Principal Engineer Jobs in the North of England

Principal Engineer
England > North of England

The median Principal Engineer salary in the North of England is £51,564 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 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
16 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 85 235 353
Rank change year-on-year +150 +118 +6
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 438 163 78
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 3.77% 0.93% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.09% 0.98% 0.51%
Number of salaries quoted 90 36 71
10th Percentile - £57,500 £47,564
25th Percentile £45,628 £63,940 £65,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,564 £65,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.67% -13.33% -6.25%
75th Percentile £64,100 £76,875 £87,500
90th Percentile £78,750 £95,000 £102,500
England median annual salary £68,000 £80,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year -15.00% -5.88% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
North of England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the North of England. 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 the North of England with a recognized job title 10,709 16,656 15,224
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 94.98% 89.50%
Number of salaries quoted 5,748 12,889 8,062
10th Percentile £25,750 £27,250 £30,500
25th Percentile £38,750 £36,250 £39,544
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,055 £50,000 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -6.54% +7.00%
75th Percentile £62,500 £65,000 £69,649
90th Percentile £77,500 £78,750 £81,250
England median annual salary £57,000 £53,500 £60,800
% change year-on-year +6.54% -12.01% +1.33%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the North of England

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in the North of England

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Principal Engineer in the North of England.

Salary trend for Principal Engineer in the North of England

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in the North of England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in the North of England over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in the North of England

Principal Engineer
Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Engineer within the North of England region over the 6 months to 16 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
North West +147 383 £51,564 -20.67% 70
Yorkshire +61 51 £65,000 - 26
North East +29 4 £60,000 - 6
Principal Engineer
England

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of England

For the 6 months to 16 May 2025, Principal 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 North of England region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 366 (83.56%) Degree
2 246 (56.16%) Systems Engineering
3 223 (50.91%) BPSS Clearance
4 157 (35.84%) Telecoms
5 155 (35.39%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 153 (34.93%) Architectural Design
7 152 (34.70%) Automotive
8 115 (26.26%) Social Skills
9 114 (26.03%) Def Stans
9 114 (26.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 114 (26.03%) IEC 61508
10 59 (13.47%) Continuous Improvement
11 41 (9.36%) Software Engineering
12 34 (7.76%) ISO 9001
13 32 (7.31%) HNC
14 30 (6.85%) Electronics
15 28 (6.39%) Software Assurance
15 28 (6.39%) Decision-Making
16 25 (5.71%) Stakeholder Management
17 24 (5.48%) Operations Management
17 24 (5.48%) Business Case
18 20 (4.57%) Verification and Validation
18 20 (4.57%) Validation
19 19 (4.34%) Problem-Solving
20 14 (3.20%) Mathematics
21 13 (2.97%) Physics
21 13 (2.97%) AWS
21 13 (2.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
21 13 (2.97%) Master's Degree
22 12 (2.74%) Coaching

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of England 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 2 (0.46%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 13 (2.97%) AWS
2 3 (0.68%) Azure
2 3 (0.68%) GitHub
2 3 (0.68%) SaaS
3 2 (0.46%) Amazon EKS
3 2 (0.46%) IaaS
3 2 (0.46%) PaaS
3 2 (0.46%) Serverless
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon EventBridge
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon SQS
4 1 (0.23%) Azure AKS
4 1 (0.23%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.23%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (0.23%) GCP
4 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (0.23%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.91%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.91%) MySQL
2 3 (0.68%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.68%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.46%) Redis
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
4 1 (0.23%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.23%) Hazelcast
4 1 (0.23%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 4 (0.91%) Rational DOORS
2 2 (0.46%) JIRA
3 1 (0.23%) Git
General
1 157 (35.84%) Telecoms
2 152 (34.70%) Automotive
3 115 (26.26%) Social Skills
4 30 (6.85%) Electronics
5 9 (2.05%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (1.37%) Aerospace
8 4 (0.91%) Military
8 4 (0.91%) Retail
9 3 (0.68%) Local Government
10 1 (0.23%) Games
10 1 (0.23%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.83%) React
2 5 (1.14%) Lambda Expressions
3 4 (0.91%) Node.js
4 3 (0.68%) .NET
5 2 (0.46%) CSS
5 2 (0.46%) GraphQL
5 2 (0.46%) HTML
5 2 (0.46%) React Native
6 1 (0.23%) Flash
6 1 (0.23%) MACH
6 1 (0.23%) Next.js
6 1 (0.23%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.23%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 5 (1.14%) Cloud Native
1 5 (1.14%) Product Ownership
2 4 (0.91%) Data Centre
3 3 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (0.46%) Enterprise Cloud
4 2 (0.46%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (0.23%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.23%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.23%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.23%) SCADA
5 1 (0.23%) Sports Betting
5 1 (0.23%) Tandem
5 1 (0.23%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.14%) Linux
2 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 1 (0.23%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (56.16%) Systems Engineering
2 155 (35.39%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 153 (34.93%) Architectural Design
4 114 (26.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 59 (13.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 41 (9.36%) Software Engineering
7 28 (6.39%) Decision-Making
7 28 (6.39%) Software Assurance
8 25 (5.71%) Stakeholder Management
9 24 (5.48%) Business Case
9 24 (5.48%) Operations Management
10 20 (4.57%) Validation
10 20 (4.57%) Verification and Validation
11 19 (4.34%) Problem-Solving
12 14 (3.20%) Mathematics
13 13 (2.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 13 (2.97%) Physics
14 12 (2.74%) Agile
14 12 (2.74%) Coaching
15 8 (1.83%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 8 (1.83%) TypeScript
2 5 (1.14%) JavaScript
2 5 (1.14%) Perl
2 5 (1.14%) R
3 4 (0.91%) Java
3 4 (0.91%) MATLAB
3 4 (0.91%) Python
4 2 (0.46%) Bash
4 2 (0.46%) SQL
5 1 (0.23%) C#
5 1 (0.23%) C++
Qualifications
1 366 (83.56%) Degree
2 223 (50.91%) BPSS Clearance
3 32 (7.31%) HNC
4 13 (2.97%) Master's Degree
5 8 (1.83%) Security Cleared
6 5 (1.14%) SC Cleared
7 3 (0.68%) PhD
8 1 (0.23%) Chartered Engineer
8 1 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.23%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (26.03%) Def Stans
1 114 (26.03%) IEC 61508
2 34 (7.76%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.46%) NIST
4 1 (0.23%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.23%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (0.91%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (1.83%) Terraform
2 6 (1.37%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.23%) Grafana
Vendors
1 8 (1.83%) SAP
2 2 (0.46%) Microsoft
3 1 (0.23%) Atlassian
3 1 (0.23%) IBM
3 1 (0.23%) Red Hat