Principal Engineer Job Trends in London

Principal Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Engineer salary in London is £102,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 February 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 264 315 328
Rank change year-on-year +51 +13 +87
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 113 114 149
As % of all permanent jobs in London 0.76% 0.74% 0.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.83% 0.81% 0.75%
Number of salaries quoted 86 70 132
10th Percentile £78,750 £60,000 £72,500
25th Percentile £90,000 £97,500 £87,049
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £102,500 £110,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £120,000 £125,000 £120,000
90th Percentile £150,000 £147,500 £135,000
England median annual salary £78,250 £75,000 £82,500
% change year-on-year +4.33% -9.09% +2.48%

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 13,535 14,114 19,857
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.30% 91.85% 94.73%
Number of salaries quoted 8,952 8,073 16,048
10th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £56,250 £53,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £75,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +3.45% -1.36%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,000
90th Percentile £111,250 £120,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 1 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 1 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 +43 27 £107,500 -2.27% 12
South London +17 8 £75,000 +23.97% 2
West London -1 1 £65,000 - 4
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 60 (53.10%) AWS
2 50 (44.25%) Software Engineering
3 43 (38.05%) Python
4 42 (37.17%) CI/CD
5 32 (28.32%) Agile
6 31 (27.43%) Azure
7 29 (25.66%) Java
8 23 (20.35%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (20.35%) Roadmaps
8 23 (20.35%) SQL
9 21 (18.58%) GCP
9 21 (18.58%) PostgreSQL
10 20 (17.70%) Fintech
11 19 (16.81%) Technical Leadership
12 18 (15.93%) Microservices
12 18 (15.93%) React
13 17 (15.04%) Analytics
14 16 (14.16%) DevOps
14 16 (14.16%) MySQL
14 16 (14.16%) NoSQL
15 14 (12.39%) Django
15 14 (12.39%) Mentoring
15 14 (12.39%) TypeScript
16 13 (11.50%) Apache Spark
16 13 (11.50%) Business Intelligence
16 13 (11.50%) Collaborative Culture
16 13 (11.50%) Data Engineering
16 13 (11.50%) Data Modelling
16 13 (11.50%) Data Science
16 13 (11.50%) Data Warehouse

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 (11.50%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.65%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.77%) Apache
3 2 (1.77%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.88%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (53.10%) AWS
2 31 (27.43%) Azure
3 21 (18.58%) GCP
4 12 (10.62%) Serverless
5 10 (8.85%) Amazon EMR
6 8 (7.08%) SaaS
7 6 (5.31%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (5.31%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (3.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (3.54%) Cloudflare
8 4 (3.54%) GitHub
9 3 (2.65%) Amazon MSK
9 3 (2.65%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 3 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (2.65%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.65%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.77%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (1.77%) CloudFront
10 2 (1.77%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.65%) DNS
2 1 (0.88%) Bluetooth
2 1 (0.88%) Broadband
2 1 (0.88%) VPN
2 1 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.88%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (18.58%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (14.16%) MySQL
2 16 (14.16%) NoSQL
3 13 (11.50%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (9.73%) DynamoDB
5 10 (8.85%) Apache Cassandra
5 10 (8.85%) Big Data
5 10 (8.85%) DataStage
5 10 (8.85%) Hadoop
5 10 (8.85%) MongoDB
5 10 (8.85%) Neo4j
5 10 (8.85%) Pentaho
5 10 (8.85%) RDBMS
5 10 (8.85%) Relational Database
5 10 (8.85%) SQL Server
6 6 (5.31%) BigQuery
6 6 (5.31%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (2.65%) Power BI
7 3 (2.65%) Tableau
8 2 (1.77%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 9 (7.96%) GitLab
2 5 (4.42%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.65%) Burp Suite
3 3 (2.65%) Cucumber
3 3 (2.65%) Cypress.io
3 3 (2.65%) Metasploit
4 2 (1.77%) Git
5 1 (0.88%) Ant
5 1 (0.88%) Maven
5 1 (0.88%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.88%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.88%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.88%) webpack
General
1 34 (30.09%) Finance
2 17 (15.04%) Social Skills
3 14 (12.39%) Law
4 12 (10.62%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (7.96%) Banking
6 3 (2.65%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.65%) Military
6 3 (2.65%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.65%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.77%) Legal
8 1 (0.88%) Advertising
8 1 (0.88%) Back Office
8 1 (0.88%) Electronics
8 1 (0.88%) Front Office
8 1 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.88%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.88%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (15.93%) React
2 14 (12.39%) Django
3 10 (8.85%) .NET
3 10 (8.85%) Kafka
4 8 (7.08%) Android Jetpack
4 8 (7.08%) FastAPI
4 8 (7.08%) Jetpack Compose
5 7 (6.19%) .NET Core
5 7 (6.19%) Spring
6 6 (5.31%) Spring Boot
7 5 (4.42%) Redux
8 4 (3.54%) Jest
8 4 (3.54%) REST
9 3 (2.65%) GraphQL
9 3 (2.65%) RESTful
9 3 (2.65%) XML
10 2 (1.77%) ASP.NET
10 2 (1.77%) CSS
10 2 (1.77%) HTML
10 2 (1.77%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 22 (19.47%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (10.62%) Cloud Native
3 10 (8.85%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (8.85%) Management Information System
3 10 (8.85%) Product Ownership
4 8 (7.08%) Greenfield Project
4 8 (7.08%) Mobile Banking
5 7 (6.19%) Data Structures
6 6 (5.31%) Algorithms
7 3 (2.65%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (2.65%) Derivative
7 3 (2.65%) e-Learning
7 3 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (2.65%) Fixed Income
7 3 (2.65%) Public Cloud
7 3 (2.65%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.88%) Over-the-Top Content
8 1 (0.88%) Video\Live Streaming
8 1 (0.88%) Web3
Operating Systems
1 8 (7.08%) Android
2 3 (2.65%) Linux
2 3 (2.65%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (44.25%) Software Engineering
2 42 (37.17%) CI/CD
3 32 (28.32%) Agile
4 23 (20.35%) Continuous Improvement
4 23 (20.35%) Roadmaps
5 20 (17.70%) Fintech
6 19 (16.81%) Technical Leadership
7 18 (15.93%) Microservices
8 17 (15.04%) Analytics
9 16 (14.16%) DevOps
10 14 (12.39%) Mentoring
11 13 (11.50%) Business Intelligence
11 13 (11.50%) Collaborative Culture
11 13 (11.50%) Data Engineering
11 13 (11.50%) Data Modelling
11 13 (11.50%) Data Science
11 13 (11.50%) Full-Stack Development
11 13 (11.50%) Information Security
11 13 (11.50%) Infrastructure as Code
11 13 (11.50%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 43 (38.05%) Python
2 29 (25.66%) Java
3 23 (20.35%) SQL
4 14 (12.39%) TypeScript
5 12 (10.62%) C#
6 9 (7.96%) Kotlin
6 9 (7.96%) Rust
7 8 (7.08%) JavaScript
8 5 (4.42%) Go
9 4 (3.54%) PowerShell
10 3 (2.65%) Bash
11 1 (0.88%) PHP
11 1 (0.88%) Scala
Qualifications
1 13 (11.50%) Degree
2 9 (7.96%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (5.31%) AWS Certification
3 6 (5.31%) Security Cleared
4 5 (4.42%) SC Cleared
5 3 (2.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 3 (2.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 3 (2.65%) CCSP
5 3 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (2.65%) CISSP
5 3 (2.65%) GCIH
6 1 (0.88%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.65%) GDPR
1 3 (2.65%) IEC 61508
1 3 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.77%) Data Quality
System Software
1 11 (9.73%) Docker
2 3 (2.65%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 13 (11.50%) Terraform
2 9 (7.96%) Kubernetes
3 3 (2.65%) Ansible
3 3 (2.65%) Functional Safety
3 3 (2.65%) Kibana
3 3 (2.65%) Nmap
4 2 (1.77%) Grafana
4 2 (1.77%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.88%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (8.85%) Informatica
1 10 (8.85%) Oracle
1 10 (8.85%) Talend
2 6 (5.31%) Google
3 3 (2.65%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.65%) Rapid7
4 2 (1.77%) Databricks
4 2 (1.77%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.88%) EMC
5 1 (0.88%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.88%) Okta
5 1 (0.88%) Ping Identity