Principal Developer Jobs in the UK excluding London

Principal Developer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Principal Developer salary in the UK excluding London is £81,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 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
19 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 560 684 667
Rank change year-on-year +124 -17 +114
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Developer 15 79 67
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.038% 0.11% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.042% 0.12% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 12 42 54
10th Percentile £75,000 £50,000 £71,250
25th Percentile £76,875 £61,250 £77,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £81,000 £76,250 £97,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.23% -21.79% +23.81%
75th Percentile £87,500 £87,500 £115,000
90th Percentile - £90,000 £116,250
UK median annual salary £81,750 £80,000 £100,000
% change year-on-year +2.19% -20.00% +11.11%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 36,142 67,932 52,599
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.79% 94.86% 89.20%
Number of salaries quoted 18,697 47,996 30,020
10th Percentile £26,987 £26,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £35,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,564 £50,000 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.13% -5.66% +6.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £76,250 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,320 £52,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +5.37% -12.50% -

Principal Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Principal Developer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Principal Developer in the UK excluding London

Principal Developer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Principal Developer in the UK excluding London.

Salary trend for Principal Developer in the UK excluding London

Principal Developer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Developer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 19 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Developer in the UK excluding London

Principal Developer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Developer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 19 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
South West +95 5 £85,000 +6.25% 14
South East +90 5 £81,000 -4.71% 10
Midlands +69 3 £80,000 - 4
West Midlands +42 3 £80,000 -
North of England +11 2 £80,000 +23.08% 14
North West -25 2 £80,000 +40.35% 10
Principal Developer
UK

Principal Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 19 May 2025, Principal Developer 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 UK excluding London region featuring Principal Developer in the job title.

1 8 (53.33%) Azure
2 6 (40.00%) Agile
2 6 (40.00%) Software Engineering
3 5 (33.33%) Scrum
3 5 (33.33%) .NET
3 5 (33.33%) TypeScript
4 4 (26.67%) Mobile App
4 4 (26.67%) .NET Core
4 4 (26.67%) Greenfield Project
4 4 (26.67%) C#
4 4 (26.67%) SQL
5 3 (20.00%) Android
5 3 (20.00%) Degree
5 3 (20.00%) Computer Science
5 3 (20.00%) QA
5 3 (20.00%) VB.NET
5 3 (20.00%) Project Management
5 3 (20.00%) Migration
5 3 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (20.00%) AngularJS
5 3 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
5 3 (20.00%) Swift
5 3 (20.00%) SDLC
5 3 (20.00%) Kotlin
5 3 (20.00%) Mobile Application Development
5 3 (20.00%) User Experience
5 3 (20.00%) SaaS
5 3 (20.00%) Apple iOS
5 3 (20.00%) Social Skills
5 3 (20.00%) Legacy Systems

Principal Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 8 (53.33%) Azure
2 3 (20.00%) SaaS
3 2 (13.33%) Azure Logic Apps
3 2 (13.33%) Azure Service Bus
3 2 (13.33%) iPaaS
4 1 (6.67%) PaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (6.67%) Redis
1 1 (6.67%) SQL Server
General
1 3 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 2 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (6.67%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (33.33%) .NET
2 4 (26.67%) .NET Core
3 3 (20.00%) AngularJS
4 2 (13.33%) JSON
4 2 (13.33%) React
4 2 (13.33%) REST
4 2 (13.33%) Web Services
4 2 (13.33%) XML
5 1 (6.67%) .NET Framework
5 1 (6.67%) CSS
5 1 (6.67%) Entity Framework
5 1 (6.67%) HTML
5 1 (6.67%) Next.js
5 1 (6.67%) Node.js
5 1 (6.67%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 4 (26.67%) Greenfield Project
1 4 (26.67%) Mobile App
2 3 (20.00%) Legacy Code
2 3 (20.00%) Legacy Systems
2 3 (20.00%) Product Ownership
3 2 (13.33%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 3 (20.00%) Android
1 3 (20.00%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (40.00%) Agile
1 6 (40.00%) Software Engineering
2 5 (33.33%) Scrum
3 3 (20.00%) Code Quality
3 3 (20.00%) Computer Science
3 3 (20.00%) Design Patterns
3 3 (20.00%) Migration
3 3 (20.00%) Mobile Application Development
3 3 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (20.00%) Project Management
3 3 (20.00%) SDLC
3 3 (20.00%) User Experience
4 2 (13.33%) API Management
4 2 (13.33%) Data Integration
4 2 (13.33%) Data Modelling
4 2 (13.33%) Front End Development
4 2 (13.33%) Technical Leadership
5 1 (6.67%) Pair Programming
5 1 (6.67%) Software Testing
5 1 (6.67%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 5 (33.33%) TypeScript
2 4 (26.67%) C#
2 4 (26.67%) SQL
3 3 (20.00%) Kotlin
3 3 (20.00%) Swift
3 3 (20.00%) VB.NET
4 2 (13.33%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 3 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
1 3 (20.00%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (20.00%) QA
Vendors
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft