Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £102,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 22 January 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 301 323
Rank change year-on-year +27 +22 +94
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 108 127 137
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.74% 0.82% 0.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.82% 0.89% 0.75%
Number of salaries quoted 85 83 119
10th Percentile £78,500 £61,000 £72,500
25th Percentile £90,000 £97,500 £87,049
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £102,000 £110,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £120,000 £125,000 £120,000
90th Percentile £150,000 £147,500 £135,000
England median annual salary £79,000 £75,000 £82,500
% change year-on-year +5.33% -9.09% +3.13%

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 13,243 14,312 18,388
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 92.25% 95.02%
Number of salaries quoted 8,766 8,248 14,805
10th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £56,250 £54,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £75,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +3.45% -2.03%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,000
90th Percentile £113,750 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £56,525
% change year-on-year -8.33% +6.15% -9.56%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 27 £107,500 -2.27% 12
South London +25 8 £75,000 +23.97% 9
West London 0 1 £65,000 - 4
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 22 January 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 55 (50.93%) AWS
2 50 (46.30%) Software Engineering
3 43 (39.81%) Python
4 38 (35.19%) CI/CD
5 30 (27.78%) Agile
5 30 (27.78%) Azure
6 25 (23.15%) Java
7 22 (20.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 21 (19.44%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (19.44%) Roadmaps
9 20 (18.52%) Fintech
9 20 (18.52%) GCP
9 20 (18.52%) SQL
10 17 (15.74%) Analytics
10 17 (15.74%) React
10 17 (15.74%) Technical Leadership
11 16 (14.81%) MySQL
12 15 (13.89%) Collaborative Culture
13 14 (12.96%) DevOps
13 14 (12.96%) Full-Stack Development
13 14 (12.96%) Microservices
13 14 (12.96%) NoSQL
13 14 (12.96%) Terraform
13 14 (12.96%) TypeScript
14 13 (12.04%) Apache Spark
14 13 (12.04%) Business Intelligence
14 13 (12.04%) C#
14 13 (12.04%) Data Engineering
14 13 (12.04%) Data Modelling
14 13 (12.04%) Data Science

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 13 (12.04%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.78%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.85%) Apache
3 2 (1.85%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.93%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 55 (50.93%) AWS
2 30 (27.78%) Azure
3 20 (18.52%) GCP
4 11 (10.19%) Serverless
5 10 (9.26%) Amazon EMR
6 8 (7.41%) SaaS
7 5 (4.63%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (3.70%) Cloudflare
8 4 (3.70%) GitHub
9 3 (2.78%) Amazon MSK
9 3 (2.78%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 3 (2.78%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (2.78%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.78%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.85%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.78%) DNS
2 1 (0.93%) Broadband
2 1 (0.93%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (19.44%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (14.81%) MySQL
3 14 (12.96%) NoSQL
4 13 (12.04%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (10.19%) DynamoDB
6 10 (9.26%) Apache Cassandra
6 10 (9.26%) Big Data
6 10 (9.26%) DataStage
6 10 (9.26%) Hadoop
6 10 (9.26%) MongoDB
6 10 (9.26%) Neo4j
6 10 (9.26%) Pentaho
6 10 (9.26%) RDBMS
6 10 (9.26%) Relational Database
6 10 (9.26%) SQL Server
7 5 (4.63%) BigQuery
7 5 (4.63%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (2.78%) Power BI
8 3 (2.78%) Tableau
9 2 (1.85%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 6 (5.56%) GitLab
2 5 (4.63%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.78%) Burp Suite
3 3 (2.78%) Cypress.io
3 3 (2.78%) Git
3 3 (2.78%) Metasploit
4 1 (0.93%) Ant
4 1 (0.93%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.93%) JIRA
4 1 (0.93%) Plastic SCM
4 1 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.93%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.93%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.93%) webpack
General
1 31 (28.70%) Finance
2 17 (15.74%) Social Skills
3 13 (12.04%) Law
4 11 (10.19%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (8.33%) Banking
6 3 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.78%) Military
6 3 (2.78%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.85%) Legal
7 2 (1.85%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.93%) Advertising
8 1 (0.93%) Back Office
8 1 (0.93%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (15.74%) React
2 13 (12.04%) Django
3 11 (10.19%) .NET
4 8 (7.41%) FastAPI
4 8 (7.41%) Kafka
5 7 (6.48%) .NET Core
5 7 (6.48%) Android Jetpack
5 7 (6.48%) Jetpack Compose
6 5 (4.63%) Redux
7 4 (3.70%) Jest
7 4 (3.70%) REST
7 4 (3.70%) Spring
7 4 (3.70%) Spring Boot
8 3 (2.78%) RESTful
9 2 (1.85%) ASP.NET
9 2 (1.85%) GraphQL
9 2 (1.85%) JSON
9 2 (1.85%) PyTorch
9 2 (1.85%) TensorFlow
9 2 (1.85%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (17.59%) Distributed Systems
2 10 (9.26%) Cloud Native
2 10 (9.26%) Hybrid Cloud
2 10 (9.26%) Management Information System
2 10 (9.26%) Product Ownership
3 7 (6.48%) Greenfield Project
3 7 (6.48%) Mobile Banking
4 6 (5.56%) Algorithms
4 6 (5.56%) Data Structures
5 4 (3.70%) Derivative
5 4 (3.70%) Fixed Income
6 3 (2.78%) Cloud Security Posture
6 3 (2.78%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.93%) Clustering
7 1 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.93%) e-Learning
7 1 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.93%) Equities
7 1 (0.93%) Over-the-Top Content
7 1 (0.93%) Web3
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.48%) Android
2 4 (3.70%) Linux
3 3 (2.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (46.30%) Software Engineering
2 38 (35.19%) CI/CD
3 30 (27.78%) Agile
4 22 (20.37%) Continuous Improvement
5 21 (19.44%) Roadmaps
6 20 (18.52%) Fintech
7 17 (15.74%) Analytics
7 17 (15.74%) Technical Leadership
8 15 (13.89%) Collaborative Culture
9 14 (12.96%) DevOps
9 14 (12.96%) Full-Stack Development
9 14 (12.96%) Microservices
10 13 (12.04%) Business Intelligence
10 13 (12.04%) Data Engineering
10 13 (12.04%) Data Modelling
10 13 (12.04%) Data Science
10 13 (12.04%) Information Security
10 13 (12.04%) Strategic Thinking
11 12 (11.11%) Data Pipeline
11 12 (11.11%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 43 (39.81%) Python
2 25 (23.15%) Java
3 20 (18.52%) SQL
4 14 (12.96%) TypeScript
5 13 (12.04%) C#
6 9 (8.33%) Rust
7 8 (7.41%) Kotlin
8 7 (6.48%) JavaScript
9 5 (4.63%) Go
9 5 (4.63%) PowerShell
10 3 (2.78%) Bash
11 1 (0.93%) C++
11 1 (0.93%) Perl
11 1 (0.93%) PHP
11 1 (0.93%) Scala
Qualifications
1 11 (10.19%) Degree
2 8 (7.41%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (4.63%) Security Cleared
4 4 (3.70%) AWS Certification
4 4 (3.70%) SC Cleared
5 3 (2.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 3 (2.78%) CCSP
5 3 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (2.78%) CISSP
5 3 (2.78%) GCIH
6 1 (0.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.93%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.78%) GDPR
1 3 (2.78%) IEC 61508
1 3 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.85%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.93%) QA
System Software
1 10 (9.26%) Docker
2 3 (2.78%) Firmware
3 1 (0.93%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 14 (12.96%) Terraform
2 8 (7.41%) Kubernetes
3 3 (2.78%) Ansible
3 3 (2.78%) Functional Safety
3 3 (2.78%) Kibana
3 3 (2.78%) Nmap
4 2 (1.85%) Grafana
4 2 (1.85%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.93%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (9.26%) Informatica
1 10 (9.26%) Oracle
1 10 (9.26%) Talend
2 5 (4.63%) Google
3 3 (2.78%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.78%) Rapid7
4 2 (1.85%) Databricks
4 2 (1.85%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.93%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.93%) Okta
5 1 (0.93%) Ping Identity
5 1 (0.93%) VMware