Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £107,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 8 January 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 263 293 329
Rank change year-on-year +30 +36 +81
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 106 137 120
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.76% 0.88% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.84% 0.95% 0.70%
Number of salaries quoted 86 89 101
10th Percentile £78,750 £82,548 £70,000
25th Percentile £90,000 £97,500 £82,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £107,500 £110,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £120,000 £132,500 £120,000
90th Percentile £150,000 £147,500 £137,500
England median annual salary £77,500 £75,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year +3.33% -11.76% +6.25%

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 12,666 14,459 17,033
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.99% 92.72% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 8,409 8,371 13,717
10th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £55,322 £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 £113,750 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £59,526
% change year-on-year -8.33% +0.80% -3.21%

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 8 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 8 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 +48 26 £107,500 -2.27% 11
South London +24 7 £75,000 +22.95% 6
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 8 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 54 (50.94%) AWS
2 53 (50.00%) Software Engineering
3 45 (42.45%) Python
4 36 (33.96%) CI/CD
5 31 (29.25%) Azure
6 29 (27.36%) Agile
7 24 (22.64%) Java
8 21 (19.81%) Continuous Improvement
8 21 (19.81%) PostgreSQL
9 20 (18.87%) Fintech
9 20 (18.87%) GCP
9 20 (18.87%) Roadmaps
9 20 (18.87%) SQL
10 19 (17.92%) React
11 17 (16.04%) Analytics
11 17 (16.04%) DevOps
11 17 (16.04%) Technical Leadership
12 16 (15.09%) Collaborative Culture
13 15 (14.15%) C#
13 15 (14.15%) Full-Stack Development
13 15 (14.15%) Microservices
14 14 (13.21%) MySQL
14 14 (13.21%) NoSQL
14 14 (13.21%) TypeScript
15 13 (12.26%) .NET
15 13 (12.26%) AI
15 13 (12.26%) Apache Spark
15 13 (12.26%) Business Intelligence
15 13 (12.26%) Data Engineering
15 13 (12.26%) Data Modelling

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 (12.26%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.83%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.89%) Apache
3 2 (1.89%) Confluence
3 2 (1.89%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.94%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 54 (50.94%) AWS
2 31 (29.25%) Azure
3 20 (18.87%) GCP
4 10 (9.43%) Amazon EMR
5 8 (7.55%) Serverless
6 6 (5.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 6 (5.66%) SaaS
7 5 (4.72%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 5 (4.72%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (4.72%) GitHub
8 4 (3.77%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (3.77%) Cloudflare
8 4 (3.77%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (2.83%) Amazon MSK
9 3 (2.83%) Google Gemini
9 3 (2.83%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.83%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
11 1 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (0.94%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.83%) DNS
2 2 (1.89%) Multicast
3 1 (0.94%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (19.81%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (13.21%) MySQL
2 14 (13.21%) NoSQL
3 13 (12.26%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (11.32%) MongoDB
5 11 (10.38%) DynamoDB
6 10 (9.43%) Apache Cassandra
6 10 (9.43%) Big Data
6 10 (9.43%) DataStage
6 10 (9.43%) Hadoop
6 10 (9.43%) Neo4j
6 10 (9.43%) Pentaho
6 10 (9.43%) RDBMS
6 10 (9.43%) Relational Database
6 10 (9.43%) SQL Server
7 5 (4.72%) BigQuery
7 5 (4.72%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (2.83%) Power BI
8 3 (2.83%) Tableau
9 2 (1.89%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 7 (6.60%) GitLab
1 7 (6.60%) Jenkins
2 6 (5.66%) Git
3 4 (3.77%) JIRA
4 3 (2.83%) Burp Suite
4 3 (2.83%) Cypress.io
4 3 (2.83%) Metasploit
5 2 (1.89%) Plastic SCM
5 2 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.94%) Ant
6 1 (0.94%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.94%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.94%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.94%) webpack
General
1 32 (30.19%) Finance
2 17 (16.04%) Social Skills
3 14 (13.21%) Law
4 11 (10.38%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (7.55%) Banking
6 3 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.83%) Military
6 3 (2.83%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.89%) Legal
7 2 (1.89%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.94%) Advertising
8 1 (0.94%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.94%) Back Office
8 1 (0.94%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (17.92%) React
2 13 (12.26%) .NET
2 13 (12.26%) Django
3 9 (8.49%) Kafka
4 8 (7.55%) FastAPI
5 5 (4.72%) .NET Core
5 5 (4.72%) Android Jetpack
5 5 (4.72%) Jetpack Compose
5 5 (4.72%) Redux
5 5 (4.72%) REST
6 4 (3.77%) GraphQL
6 4 (3.77%) Jest
6 4 (3.77%) Node.js
7 3 (2.83%) ASP.NET
7 3 (2.83%) JSON
7 3 (2.83%) RESTful
7 3 (2.83%) Spring
7 3 (2.83%) Spring Boot
7 3 (2.83%) XML
8 2 (1.89%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 19 (17.92%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (11.32%) Cloud Native
3 10 (9.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (9.43%) Management Information System
3 10 (9.43%) Product Ownership
4 9 (8.49%) Greenfield Project
5 7 (6.60%) Algorithms
6 6 (5.66%) Data Structures
7 5 (4.72%) Derivative
7 5 (4.72%) Fixed Income
7 5 (4.72%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (2.83%) Cloud Security Posture
8 3 (2.83%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.89%) Equities
10 1 (0.94%) Blockchain
10 1 (0.94%) Clustering
10 1 (0.94%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.94%) Over-the-Top Content
10 1 (0.94%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.72%) Android
1 5 (4.72%) Linux
2 3 (2.83%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (50.00%) Software Engineering
2 36 (33.96%) CI/CD
3 29 (27.36%) Agile
4 21 (19.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 20 (18.87%) Fintech
5 20 (18.87%) Roadmaps
6 17 (16.04%) Analytics
6 17 (16.04%) DevOps
6 17 (16.04%) Technical Leadership
7 16 (15.09%) Collaborative Culture
8 15 (14.15%) Full-Stack Development
8 15 (14.15%) Microservices
9 13 (12.26%) AI
9 13 (12.26%) Business Intelligence
9 13 (12.26%) Data Engineering
9 13 (12.26%) Data Modelling
9 13 (12.26%) Data Science
9 13 (12.26%) Information Security
9 13 (12.26%) Problem-Solving
9 13 (12.26%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 45 (42.45%) Python
2 24 (22.64%) Java
3 20 (18.87%) SQL
4 15 (14.15%) C#
5 14 (13.21%) TypeScript
6 11 (10.38%) JavaScript
7 9 (8.49%) Rust
8 7 (6.60%) PowerShell
9 6 (5.66%) Kotlin
10 5 (4.72%) Bash
11 4 (3.77%) C++
11 4 (3.77%) Go
12 2 (1.89%) Groovy
12 2 (1.89%) Ruby
13 1 (0.94%) Perl
13 1 (0.94%) PHP
13 1 (0.94%) Scala
Qualifications
1 12 (11.32%) Degree
2 8 (7.55%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (3.77%) SC Cleared
3 4 (3.77%) Security Cleared
4 3 (2.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 3 (2.83%) CCSP
4 3 (2.83%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (2.83%) CISSP
4 3 (2.83%) GCIH
5 2 (1.89%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.94%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.83%) GDPR
1 3 (2.83%) IEC 61508
1 3 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.89%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.89%) QA
System Software
1 10 (9.43%) Docker
2 3 (2.83%) Firmware
3 1 (0.94%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (12.26%) Terraform
2 12 (11.32%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.77%) Grafana
3 4 (3.77%) Prometheus
4 3 (2.83%) Ansible
4 3 (2.83%) Functional Safety
4 3 (2.83%) Kibana
4 3 (2.83%) Nmap
5 1 (0.94%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (9.43%) Informatica
1 10 (9.43%) Oracle
1 10 (9.43%) Talend
2 5 (4.72%) Google
3 4 (3.77%) Microsoft
4 3 (2.83%) OpenAI
4 3 (2.83%) Rapid7
5 2 (1.89%) Cribl.io
5 2 (1.89%) Databricks
5 2 (1.89%) Sonatype
6 1 (0.94%) ForgeRock
6 1 (0.94%) Okta
6 1 (0.94%) Ping Identity
6 1 (0.94%) VMware