Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £100,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 27 April 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 256 326 330
Rank change year-on-year +70 +4 +77
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 163 71 175
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.82% 0.55% 0.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.90% 0.61% 0.80%
Number of salaries quoted 122 38 138
10th Percentile £85,000 £60,000 £72,500
25th Percentile £90,000 £88,750 £82,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £100,000 £110,000 £98,750
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +11.39% -8.14%
75th Percentile £113,750 £125,000 £117,500
90th Percentile £134,750 £140,000 £125,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £80,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -12.50% -5.33%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 18,189 11,570 21,938
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 90.19% 94.09%
Number of salaries quoted 12,251 7,526 16,677
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year - +7.14% -3.45%
75th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £122,500 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -11.33%

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 27 April 2026.

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 27 April 2026. 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 +35 41 £100,000 -9.09% 34
South London +8 6 £80,000 +33.33%
West London -20 1 £65,000 -
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 April 2026, 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 75 (46.01%) Software Engineering
2 63 (38.65%) AWS
3 46 (28.22%) CI/CD
4 42 (25.77%) Java
5 38 (23.31%) Python
6 37 (22.70%) Azure
7 36 (22.09%) Agile
8 34 (20.86%) Continuous Improvement
9 31 (19.02%) Roadmaps
10 30 (18.40%) Microservices
11 29 (17.79%) Infrastructure as Code
12 25 (15.34%) Mentoring
13 24 (14.72%) AI
13 24 (14.72%) GCP
13 24 (14.72%) Technical Leadership
14 20 (12.27%) Degree
14 20 (12.27%) React
15 19 (11.66%) Full-Stack Development
16 18 (11.04%) DevOps
16 18 (11.04%) Security Cleared
16 18 (11.04%) SQL
16 18 (11.04%) TDD
17 17 (10.43%) SC Cleared
17 17 (10.43%) Terraform
17 17 (10.43%) TypeScript
18 14 (8.59%) Analytics
18 14 (8.59%) Android
18 14 (8.59%) Android Development
18 14 (8.59%) Android Jetpack
18 14 (8.59%) Coaching

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 5 (3.07%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.61%) Camunda
2 1 (0.61%) Confluence
2 1 (0.61%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 63 (38.65%) AWS
2 37 (22.70%) Azure
3 24 (14.72%) GCP
4 13 (7.98%) Serverless
5 12 (7.36%) AWS CloudFormation
6 8 (4.91%) Anthropic Claude
6 8 (4.91%) GitHub
6 8 (4.91%) GitHub Copilot
6 8 (4.91%) SaaS
7 5 (3.07%) Amazon EMR
7 5 (3.07%) Entra ID
8 3 (1.84%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.84%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (1.23%) Amazon ECS
9 2 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.23%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.23%) CloudFront
9 2 (1.23%) dbt
9 2 (1.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.61%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.45%) Firewall
1 4 (2.45%) WAN
2 3 (1.84%) LAN
2 3 (1.84%) WLAN
3 2 (1.23%) Bluetooth
3 2 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (1.23%) Wireless
4 1 (0.61%) Broadband
4 1 (0.61%) Multicast
4 1 (0.61%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.61%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.98%) NoSQL
2 11 (6.75%) MySQL
3 9 (5.52%) BigQuery
4 8 (4.91%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (4.29%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (3.68%) Big Data
6 6 (3.68%) DynamoDB
7 5 (3.07%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (3.07%) DataStage
7 5 (3.07%) Hadoop
7 5 (3.07%) MongoDB
7 5 (3.07%) Neo4j
7 5 (3.07%) Pentaho
7 5 (3.07%) RDBMS
7 5 (3.07%) Relational Database
7 5 (3.07%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.23%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.61%) Amazon QuickSight
9 1 (0.61%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 14 (8.59%) GitLab
2 8 (4.91%) Claude Code
2 8 (4.91%) Cucumber
3 2 (1.23%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.23%) JIRA
4 1 (0.61%) Git
4 1 (0.61%) Jaeger
4 1 (0.61%) Maven
4 1 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.61%) Selenium
4 1 (0.61%) TeamCity
General
1 43 (26.38%) Finance
2 15 (9.20%) Banking
3 14 (8.59%) Law
4 13 (7.98%) Social Skills
5 10 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (6.13%) Retail
6 5 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.23%) Electronics
7 2 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.23%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.23%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.61%) Advertising
8 1 (0.61%) Billing
8 1 (0.61%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (12.27%) React
2 14 (8.59%) Android Jetpack
2 14 (8.59%) Jetpack Compose
3 12 (7.36%) Spring
4 11 (6.75%) Kafka
4 11 (6.75%) Spring Boot
5 9 (5.52%) .NET
5 9 (5.52%) Django
6 6 (3.68%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.84%) REST
8 2 (1.23%) GraphQL
8 2 (1.23%) Node.js
8 2 (1.23%) Redux
8 2 (1.23%) WebSockets
9 1 (0.61%) AWS CDK
9 1 (0.61%) Boost C++ Libraries
9 1 (0.61%) FastAPI
9 1 (0.61%) Playwright
9 1 (0.61%) pytest
9 1 (0.61%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 30 (18.40%) Distributed Systems
2 14 (8.59%) Mobile Banking
3 12 (7.36%) Cloud Native
4 11 (6.75%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (6.13%) Algorithms
5 10 (6.13%) Greenfield Project
5 10 (6.13%) Public Cloud
6 8 (4.91%) Data Centre
6 8 (4.91%) Data Structures
6 8 (4.91%) e-Learning
7 6 (3.68%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (3.68%) Management Information System
8 5 (3.07%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.23%) Derivative
9 2 (1.23%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (1.23%) Fixed Income
10 1 (0.61%) Arduino
10 1 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.61%) Equities
10 1 (0.61%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.59%) Android
2 8 (4.91%) Linux
3 3 (1.84%) Ubuntu
4 2 (1.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (46.01%) Software Engineering
2 46 (28.22%) CI/CD
3 36 (22.09%) Agile
4 34 (20.86%) Continuous Improvement
5 31 (19.02%) Roadmaps
6 30 (18.40%) Microservices
7 29 (17.79%) Infrastructure as Code
8 25 (15.34%) Mentoring
9 24 (14.72%) AI
9 24 (14.72%) Technical Leadership
10 19 (11.66%) Full-Stack Development
11 18 (11.04%) DevOps
11 18 (11.04%) TDD
12 14 (8.59%) Analytics
12 14 (8.59%) Android Development
12 14 (8.59%) Coaching
12 14 (8.59%) Digital Banking
13 13 (7.98%) Open Source
14 12 (7.36%) Computer Science
14 12 (7.36%) Data Engineering
Programming Languages
1 42 (25.77%) Java
2 38 (23.31%) Python
3 18 (11.04%) SQL
4 17 (10.43%) TypeScript
5 14 (8.59%) Kotlin
6 11 (6.75%) C#
7 5 (3.07%) Go
8 4 (2.45%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.23%) Rust
10 1 (0.61%) C++
10 1 (0.61%) PHP
10 1 (0.61%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 20 (12.27%) Degree
2 18 (11.04%) Security Cleared
3 17 (10.43%) SC Cleared
4 11 (6.75%) AWS Certification
5 10 (6.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (4.91%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 7 (4.29%) PhD
8 5 (3.07%) DV Cleared
9 2 (1.23%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.61%) CEH
10 1 (0.61%) CISSP
10 1 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (0.61%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.61%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.45%) QA
2 2 (1.23%) NCSC
3 1 (0.61%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.61%) NIST
System Software
1 11 (6.75%) Docker
2 5 (3.07%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 17 (10.43%) Terraform
2 14 (8.59%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.68%) Ansible
4 2 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.23%) SCCM
4 2 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.61%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.61%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 11 (6.75%) Google
2 8 (4.91%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.29%) VMware
4 5 (3.07%) Informatica
4 5 (3.07%) Oracle
4 5 (3.07%) Talend
5 3 (1.84%) Red Hat
6 2 (1.23%) EMC
6 2 (1.23%) Zscaler
7 1 (0.61%) Cisco
7 1 (0.61%) Darktrace
7 1 (0.61%) Databricks
7 1 (0.61%) Fortinet
7 1 (0.61%) Juniper
7 1 (0.61%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.61%) Palo Alto