Principal Engineer Jobs in the North West

Principal Engineer
England > North West

The median Principal Engineer salary in the North West is £51,564 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 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
31 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 78 207 262
Rank change year-on-year +129 +55 +47
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 330 84 32
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 4.21% 0.81% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.57% 0.85% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 59 27 29
10th Percentile £47,000 £55,000 £47,564
25th Percentile £48,596 £60,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,564 £65,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year -20.67% -10.34% -8.81%
75th Percentile £72,500 £71,910 £85,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £90,000 £102,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% -5.88% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
North West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the North West. 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 West with a recognized job title 7,220 9,862 6,724
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 94.79% 89.43%
Number of salaries quoted 3,851 7,544 3,993
10th Percentile £25,750 £27,500 £30,138
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,500 £40,834
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,055 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £61,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £76,840 £78,750 £81,250
England median annual salary £56,000 £52,500 £60,567
% change year-on-year +6.67% -13.32% +0.95%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the North West

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in the North West

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

Salary trend for Principal Engineer in the North West

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in the North West over the 6 months to 31 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in the North West

Principal Engineer
Job Locations in the North West

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 West region over the 6 months to 31 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
Cumbria +13 271 £51,564 -6.25% 25
Manchester +67 40 £75,000 +10.49% 51
Lancashire -53 19 £80,000 +14.29% 18
Principal Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 31 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 West region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 289 (87.58%) Degree
2 170 (51.52%) BPSS Clearance
3 149 (45.15%) Systems Engineering
4 123 (37.27%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 121 (36.67%) Architectural Design
6 120 (36.36%) Telecoms
6 120 (36.36%) Automotive
7 117 (35.45%) Social Skills
8 114 (34.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 114 (34.55%) IEC 61508
8 114 (34.55%) Def Stans
9 35 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 34 (10.30%) ISO 9001
11 24 (7.27%) Software Engineering
12 16 (4.85%) AWS
13 12 (3.64%) Problem-Solving
14 11 (3.33%) Agile
15 10 (3.03%) Electronics
15 10 (3.03%) CI/CD
16 9 (2.73%) Decision-Making
16 9 (2.73%) Prototyping
16 9 (2.73%) Software Assurance
16 9 (2.73%) DevOps
16 9 (2.73%) Microservices
17 8 (2.42%) TypeScript
17 8 (2.42%) Analytical Skills
17 8 (2.42%) Terraform
17 8 (2.42%) Kubernetes
17 8 (2.42%) React
17 8 (2.42%) Process Improvement

Principal Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West 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 (1.52%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 16 (4.85%) AWS
2 5 (1.52%) GitHub
3 3 (0.91%) Azure
3 3 (0.91%) SaaS
4 2 (0.61%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (0.61%) GCP
4 2 (0.61%) IaaS
4 2 (0.61%) OpenShift
4 2 (0.61%) PaaS
4 2 (0.61%) Serverless
5 1 (0.30%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (0.30%) Amazon EventBridge
5 1 (0.30%) Amazon SQS
5 1 (0.30%) Azure AKS
5 1 (0.30%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.30%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.30%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.61%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.52%) MongoDB
2 4 (1.21%) MySQL
2 4 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.91%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.91%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.61%) Redis
5 1 (0.30%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.30%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.30%) Hazelcast
5 1 (0.30%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 5 (1.52%) JIRA
2 2 (0.61%) Cucumber
2 2 (0.61%) GitLab
2 2 (0.61%) Selenium
3 1 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
General
1 120 (36.36%) Automotive
1 120 (36.36%) Telecoms
2 117 (35.45%) Social Skills
3 10 (3.03%) Electronics
4 8 (2.42%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (1.21%) Retail
7 3 (0.91%) Finance
8 1 (0.30%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.30%) Games
8 1 (0.30%) Legal
8 1 (0.30%) Local Government
8 1 (0.30%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.30%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.42%) React
2 5 (1.52%) Lambda Expressions
3 4 (1.21%) Node.js
4 3 (0.91%) .NET
4 3 (0.91%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.61%) CSS
5 2 (0.61%) GraphQL
5 2 (0.61%) HTML
5 2 (0.61%) Kafka
5 2 (0.61%) React Native
5 2 (0.61%) Spring
6 1 (0.30%) MACH
6 1 (0.30%) Next.js
6 1 (0.30%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 5 (1.52%) Cloud Native
1 5 (1.52%) Product Ownership
2 3 (0.91%) Wiki
3 2 (0.61%) Enterprise Cloud
3 2 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (0.30%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.30%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (0.30%) Mobile App
4 1 (0.30%) NHS
4 1 (0.30%) Sports Betting
4 1 (0.30%) Tandem
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (45.15%) Systems Engineering
2 123 (37.27%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 121 (36.67%) Architectural Design
4 114 (34.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 35 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 24 (7.27%) Software Engineering
7 12 (3.64%) Problem-Solving
8 11 (3.33%) Agile
9 10 (3.03%) CI/CD
10 9 (2.73%) Decision-Making
10 9 (2.73%) DevOps
10 9 (2.73%) Microservices
10 9 (2.73%) Prototyping
10 9 (2.73%) Software Assurance
11 8 (2.42%) ERP
11 8 (2.42%) Event-Driven
11 8 (2.42%) Process Improvement
11 8 (2.42%) Project Planning
12 7 (2.12%) Regression Testing
12 7 (2.12%) SAP Security
Programming Languages
1 8 (2.42%) TypeScript
2 6 (1.82%) Java
2 6 (1.82%) JavaScript
3 4 (1.21%) Python
4 2 (0.61%) Bash
4 2 (0.61%) SQL
Qualifications
1 289 (87.58%) Degree
2 170 (51.52%) BPSS Clearance
3 8 (2.42%) HNC
4 7 (2.12%) Master's Degree
5 3 (0.91%) Security Cleared
6 2 (0.61%) Chartered Engineer
6 2 (0.61%) SC Cleared
7 1 (0.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.30%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (34.55%) Def Stans
1 114 (34.55%) IEC 61508
2 34 (10.30%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.61%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.30%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.30%) NIST
System Software
1 6 (1.82%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (2.42%) Kubernetes
1 8 (2.42%) Terraform
2 1 (0.30%) Grafana
Vendors
1 8 (2.42%) SAP
2 2 (0.61%) IBM
2 2 (0.61%) Microsoft