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 29 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
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 233 351
Rank change year-on-year +135 +118 +12
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 383 156 77
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 3.30% 0.86% 0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.62% 0.90% 0.52%
Number of salaries quoted 67 36 72
10th Percentile £47,000 £55,000 £47,564
25th Percentile £48,596 £61,875 £65,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,564 £65,000 £76,250
Median % change year-on-year -20.67% -14.75% -4.69%
75th Percentile £65,000 £71,865 £87,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £95,000 £101,750
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% -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 10,575 17,299 14,797
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.23% 95.08% 89.38%
Number of salaries quoted 5,472 13,333 8,038
10th Percentile £25,087 £27,000 £30,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,055 £50,000 £53,250
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -6.10% +6.50%
75th Percentile £62,500 £65,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £77,500 £81,250
England median annual salary £56,000 £52,500 £60,800
% change year-on-year +6.67% -13.65% +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 29 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 29 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 +130 330 £51,564 -20.67% 123
Yorkshire +50 48 £65,000 - 75
North East +32 5 £60,000 - 18
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 29 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.

1 307 (80.16%) Degree
2 200 (52.22%) BPSS Clearance
3 186 (48.56%) Systems Engineering
4 125 (32.64%) Telecoms
5 123 (32.11%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 121 (31.59%) Architectural Design
7 120 (31.33%) Automotive
8 117 (30.55%) Social Skills
9 114 (29.77%) Def Stans
9 114 (29.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 114 (29.77%) IEC 61508
10 44 (11.49%) Software Engineering
11 37 (9.66%) Continuous Improvement
12 34 (8.88%) ISO 9001
13 30 (7.83%) Electronics
14 28 (7.31%) Software Assurance
14 28 (7.31%) Decision-Making
15 20 (5.22%) Problem-Solving
16 17 (4.44%) Agile
17 16 (4.18%) AWS
18 14 (3.66%) Validation
18 14 (3.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 14 (3.66%) Master's Degree
18 14 (3.66%) Verification and Validation
19 10 (2.61%) CI/CD
19 10 (2.61%) Analytical Skills
20 9 (2.35%) Microservices
20 9 (2.35%) Prototyping
20 9 (2.35%) Mathematics
20 9 (2.35%) DevOps

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 5 (1.31%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.26%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 16 (4.18%) AWS
2 5 (1.31%) GitHub
3 3 (0.78%) Azure
3 3 (0.78%) SaaS
4 2 (0.52%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (0.52%) GCP
4 2 (0.52%) IaaS
4 2 (0.52%) OpenShift
4 2 (0.52%) PaaS
4 2 (0.52%) Serverless
5 1 (0.26%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (0.26%) Amazon EventBridge
5 1 (0.26%) Amazon SQS
5 1 (0.26%) Azure AKS
5 1 (0.26%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.26%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.26%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.04%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.31%) MongoDB
2 4 (1.04%) MySQL
2 4 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.78%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.78%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.52%) Redis
5 1 (0.26%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.26%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.26%) Hazelcast
5 1 (0.26%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 5 (1.31%) JIRA
2 4 (1.04%) Rational DOORS
3 2 (0.52%) Cucumber
3 2 (0.52%) GitLab
3 2 (0.52%) Selenium
4 1 (0.26%) Git
General
1 125 (32.64%) Telecoms
2 120 (31.33%) Automotive
3 117 (30.55%) Social Skills
4 30 (7.83%) Electronics
5 10 (2.61%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (1.57%) Aerospace
8 5 (1.31%) Retail
9 4 (1.04%) Finance
9 4 (1.04%) Local Government
9 4 (1.04%) Military
10 1 (0.26%) Games
10 1 (0.26%) Legal
10 1 (0.26%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.26%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.09%) React
2 5 (1.31%) Lambda Expressions
3 4 (1.04%) Node.js
4 3 (0.78%) .NET
4 3 (0.78%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.52%) CSS
5 2 (0.52%) Flash
5 2 (0.52%) GraphQL
5 2 (0.52%) HTML
5 2 (0.52%) Kafka
5 2 (0.52%) React Native
5 2 (0.52%) Spring
6 1 (0.26%) MACH
6 1 (0.26%) Next.js
6 1 (0.26%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 5 (1.31%) Cloud Native
1 5 (1.31%) Data Centre
1 5 (1.31%) Product Ownership
2 3 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
2 3 (0.78%) Wiki
3 2 (0.52%) Enterprise Cloud
3 2 (0.52%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (0.52%) SCADA
4 1 (0.26%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.26%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (0.26%) Mobile App
4 1 (0.26%) NHS
4 1 (0.26%) Renewable Energy
4 1 (0.26%) Sports Betting
4 1 (0.26%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.31%) Linux
2 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (48.56%) Systems Engineering
2 123 (32.11%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 121 (31.59%) Architectural Design
4 114 (29.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 44 (11.49%) Software Engineering
6 37 (9.66%) Continuous Improvement
7 28 (7.31%) Decision-Making
7 28 (7.31%) Software Assurance
8 20 (5.22%) Problem-Solving
9 17 (4.44%) Agile
10 14 (3.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 14 (3.66%) Validation
10 14 (3.66%) Verification and Validation
11 10 (2.61%) CI/CD
12 9 (2.35%) DevOps
12 9 (2.35%) Mathematics
12 9 (2.35%) Microservices
12 9 (2.35%) Prototyping
13 8 (2.09%) Physics
13 8 (2.09%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.09%) TypeScript
2 7 (1.83%) Java
3 6 (1.57%) JavaScript
4 5 (1.31%) Perl
4 5 (1.31%) Python
4 5 (1.31%) R
5 4 (1.04%) MATLAB
6 2 (0.52%) Bash
6 2 (0.52%) SQL
7 1 (0.26%) C#
7 1 (0.26%) C++
Qualifications
1 307 (80.16%) Degree
2 200 (52.22%) BPSS Clearance
3 14 (3.66%) Master's Degree
4 8 (2.09%) HNC
4 8 (2.09%) Security Cleared
5 5 (1.31%) SC Cleared
6 3 (0.78%) Chartered Engineer
6 3 (0.78%) PhD
7 1 (0.26%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.26%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.26%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (29.77%) Def Stans
1 114 (29.77%) IEC 61508
2 34 (8.88%) ISO 9001
3 3 (0.78%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.52%) NIST
5 1 (0.26%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (1.57%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (2.09%) Kubernetes
1 8 (2.09%) Terraform
2 1 (0.26%) Grafana
Vendors
1 8 (2.09%) SAP
2 2 (0.52%) IBM
2 2 (0.52%) Microsoft
3 1 (0.26%) Atlassian
3 1 (0.26%) Red Hat