Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £105,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 321 302
Rank change year-on-year +62 -19 +104
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 123 91 177
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.77% 0.63% 0.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.84% 0.69% 0.89%
Number of salaries quoted 94 52 144
10th Percentile £84,825 £60,000 £72,500
25th Percentile £95,625 £91,563 £82,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £105,000 £111,250 £98,750
Median % change year-on-year -5.62% +12.66% -5.95%
75th Percentile £120,000 £125,000 £118,125
90th Percentile £150,000 £139,500 £125,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £75,000 £82,500
% change year-on-year +6.67% -9.09% -

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 14,633 13,278 19,974
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 91.21% 94.41%
Number of salaries quoted 9,723 7,810 16,070
10th Percentile £36,550 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £50,906 £56,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £73,500 £75,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% +3.45% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,000
90th Percentile £110,000 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%

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 February 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 February 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 +32 29 £107,500 -2.27% 13
South London +23 8 £75,000 +25.00%
West London -12 1 £65,000 - 2
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 February 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 61 (49.59%) AWS
2 55 (44.72%) Software Engineering
3 44 (35.77%) CI/CD
4 43 (34.96%) Python
5 34 (27.64%) Agile
6 31 (25.20%) Java
7 30 (24.39%) Azure
8 24 (19.51%) GCP
8 24 (19.51%) Roadmaps
9 23 (18.70%) Continuous Improvement
9 23 (18.70%) SQL
10 22 (17.89%) Microservices
11 20 (16.26%) DevOps
12 19 (15.45%) Mentoring
12 19 (15.45%) PostgreSQL
12 19 (15.45%) React
13 18 (14.63%) Fintech
14 17 (13.82%) Infrastructure as Code
14 17 (13.82%) Technical Leadership
15 16 (13.01%) Degree
15 16 (13.01%) Django
16 15 (12.20%) Full-Stack Development
16 15 (12.20%) NoSQL
17 14 (11.38%) AI
17 14 (11.38%) Analytics
17 14 (11.38%) Docker
17 14 (11.38%) Event-Driven
17 14 (11.38%) TDD
17 14 (11.38%) TypeScript
18 13 (10.57%) 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 10 (8.13%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.44%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.63%) Apache
4 1 (0.81%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.81%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 61 (49.59%) AWS
2 30 (24.39%) Azure
3 24 (19.51%) GCP
4 13 (10.57%) Serverless
5 8 (6.50%) AWS CloudFormation
5 8 (6.50%) SaaS
6 7 (5.69%) Amazon EMR
7 6 (4.88%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (3.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (2.44%) Amazon MSK
9 3 (2.44%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 3 (2.44%) GitHub
9 3 (2.44%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.44%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.63%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (1.63%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.63%) Google Gemini
10 2 (1.63%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.63%) Bluetooth
1 2 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.63%) Wireless
2 1 (0.81%) Broadband
2 1 (0.81%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (15.45%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (12.20%) NoSQL
3 13 (10.57%) MySQL
4 11 (8.94%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (6.50%) BigQuery
5 8 (6.50%) DynamoDB
5 8 (6.50%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (5.69%) Apache Cassandra
6 7 (5.69%) Big Data
6 7 (5.69%) DataStage
6 7 (5.69%) Hadoop
6 7 (5.69%) MongoDB
6 7 (5.69%) Neo4j
6 7 (5.69%) Pentaho
6 7 (5.69%) RDBMS
6 7 (5.69%) Relational Database
6 7 (5.69%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.44%) Data Lake
7 3 (2.44%) Power BI
7 3 (2.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 10 (8.13%) GitLab
2 5 (4.07%) Cucumber
2 5 (4.07%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.44%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.81%) Git
4 1 (0.81%) Jaeger
4 1 (0.81%) Maven
4 1 (0.81%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.81%) TeamCity
General
1 36 (29.27%) Finance
2 15 (12.20%) Social Skills
3 12 (9.76%) Law
4 10 (8.13%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (8.13%) Banking
5 3 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
5 3 (2.44%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.44%) Retail
6 2 (1.63%) Electronics
6 2 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.63%) Legal
6 2 (1.63%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.63%) Military
7 1 (0.81%) Advertising
7 1 (0.81%) Back Office
7 1 (0.81%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (15.45%) React
2 16 (13.01%) Django
3 12 (9.76%) Kafka
4 11 (8.94%) Spring
5 10 (8.13%) .NET
5 10 (8.13%) Android Jetpack
5 10 (8.13%) Jetpack Compose
6 9 (7.32%) Spring Boot
7 8 (6.50%) FastAPI
8 7 (5.69%) .NET Core
9 5 (4.07%) Redux
10 4 (3.25%) REST
11 3 (2.44%) Jest
11 3 (2.44%) RESTful
11 3 (2.44%) XML
12 2 (1.63%) ASP.NET
12 2 (1.63%) GraphQL
12 2 (1.63%) JSON
12 2 (1.63%) WebSockets
13 1 (0.81%) Akka
Miscellaneous
1 27 (21.95%) Distributed Systems
2 14 (11.38%) Cloud Native
3 10 (8.13%) Greenfield Project
3 10 (8.13%) Mobile Banking
4 9 (7.32%) Data Structures
5 8 (6.50%) Algorithms
6 7 (5.69%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (5.69%) Management Information System
6 7 (5.69%) Product Ownership
7 5 (4.07%) e-Learning
7 5 (4.07%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (4.07%) Public Cloud
8 3 (2.44%) Derivative
8 3 (2.44%) Fixed Income
9 2 (1.63%) Blockchain
9 2 (1.63%) Embedded Systems
10 1 (0.81%) Arduino
10 1 (0.81%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.81%) Over-the-Top Content
10 1 (0.81%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 10 (8.13%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (44.72%) Software Engineering
2 44 (35.77%) CI/CD
3 34 (27.64%) Agile
4 24 (19.51%) Roadmaps
5 23 (18.70%) Continuous Improvement
6 22 (17.89%) Microservices
7 20 (16.26%) DevOps
8 19 (15.45%) Mentoring
9 18 (14.63%) Fintech
10 17 (13.82%) Infrastructure as Code
10 17 (13.82%) Technical Leadership
11 15 (12.20%) Full-Stack Development
12 14 (11.38%) AI
12 14 (11.38%) Analytics
12 14 (11.38%) Event-Driven
12 14 (11.38%) TDD
13 13 (10.57%) Coaching
14 11 (8.94%) Computer Science
14 11 (8.94%) Data Engineering
14 11 (8.94%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 43 (34.96%) Python
2 31 (25.20%) Java
3 23 (18.70%) SQL
4 14 (11.38%) TypeScript
5 12 (9.76%) C#
6 10 (8.13%) Kotlin
7 9 (7.32%) Rust
8 7 (5.69%) JavaScript
9 4 (3.25%) Go
10 1 (0.81%) PHP
10 1 (0.81%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.81%) Scala
Qualifications
1 16 (13.01%) Degree
2 11 (8.94%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (6.50%) AWS Certification
4 6 (4.88%) Security Cleared
5 5 (4.07%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 5 (4.07%) SC Cleared
6 2 (1.63%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.81%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.63%) Data Quality
1 2 (1.63%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.81%) QA
System Software
1 14 (11.38%) Docker
2 2 (1.63%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 13 (10.57%) Terraform
2 11 (8.94%) Kubernetes
3 3 (2.44%) Kibana
4 2 (1.63%) Ansible
4 2 (1.63%) Functional Safety
4 2 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.81%) Grafana
5 1 (0.81%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 10 (8.13%) Google
2 7 (5.69%) Informatica
2 7 (5.69%) Oracle
2 7 (5.69%) Talend
3 3 (2.44%) Microsoft
4 2 (1.63%) Databricks
4 2 (1.63%) EMC
4 2 (1.63%) OpenAI