Principal Software Engineer Jobs in London

Principal Software Engineer
England > London

The median Principal Software Engineer salary in London is £112,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 8 May 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 387 462 584
Rank change year-on-year +75 +122 +86
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Software Engineer 16 47 54
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in London 0.12% 0.20% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.14% 0.21% 0.16%
Number of salaries quoted 14 43 41
10th Percentile £95,750 £85,500 £67,500
25th Percentile £98,125 £90,000 £92,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £112,500 £100,000 £112,500
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -11.11% +28.57%
75th Percentile £140,000 £113,750 £160,000
90th Percentile £148,750 £134,000 -
England median annual salary £65,000 £85,000 £84,500
% change year-on-year -23.53% +0.59% -3.43%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 11,591 22,195 33,076
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.08% 94.12% 95.02%
Number of salaries quoted 7,387 16,681 24,330
10th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -3.45% +3.57%
75th Percentile £100,000 £93,750 £95,000
90th Percentile £122,500 £115,000 £115,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £53,500 £60,800
% change year-on-year +7.48% -12.01% +1.33%

Principal Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Job postings that featured Principal Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in London.

Job vacancy trend for Principal Software Engineer in London

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Trend in London

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in London.

Salary trend for Principal Software Engineer in London

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Software Engineer in London over the 6 months to 8 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Software Engineer in London

Principal Software 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 Software Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 8 May 2025. 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 +28 6 £112,500 +21.62%
Principal Software Engineer
England

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 8 May 2025, Principal Software Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the London region featuring Principal Software Engineer in the job title.

1 16 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 8 (50.00%) Python
3 6 (37.50%) TDD
3 6 (37.50%) Banking
3 6 (37.50%) AWS
3 6 (37.50%) SaaS
3 6 (37.50%) Node.js
3 6 (37.50%) Microservices
4 5 (31.25%) React
4 5 (31.25%) CI/CD
4 5 (31.25%) Platform Engineering
4 5 (31.25%) Continuous Integration
4 5 (31.25%) Finance
5 4 (25.00%) Agile
5 4 (25.00%) Java
5 4 (25.00%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (25.00%) Rust
5 4 (25.00%) API Development
5 4 (25.00%) API Design
5 4 (25.00%) Go
6 3 (18.75%) Low Latency
6 3 (18.75%) TypeScript
6 3 (18.75%) Kotlin
6 3 (18.75%) Algorithms
6 3 (18.75%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (18.75%) Containerisation
6 3 (18.75%) SOA
6 3 (18.75%) RESTful
6 3 (18.75%) Computer Science
6 3 (18.75%) Unit Testing

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (6.25%) CMS
1 1 (6.25%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 6 (37.50%) AWS
1 6 (37.50%) SaaS
2 2 (12.50%) GitHub
2 2 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
2 2 (12.50%) PaaS
2 2 (12.50%) Serverless
3 1 (6.25%) Azure
3 1 (6.25%) Cloud Computing
3 1 (6.25%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 2 (12.50%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (6.25%) MongoDB
1 1 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 3 (18.75%) JIRA
2 1 (6.25%) Git
2 1 (6.25%) GitLab
2 1 (6.25%) Jenkins
General
1 6 (37.50%) Banking
2 5 (31.25%) Finance
3 2 (12.50%) Front Office
3 2 (12.50%) Investment Banking
3 2 (12.50%) Social Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Advertising
4 1 (6.25%) Financial Institution
4 1 (6.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (6.25%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (37.50%) Node.js
2 5 (31.25%) React
3 3 (18.75%) RESTful
4 2 (12.50%) Boost C++ Libraries
4 2 (12.50%) Express.js
4 2 (12.50%) FIX Protocol
4 2 (12.50%) Kafka
4 2 (12.50%) pytest
4 2 (12.50%) REST
4 2 (12.50%) Socket.IO
4 2 (12.50%) WebSockets
5 1 (6.25%) GraphQL
5 1 (6.25%) OAuth
5 1 (6.25%) OAuth2
5 1 (6.25%) OpenID
5 1 (6.25%) React Native
5 1 (6.25%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (25.00%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (18.75%) Algorithms
2 3 (18.75%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (12.50%) Cloud Native
3 2 (12.50%) Derivative
3 2 (12.50%) Equities
3 2 (12.50%) Fixed Income
4 1 (6.25%) Client/Server
4 1 (6.25%) Data Structures
4 1 (6.25%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (6.25%) Marketing Technology
4 1 (6.25%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (12.50%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 6 (37.50%) Microservices
2 6 (37.50%) TDD
3 5 (31.25%) CI/CD
3 5 (31.25%) Continuous Integration
3 5 (31.25%) Platform Engineering
4 4 (25.00%) Agile
4 4 (25.00%) API Design
4 4 (25.00%) API Development
5 3 (18.75%) Computer Science
5 3 (18.75%) Containerisation
5 3 (18.75%) Integration Testing
5 3 (18.75%) Low Latency
5 3 (18.75%) SOA
5 3 (18.75%) Unit Testing
6 2 (12.50%) Data Science
6 2 (12.50%) Event-Driven
6 2 (12.50%) Fintech
6 2 (12.50%) Full-Stack Development
6 2 (12.50%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 8 (50.00%) Python
2 4 (25.00%) Go
2 4 (25.00%) Java
2 4 (25.00%) Rust
3 3 (18.75%) Kotlin
3 3 (18.75%) TypeScript
4 2 (12.50%) C#
4 2 (12.50%) C++
4 2 (12.50%) JavaScript
5 1 (6.25%) Perl
5 1 (6.25%) PHP
5 1 (6.25%) Scala
5 1 (6.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (18.75%) Degree
2 1 (6.25%) Master's Degree
2 1 (6.25%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (12.50%) QA
System Software
1 1 (6.25%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (12.50%) Kubernetes
2 1 (6.25%) Ansible
2 1 (6.25%) Progress Chef
2 1 (6.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 1 (6.25%) ForgeRock
1 1 (6.25%) Okta
1 1 (6.25%) Ping Identity