08%) Chartered Engineer
4 2 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (1.12%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
5 1 (0.56%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (10.11%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 3 (1.69%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.12%) QA
System Software
1 12 (6.74%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (9.55%) Kubernetes
2 12 (6.74%) Terraform
3 3 (1.69%) Ansible
4 2 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.56%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 1 (0.56%) Apple
1 1 (0.56%) Atlassian
1 1 (0.56%) ForgeRock
1 1 (0.56%) Microsoft
1 1 (0.56%) Okta
1 1 (0.56%) Ping Identity
1 1 (0.56%) Red Hat