Principal Engineer Job Trends in Manchester

Principal Engineer
North West > Manchester

The median Principal Engineer salary in Manchester is £95,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 August 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 110 184
Rank change year-on-year -23 +74 -31
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 58 50 15
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 0.84% 2.01% 0.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.88% 2.20% 0.36%
Number of salaries quoted 52 25 9
10th Percentile £82,500 - £62,000
25th Percentile £89,688 £47,000 -
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £95,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% +7.14% -7.89%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 -
90th Percentile - £89,000 £87,000
North West median annual salary £92,500 £65,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +42.31% -7.14% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 6,559 2,272 4,187
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.59% 91.36% 94.94%
Number of salaries quoted 5,146 1,366 2,836
10th Percentile £31,250 £29,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £36,375 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £69,250
90th Percentile £97,500 £87,500 £82,500
North West median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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 Manchester.

Principal Engineer job vacancy trend in Manchester

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in Manchester

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in Manchester.

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in Manchester

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in Manchester

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in Manchester over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in Manchester

Principal Engineer
Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Engineer within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 18 August 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
Stockport - 1 £72,500 -
Principal Engineer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 18 August 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 Manchester region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 34 (58.62%) Software Engineering
2 19 (32.76%) CI/CD
3 17 (29.31%) Docker
3 17 (29.31%) Kubernetes
4 16 (27.59%) Event-Driven
4 16 (27.59%) Security Cleared
5 15 (25.86%) DevOps
6 14 (24.14%) AWS
6 14 (24.14%) Microservices
7 13 (22.41%) Terraform
8 11 (18.97%) Containerisation
8 11 (18.97%) Infrastructure as Code
9 10 (17.24%) Ansible
9 10 (17.24%) DV Cleared
9 10 (17.24%) SC Cleared
9 10 (17.24%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 9 (15.52%) Java
11 8 (13.79%) SaaS
12 7 (12.07%) Line Management
12 7 (12.07%) Python
12 7 (12.07%) React
12 7 (12.07%) Stakeholder Management
13 6 (10.34%) Clean Code
13 6 (10.34%) Mentoring
13 6 (10.34%) Platform Engineering
13 6 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
13 6 (10.34%) Spring
13 6 (10.34%) Spring Boot
14 5 (8.62%) C#
14 5 (8.62%) GitHub

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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:

Cloud Services
1 14 (24.14%) AWS
2 8 (13.79%) SaaS
3 5 (8.62%) GitHub
4 3 (5.17%) Azure
5 1 (1.72%) Azure API Management
5 1 (1.72%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.72%) GitHub Copilot
5 1 (1.72%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.72%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.45%) Redis
1 2 (3.45%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.72%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 4 (6.90%) Atlassian Bamboo
1 4 (6.90%) Git
1 4 (6.90%) GitLab
1 4 (6.90%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.72%) Selenium
General
1 16 (27.59%) Retail
2 8 (13.79%) Social Skills
3 4 (6.90%) Public Sector
4 2 (3.45%) Marketing
5 1 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (12.07%) React
2 6 (10.34%) Spring
2 6 (10.34%) Spring Boot
3 4 (6.90%) .NET
3 4 (6.90%) AngularJS
4 3 (5.17%) Node.js
5 2 (3.45%) Lambda Expressions
5 2 (3.45%) Vue
6 1 (1.72%) Express.js
6 1 (1.72%) koa
Miscellaneous
1 23 (39.66%) Cloud Native
2 12 (20.69%) Product Ownership
3 4 (6.90%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (3.45%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 4 (6.90%) CentOS
1 4 (6.90%) Linux
1 4 (6.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (58.62%) Software Engineering
2 19 (32.76%) CI/CD
3 16 (27.59%) Event-Driven
4 15 (25.86%) DevOps
5 14 (24.14%) Microservices
6 11 (18.97%) Containerisation
6 11 (18.97%) Infrastructure as Code
7 10 (17.24%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 7 (12.07%) Line Management
8 7 (12.07%) Stakeholder Management
9 6 (10.34%) Clean Code
9 6 (10.34%) Mentoring
9 6 (10.34%) Platform Engineering
9 6 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
10 5 (8.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 5 (8.62%) Technical Leadership
11 4 (6.90%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 4 (6.90%) Fintech
11 4 (6.90%) Integration Patterns
11 4 (6.90%) Technology Transformation
Programming Languages
1 9 (15.52%) Java
2 7 (12.07%) Python
3 5 (8.62%) C#
3 5 (8.62%) TypeScript
4 1 (1.72%) Go
4 1 (1.72%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.72%) Scala
Qualifications
1 16 (27.59%) Security Cleared
2 10 (17.24%) DV Cleared
2 10 (17.24%) SC Cleared
3 2 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (3.45%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.45%) QA
System Software
1 17 (29.31%) Docker
2 1 (1.72%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 17 (29.31%) Kubernetes
2 13 (22.41%) Terraform
3 10 (17.24%) Ansible
Vendors
1 1 (1.72%) Microsoft