Principal Engineer Job Trends in Preston

Principal Engineer
Lancashire > Preston

The median Principal Engineer salary in Preston is £97,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 August 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 13 21
Rank change year-on-year -24 +8 +13
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 4 1 9
As % of all permanent jobs in Preston 1.10% 1.72% 5.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.12% 2.00% 5.77%
Number of salaries quoted 4 0 7
10th Percentile £87,425 - £59,900
25th Percentile £90,688 - £65,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £97,500 - £72,500
Median % change year-on-year - - +23.40%
75th Percentile £100,000 - £81,250
90th Percentile - - £85,750
Lancashire median annual salary £97,500 £80,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year +21.88% +10.34% +23.40%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
Preston

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in Preston. 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 Preston with a recognized job title 357 50 156
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 98.08% 86.21% 87.64%
Number of salaries quoted 215 37 124
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £47,842
Median % change year-on-year - +4.51% +8.68%
75th Percentile £65,000 £55,000 £57,625
90th Percentile £75,000 £66,000 £69,625
Lancashire median annual salary £45,000 £45,750 £47,500
% change year-on-year -1.64% -3.68% -4.52%

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in Preston

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 Preston.

Principal Engineer job vacancy trend in Preston

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in Preston

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in Preston.

Salary distribution trend for Principal Engineer job vacancies in Preston

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in Preston

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in Preston over the 6 months to 13 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in Preston

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 Preston region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 4 (100.00%) Data Engineering
1 4 (100.00%) GCP
2 2 (50.00%) Agile
2 2 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 2 (50.00%) Coaching
2 2 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 2 (50.00%) Data Governance
2 2 (50.00%) Data Ingestion
2 2 (50.00%) Data Lake
2 2 (50.00%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (50.00%) Google
2 2 (50.00%) Mentoring
2 2 (50.00%) Python
2 2 (50.00%) Scrum
2 2 (50.00%) SDLC
2 2 (50.00%) SQL
2 2 (50.00%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (25.00%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (25.00%) AWS
3 1 (25.00%) Azure
3 1 (25.00%) BigQuery
3 1 (25.00%) Cloud Functions
3 1 (25.00%) Data Modelling
3 1 (25.00%) Data Pipeline
3 1 (25.00%) Data Privacy
3 1 (25.00%) DBS Check
3 1 (25.00%) dbt
3 1 (25.00%) Docker
3 1 (25.00%) Domain-Driven Design
3 1 (25.00%) Platform Engineering

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

Application Platforms
1 1 (25.00%) Apache Airflow
Cloud Services
1 4 (100.00%) GCP
2 1 (25.00%) AWS
2 1 (25.00%) Azure
2 1 (25.00%) Cloud Functions
2 1 (25.00%) dbt
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (50.00%) Data Lake
1 2 (50.00%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (25.00%) BigQuery
General
1 1 (25.00%) Social Skills
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Cloud Native
1 1 (25.00%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (100.00%) Data Engineering
2 2 (50.00%) Agile
2 2 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 2 (50.00%) Coaching
2 2 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 2 (50.00%) Data Governance
2 2 (50.00%) Data Ingestion
2 2 (50.00%) Mentoring
2 2 (50.00%) Scrum
2 2 (50.00%) SDLC
2 2 (50.00%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (25.00%) Data Modelling
3 1 (25.00%) Data Pipeline
3 1 (25.00%) Data Privacy
3 1 (25.00%) Domain-Driven Design
3 1 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
3 1 (25.00%) Product Thinking
3 1 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (50.00%) Python
1 2 (50.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (25.00%) DBS Check
System Software
1 1 (25.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (25.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (50.00%) Google