Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £110,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 November 2025.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 288 251 345
Rank change year-on-year -37 +94 +104
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 96 204 120
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.75% 1.17% 0.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.82% 1.23% 0.66%
Number of salaries quoted 74 137 93
10th Percentile £75,750 £70,000 £70,000
25th Percentile £85,500 £75,000 £87,049
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £110,000 £100,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -
75th Percentile £123,750 £120,000 £122,500
90th Percentile £150,000 £147,500 £133,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £75,000 £87,500
% change year-on-year +6.67% -14.29% +6.06%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
London

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

Permanent vacancies in London with a recognized job title 11,663 16,561 18,163
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.84% 94.86% 95.13%
Number of salaries quoted 7,490 10,136 14,807
10th Percentile £36,225 £41,250 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £53,750 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £75,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - +3.45%
75th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £120,000 £118,750 £115,000
England median annual salary £53,000 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -7.83% -4.17% -

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Principal Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in London.

Principal Engineer job vacancy trend in London

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in London

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in London.

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in London

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in London over the 6 months to 14 November 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in London

Principal Engineer
Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 14 November 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
Central London +38 19 £112,500 +4.65% 29
South London +20 7 £77,500 +27.05% 4
West London -4 1 £65,000 - 1
Principal Engineer
England

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 14 November 2025, Principal Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the London region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 48 (50.00%) AWS
2 47 (48.96%) Python
3 42 (43.75%) Software Engineering
4 32 (33.33%) CI/CD
5 27 (28.13%) Azure
5 27 (28.13%) Java
6 25 (26.04%) Agile
7 23 (23.96%) Technical Leadership
8 22 (22.92%) Kubernetes
9 21 (21.88%) Mentoring
10 20 (20.83%) Fintech
10 20 (20.83%) SQL
11 19 (19.79%) GCP
11 19 (19.79%) React
12 18 (18.75%) Microservices
12 18 (18.75%) PostgreSQL
12 18 (18.75%) Roadmaps
13 17 (17.71%) AI
13 17 (17.71%) DevOps
13 17 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (16.67%) Analytics
14 16 (16.67%) Kafka
15 15 (15.63%) .NET
15 15 (15.63%) NoSQL
16 14 (14.58%) C#
16 14 (14.58%) Coaching
16 14 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
16 14 (14.58%) JavaScript
17 13 (13.54%) Collaborative Culture
17 13 (13.54%) Data Engineering

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 10 (10.42%) Apache Spark
2 3 (3.13%) Apache Airflow
2 3 (3.13%) Confluence
3 2 (2.08%) Apache
3 2 (2.08%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 48 (50.00%) AWS
2 27 (28.13%) Azure
3 19 (19.79%) GCP
4 7 (7.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 7 (7.29%) Amazon EMR
4 7 (7.29%) Amazon OpenSearch
4 7 (7.29%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (7.29%) GitHub
5 6 (6.25%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (4.17%) Cloudflare
6 4 (4.17%) Google Gemini
7 3 (3.13%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (3.13%) Amazon MSK
7 3 (3.13%) Power Platform
7 3 (3.13%) Serverless
7 3 (3.13%) Snowflake
8 2 (2.08%) Datadog
9 1 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (1.04%) CloudFront
9 1 (1.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.13%) DNS
2 2 (2.08%) Multicast
3 1 (1.04%) Ethernet
3 1 (1.04%) Modbus
3 1 (1.04%) Profibus
3 1 (1.04%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (18.75%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (15.63%) NoSQL
3 13 (13.54%) MongoDB
4 10 (10.42%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (8.33%) DynamoDB
6 7 (7.29%) Apache Cassandra
6 7 (7.29%) Big Data
6 7 (7.29%) DataStage
6 7 (7.29%) Hadoop
6 7 (7.29%) MySQL
6 7 (7.29%) Neo4j
6 7 (7.29%) Pentaho
6 7 (7.29%) RDBMS
6 7 (7.29%) Relational Database
6 7 (7.29%) SQL Server
7 3 (3.13%) Power BI
7 3 (3.13%) Tableau
8 2 (2.08%) Data Lake
8 2 (2.08%) Delta Lake
9 1 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 10 (10.42%) Git
2 8 (8.33%) GitLab
3 7 (7.29%) Jenkins
4 5 (5.21%) JIRA
5 4 (4.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (3.13%) Burp Suite
6 3 (3.13%) Cypress.io
6 3 (3.13%) Metasploit
7 2 (2.08%) Ant
7 2 (2.08%) Plastic SCM
7 2 (2.08%) SonarQube
7 2 (2.08%) TeamCity
7 2 (2.08%) webpack
8 1 (1.04%) Rational DOORS
General
1 42 (43.75%) Finance
2 16 (16.67%) Law
3 14 (14.58%) Social Skills
4 9 (9.38%) Public Sector
5 8 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (7.29%) Military
7 5 (5.21%) Banking
7 5 (5.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (5.21%) Legal
8 4 (4.17%) Aerospace
8 4 (4.17%) Marketing
8 4 (4.17%) Publishing
9 3 (3.13%) Local Government
9 3 (3.13%) Telecoms
10 1 (1.04%) Advertising
10 1 (1.04%) Back Office
10 1 (1.04%) Front Office
10 1 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (1.04%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (19.79%) React
2 16 (16.67%) Kafka
3 15 (15.63%) .NET
4 9 (9.38%) Django
5 8 (8.33%) FastAPI
6 7 (7.29%) RESTful
6 7 (7.29%) Spring
6 7 (7.29%) Spring Boot
7 6 (6.25%) GraphQL
7 6 (6.25%) Node.js
7 6 (6.25%) REST
8 5 (5.21%) Jest
9 4 (4.17%) .NET Framework
9 4 (4.17%) ASP.NET
9 4 (4.17%) JSON
9 4 (4.17%) Micronaut
9 4 (4.17%) Quarkus
9 4 (4.17%) Redux
9 4 (4.17%) XML
10 3 (3.13%) Drools
Miscellaneous
1 23 (23.96%) Distributed Systems
2 22 (22.92%) Cloud Native
3 8 (8.33%) Product Ownership
4 7 (7.29%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (7.29%) Management Information System
5 5 (5.21%) Algorithms
5 5 (5.21%) Derivative
5 5 (5.21%) Fixed Income
5 5 (5.21%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (4.17%) Data Structures
7 3 (3.13%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (3.13%) SCADA
7 3 (3.13%) Security Posture
8 2 (2.08%) Equities
8 2 (2.08%) NHS
8 2 (2.08%) Public Cloud
9 1 (1.04%) Blockchain
9 1 (1.04%) Clustering
9 1 (1.04%) Data Centre
9 1 (1.04%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 5 (5.21%) Linux
2 3 (3.13%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (43.75%) Software Engineering
2 32 (33.33%) CI/CD
3 25 (26.04%) Agile
4 23 (23.96%) Technical Leadership
5 21 (21.88%) Mentoring
6 20 (20.83%) Fintech
7 18 (18.75%) Microservices
7 18 (18.75%) Roadmaps
8 17 (17.71%) AI
8 17 (17.71%) DevOps
8 17 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
9 16 (16.67%) Analytics
10 14 (14.58%) Coaching
10 14 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 13 (13.54%) Collaborative Culture
11 13 (13.54%) Data Engineering
11 13 (13.54%) Data Modelling
12 12 (12.50%) Containerisation
12 12 (12.50%) Event-Driven
13 11 (11.46%) Event-Driven Architecture
Programming Languages
1 47 (48.96%) Python
2 27 (28.13%) Java
3 20 (20.83%) SQL
4 14 (14.58%) C#
4 14 (14.58%) JavaScript
5 12 (12.50%) TypeScript
6 9 (9.38%) C++
7 8 (8.33%) PowerShell
7 8 (8.33%) Rust
8 7 (7.29%) Bash
9 5 (5.21%) Go
10 3 (3.13%) Groovy
10 3 (3.13%) Ruby
11 2 (2.08%) Kotlin
12 1 (1.04%) Perl
Qualifications
1 12 (12.50%) Degree
2 6 (6.25%) Security Cleared
3 4 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (4.17%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 3 (3.13%) CCSP
4 3 (3.13%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (3.13%) CISSP
4 3 (3.13%) GCIH
5 2 (2.08%) Master's Degree
5 2 (2.08%) PhD
5 2 (2.08%) Postgraduate
6 1 (1.04%) HNC
6 1 (1.04%) HND
6 1 (1.04%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.17%) QA
2 3 (3.13%) Accessibility
2 3 (3.13%) GDPR
2 3 (3.13%) IEC 61508
2 3 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.08%) Data Quality
System Software
1 13 (13.54%) Docker
2 4 (4.17%) Firmware
3 1 (1.04%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 22 (22.92%) Kubernetes
2 12 (12.50%) Terraform
3 6 (6.25%) Grafana
3 6 (6.25%) Prometheus
4 4 (4.17%) Functional Safety
5 3 (3.13%) Ansible
5 3 (3.13%) Kibana
5 3 (3.13%) Nmap
6 1 (1.04%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 7 (7.29%) Informatica
1 7 (7.29%) Oracle
1 7 (7.29%) Talend
2 6 (6.25%) Microsoft
3 4 (4.17%) Foundry
3 4 (4.17%) OpenAI
3 4 (4.17%) Palantir
4 3 (3.13%) Cribl.io
4 3 (3.13%) Rapid7
4 3 (3.13%) Sonatype
5 2 (2.08%) Databricks
6 1 (1.04%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.04%) Google
6 1 (1.04%) Okta
6 1 (1.04%) Ping Identity
6 1 (1.04%) Siemens
6 1 (1.04%) VMware