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 25 November 2025.

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

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 290 259 342
Rank change year-on-year -31 +83 +101
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 97 200 113
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.75% 1.15% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.83% 1.21% 0.64%
Number of salaries quoted 79 130 92
10th Percentile £77,000 £70,000 £70,625
25th Percentile £85,250 £81,250 £88,325
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £110,000 £106,250 £103,750
Median % change year-on-year +3.53% +2.41% +3.75%
75th Percentile £122,500 £121,875 £122,500
90th Percentile £150,000 £147,500 £133,375
England median annual salary £80,000 £75,000 £89,000
% change year-on-year +6.67% -15.73% +7.88%

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 11,729 16,538 17,793
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.77% 94.72% 94.98%
Number of salaries quoted 7,601 10,071 14,511
10th Percentile £36,000 £41,250 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £55,000 £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 £118,750 £118,750 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% -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 25 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 25 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 20 £112,500 +4.65% 4
South London +25 8 £80,000 +31.15% 3
West London +1 1 £65,000 - 2
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 50 (51.55%) AWS
2 48 (49.48%) Python
3 43 (44.33%) Software Engineering
4 34 (35.05%) CI/CD
5 30 (30.93%) Azure
6 26 (26.80%) Agile
7 25 (25.77%) Java
8 21 (21.65%) Kubernetes
8 21 (21.65%) Technical Leadership
9 20 (20.62%) DevOps
9 20 (20.62%) GCP
9 20 (20.62%) React
9 20 (20.62%) SQL
10 19 (19.59%) Mentoring
11 18 (18.56%) Fintech
11 18 (18.56%) Microservices
11 18 (18.56%) PostgreSQL
11 18 (18.56%) Problem-Solving
11 18 (18.56%) Roadmaps
12 17 (17.53%) AI
12 17 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (16.49%) Kafka
14 15 (15.46%) .NET
14 15 (15.46%) Analytics
14 15 (15.46%) C#
15 14 (14.43%) Degree
15 14 (14.43%) JavaScript
15 14 (14.43%) NoSQL
16 13 (13.40%) Collaborative Culture
16 13 (13.40%) 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 (10.31%) Apache Spark
2 3 (3.09%) Apache Airflow
2 3 (3.09%) Confluence
3 2 (2.06%) Apache
3 2 (2.06%) OpenStack
4 1 (1.03%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 50 (51.55%) AWS
2 30 (30.93%) Azure
3 20 (20.62%) GCP
4 8 (8.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 7 (7.22%) Amazon EMR
5 7 (7.22%) Amazon OpenSearch
5 7 (7.22%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (7.22%) GitHub
6 6 (6.19%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (4.12%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (4.12%) Cloudflare
7 4 (4.12%) Google Gemini
7 4 (4.12%) Serverless
8 3 (3.09%) Amazon MSK
8 3 (3.09%) Power Platform
8 3 (3.09%) Snowflake
9 2 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (2.06%) Datadog
10 1 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (1.03%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.09%) DNS
2 2 (2.06%) Multicast
3 1 (1.03%) Ethernet
3 1 (1.03%) Modbus
3 1 (1.03%) Profibus
3 1 (1.03%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (18.56%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (14.43%) NoSQL
3 12 (12.37%) MongoDB
4 10 (10.31%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (8.25%) DynamoDB
6 7 (7.22%) Apache Cassandra
6 7 (7.22%) Big Data
6 7 (7.22%) DataStage
6 7 (7.22%) Hadoop
6 7 (7.22%) MySQL
6 7 (7.22%) Neo4j
6 7 (7.22%) Pentaho
6 7 (7.22%) RDBMS
6 7 (7.22%) Relational Database
6 7 (7.22%) SQL Server
7 3 (3.09%) Power BI
7 3 (3.09%) Tableau
8 2 (2.06%) BigQuery
8 2 (2.06%) Data Lake
8 2 (2.06%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 10 (10.31%) Git
2 9 (9.28%) GitLab
3 8 (8.25%) Jenkins
4 5 (5.15%) JIRA
5 4 (4.12%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (3.09%) Burp Suite
6 3 (3.09%) Cypress.io
6 3 (3.09%) Metasploit
7 2 (2.06%) Ant
7 2 (2.06%) Plastic SCM
7 2 (2.06%) SonarQube
7 2 (2.06%) TeamCity
7 2 (2.06%) webpack
8 1 (1.03%) Rational DOORS
General
1 37 (38.14%) Finance
2 15 (15.46%) Social Skills
3 14 (14.43%) Law
4 9 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (7.22%) Military
6 6 (6.19%) Public Sector
7 5 (5.15%) Banking
8 4 (4.12%) Aerospace
8 4 (4.12%) Legal
9 3 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (3.09%) Publishing
9 3 (3.09%) Telecoms
10 2 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (2.06%) Marketing
11 1 (1.03%) Advertising
11 1 (1.03%) Back Office
11 1 (1.03%) Front Office
11 1 (1.03%) Local Government
11 1 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (20.62%) React
2 16 (16.49%) Kafka
3 15 (15.46%) .NET
4 10 (10.31%) Django
5 8 (8.25%) FastAPI
6 6 (6.19%) GraphQL
6 6 (6.19%) Node.js
6 6 (6.19%) REST
7 5 (5.15%) Jest
7 5 (5.15%) Redux
7 5 (5.15%) RESTful
7 5 (5.15%) Spring
7 5 (5.15%) Spring Boot
8 4 (4.12%) .NET Framework
8 4 (4.12%) ASP.NET
8 4 (4.12%) JSON
8 4 (4.12%) XML
9 2 (2.06%) CSS
9 2 (2.06%) FIX Protocol
9 2 (2.06%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (21.65%) Distributed Systems
2 20 (20.62%) Cloud Native
3 8 (8.25%) Product Ownership
4 7 (7.22%) Greenfield Project
4 7 (7.22%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (7.22%) Management Information System
5 6 (6.19%) Algorithms
6 5 (5.15%) Data Structures
6 5 (5.15%) Derivative
6 5 (5.15%) Fixed Income
7 3 (3.09%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (3.09%) SCADA
7 3 (3.09%) Security Posture
8 2 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (2.06%) Equities
8 2 (2.06%) Public Cloud
9 1 (1.03%) Blockchain
9 1 (1.03%) Clustering
9 1 (1.03%) Data Centre
9 1 (1.03%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 5 (5.15%) Linux
2 3 (3.09%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (44.33%) Software Engineering
2 34 (35.05%) CI/CD
3 26 (26.80%) Agile
4 21 (21.65%) Technical Leadership
5 20 (20.62%) DevOps
6 19 (19.59%) Mentoring
7 18 (18.56%) Fintech
7 18 (18.56%) Microservices
7 18 (18.56%) Problem-Solving
7 18 (18.56%) Roadmaps
8 17 (17.53%) AI
8 17 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (15.46%) Analytics
10 13 (13.40%) Collaborative Culture
10 13 (13.40%) Data Engineering
11 12 (12.37%) Coaching
11 12 (12.37%) Data Modelling
12 11 (11.34%) Containerisation
12 11 (11.34%) Full-Stack Development
12 11 (11.34%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 48 (49.48%) Python
2 25 (25.77%) Java
3 20 (20.62%) SQL
4 15 (15.46%) C#
5 14 (14.43%) JavaScript
6 13 (13.40%) TypeScript
7 8 (8.25%) C++
7 8 (8.25%) PowerShell
7 8 (8.25%) Rust
8 7 (7.22%) Bash
9 5 (5.15%) Go
10 3 (3.09%) Groovy
10 3 (3.09%) Ruby
11 2 (2.06%) Kotlin
12 1 (1.03%) Perl
12 1 (1.03%) PHP
Qualifications
1 14 (14.43%) Degree
2 6 (6.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 6 (6.19%) Security Cleared
3 4 (4.12%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 3 (3.09%) CCSP
4 3 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (3.09%) CISSP
4 3 (3.09%) GCIH
5 2 (2.06%) Master's Degree
5 2 (2.06%) PhD
6 1 (1.03%) HNC
6 1 (1.03%) HND
6 1 (1.03%) MCP
6 1 (1.03%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.12%) QA
2 3 (3.09%) GDPR
2 3 (3.09%) IEC 61508
2 3 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.06%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.03%) Accessibility
System Software
1 13 (13.40%) Docker
2 4 (4.12%) Firmware
3 1 (1.03%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (21.65%) Kubernetes
2 13 (13.40%) Terraform
3 6 (6.19%) Grafana
3 6 (6.19%) Prometheus
4 4 (4.12%) Functional Safety
5 3 (3.09%) Ansible
5 3 (3.09%) Kibana
5 3 (3.09%) Nmap
6 1 (1.03%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 7 (7.22%) Informatica
1 7 (7.22%) Microsoft
1 7 (7.22%) Oracle
1 7 (7.22%) Talend
2 4 (4.12%) OpenAI
3 3 (3.09%) Cribl.io
3 3 (3.09%) Foundry
3 3 (3.09%) Palantir
3 3 (3.09%) Rapid7
3 3 (3.09%) Sonatype
4 2 (2.06%) Databricks
4 2 (2.06%) Google
5 1 (1.03%) ForgeRock
5 1 (1.03%) Okta
5 1 (1.03%) Ping Identity
5 1 (1.03%) Siemens
5 1 (1.03%) VMware