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 11 May 2026.

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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 238 342 325
Rank change year-on-year +104 -17 +52
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 182 55 186
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.90% 0.43% 0.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.97% 0.48% 0.84%
Number of salaries quoted 136 36 145
10th Percentile £85,000 £60,000 £72,500
25th Percentile £90,000 £93,438 £81,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £100,000 £110,000 £95,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +15.79% -11.63%
75th Percentile £113,750 £125,000 £115,000
90th Percentile £130,000 £140,000 £125,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £70,000 £80,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -12.50% -5.88%

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 18,669 11,416 22,028
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 90.28% 94.12%
Number of salaries quoted 12,764 7,440 16,672
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,000
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 £102,500 £122,500 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £59,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year -6.78% +9.26% -11.18%

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 11 May 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 11 May 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 +37 48 £100,000 -11.11% 19
South London +13 6 £80,000 +33.33% 4
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 11 May 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 83 (45.60%) Software Engineering
2 63 (34.62%) AWS
3 54 (29.67%) CI/CD
4 46 (25.27%) Java
5 43 (23.63%) Agile
6 41 (22.53%) Azure
7 39 (21.43%) Python
8 38 (20.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (19.23%) Continuous Improvement
10 34 (18.68%) Microservices
11 33 (18.13%) Roadmaps
12 31 (17.03%) AI
12 31 (17.03%) Mentoring
12 31 (17.03%) Technical Leadership
13 26 (14.29%) GCP
14 22 (12.09%) SQL
15 21 (11.54%) DevOps
15 21 (11.54%) Full-Stack Development
16 20 (10.99%) Terraform
17 19 (10.44%) React
17 19 (10.44%) Security Cleared
18 18 (9.89%) Degree
18 18 (9.89%) Kubernetes
18 18 (9.89%) SC Cleared
18 18 (9.89%) TDD
18 18 (9.89%) TypeScript
19 17 (9.34%) Coaching
20 16 (8.79%) GitLab
21 15 (8.24%) Data Engineering
21 15 (8.24%) Kafka

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 (2.75%) Apache Spark
2 2 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.55%) Camunda
3 1 (0.55%) CMS
3 1 (0.55%) Confluence
3 1 (0.55%) Sitecore CMS
3 1 (0.55%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 63 (34.62%) AWS
2 41 (22.53%) Azure
3 26 (14.29%) GCP
4 14 (7.69%) AWS CloudFormation
5 13 (7.14%) Serverless
6 9 (4.95%) GitHub
6 9 (4.95%) GitHub Copilot
7 8 (4.40%) Anthropic Claude
7 8 (4.40%) SaaS
8 6 (3.30%) Entra ID
9 5 (2.75%) Amazon EMR
10 4 (2.20%) Azure Sentinel
11 3 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.65%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.65%) dbt
12 2 (1.10%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
12 2 (1.10%) Cloud Composer
12 2 (1.10%) CloudFront
12 2 (1.10%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.20%) Firewall
1 4 (2.20%) WAN
2 3 (1.65%) LAN
2 3 (1.65%) Multicast
2 3 (1.65%) WLAN
3 2 (1.10%) Bluetooth
3 2 (1.10%) Broadband
3 2 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (1.10%) Wireless
4 1 (0.55%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.55%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (8.24%) NoSQL
2 11 (6.04%) MySQL
3 10 (5.49%) BigQuery
4 7 (3.85%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (3.85%) MongoDB
4 7 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (3.30%) Big Data
5 6 (3.30%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (3.30%) DynamoDB
6 5 (2.75%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (2.75%) DataStage
6 5 (2.75%) Hadoop
6 5 (2.75%) Neo4j
6 5 (2.75%) Pentaho
6 5 (2.75%) RDBMS
6 5 (2.75%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.75%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.65%) Data Lake
7 3 (1.65%) Semantic Layer
8 1 (0.55%) Amazon QuickSight
Development Applications
1 16 (8.79%) GitLab
2 10 (5.49%) Cucumber
3 9 (4.95%) Claude Code
4 4 (2.20%) JIRA
5 3 (1.65%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.55%) Git
6 1 (0.55%) Jaeger
6 1 (0.55%) Maven
6 1 (0.55%) Selenium
6 1 (0.55%) TeamCity
General
1 45 (24.73%) Finance
2 17 (9.34%) Banking
3 14 (7.69%) Law
3 14 (7.69%) Social Skills
4 12 (6.59%) Retail
5 11 (6.04%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.10%) Electronics
8 2 (1.10%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.10%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.55%) Billing
9 1 (0.55%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (10.44%) React
2 15 (8.24%) Kafka
2 15 (8.24%) Spring
2 15 (8.24%) Spring Boot
3 14 (7.69%) Android Jetpack
3 14 (7.69%) Jetpack Compose
4 12 (6.59%) .NET
5 7 (3.85%) .NET Core
5 7 (3.85%) Django
6 3 (1.65%) Boost C++ Libraries
6 3 (1.65%) FIX Protocol
6 3 (1.65%) Node.js
6 3 (1.65%) pytest
6 3 (1.65%) REST
7 2 (1.10%) .NET Framework
7 2 (1.10%) ASP.NET
7 2 (1.10%) ASP.NET Core
7 2 (1.10%) ASP.NET Web API
7 2 (1.10%) Entity Framework
7 2 (1.10%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 34 (18.68%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (9.89%) Cloud Native
3 17 (9.34%) Enterprise Software
4 14 (7.69%) Mobile Banking
5 12 (6.59%) Public Cloud
6 11 (6.04%) Algorithms
7 10 (5.49%) Data Centre
7 10 (5.49%) e-Learning
8 8 (4.40%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (3.85%) Data Structures
10 6 (3.30%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (3.30%) Management Information System
11 5 (2.75%) Product Ownership
12 3 (1.65%) Derivative
12 3 (1.65%) Equities
12 3 (1.65%) Fixed Income
13 2 (1.10%) Embedded Systems
14 1 (0.55%) Arduino
14 1 (0.55%) Over-the-Top Content
14 1 (0.55%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.69%) Android
2 12 (6.59%) Linux
3 3 (1.65%) Ubuntu
3 3 (1.65%) Windows
4 1 (0.55%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (45.60%) Software Engineering
2 54 (29.67%) CI/CD
3 43 (23.63%) Agile
4 38 (20.88%) Infrastructure as Code
5 35 (19.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 34 (18.68%) Microservices
7 33 (18.13%) Roadmaps
8 31 (17.03%) AI
8 31 (17.03%) Mentoring
8 31 (17.03%) Technical Leadership
9 21 (11.54%) DevOps
9 21 (11.54%) Full-Stack Development
10 18 (9.89%) TDD
11 17 (9.34%) Coaching
12 15 (8.24%) Data Engineering
12 15 (8.24%) Test Automation
13 14 (7.69%) Analytics
13 14 (7.69%) Android Development
13 14 (7.69%) Digital Banking
13 14 (7.69%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 46 (25.27%) Java
2 39 (21.43%) Python
3 22 (12.09%) SQL
4 18 (9.89%) TypeScript
5 14 (7.69%) Kotlin
6 13 (7.14%) C#
7 6 (3.30%) JavaScript
8 5 (2.75%) Go
9 3 (1.65%) C++
10 2 (1.10%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.55%) PHP
11 1 (0.55%) Rust
11 1 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 19 (10.44%) Security Cleared
2 18 (9.89%) Degree
2 18 (9.89%) SC Cleared
3 13 (7.14%) AWS Certification
4 10 (5.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 8 (4.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (3.85%) PhD
7 5 (2.75%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.10%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.55%) CEH
9 1 (0.55%) CISSP
9 1 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.55%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.55%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.30%) QA
2 3 (1.65%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.10%) NCSC
4 1 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.55%) NIST
System Software
1 12 (6.59%) Docker
2 6 (3.30%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (10.99%) Terraform
2 18 (9.89%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.30%) Ansible
4 3 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (1.65%) SCCM
5 2 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.55%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 13 (7.14%) Google
2 11 (6.04%) Microsoft
3 9 (4.95%) VMware
4 5 (2.75%) Informatica
4 5 (2.75%) Oracle
4 5 (2.75%) Talend
5 3 (1.65%) Red Hat
6 2 (1.10%) EMC
6 2 (1.10%) Zscaler
7 1 (0.55%) Cisco
7 1 (0.55%) Darktrace
7 1 (0.55%) Databricks
7 1 (0.55%) Fortinet
7 1 (0.55%) Juniper
7 1 (0.55%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.55%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.55%) Sitecore