Principal Engineer Jobs in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Principal Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £70,000 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 35 247 498
Rank change year-on-year +212 +251 -116
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Engineer 2,464 810 261
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 6.21% 1.08% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.88% 1.14% 0.51%
Number of salaries quoted 502 291 196
10th Percentile £52,000 £55,000 £47,564
25th Percentile £61,500 £62,500 £62,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £73,750
Median % change year-on-year - -5.08% +1.72%
75th Percentile £70,600 £80,000 £86,750
90th Percentile - £87,500 £105,000
UK median annual salary £70,300 £77,500 £85,000
% change year-on-year -9.29% -8.82% -

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 35,806 71,101 51,023
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.22% 94.94% 89.01%
Number of salaries quoted 18,138 50,103 29,550
10th Percentile £26,250 £26,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £36,750 £35,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £50,000 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -6.54% +6.49%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £76,250 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -

Principal Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Salary trend for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 31 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Engineer in the UK excluding London

Principal Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK excluding London 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
Midlands +197 1,223 £65,000 -7.14% 45
West Midlands +184 796 £58,250 -22.33% 33
South East +176 440 £70,600 +0.86% 68
East Midlands +137 427 £71,250 +9.62% 11
North of England +133 383 £51,564 -20.67% 111
North West +129 330 £51,564 -20.67% 81
South West +99 195 £58,000 -22.67% 56
Scotland +145 110 £52,000 -25.71% 19
Wales +77 70 £70,600 +17.67% 5
Yorkshire +48 48 £65,000 - 28
East of England +4 43 £67,000 -13.55% 45
North East +34 5 £60,000 +9.09% 3
Principal Engineer
UK

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

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 UK excluding London region featuring Principal Engineer in the job title.

1 1,921 (77.96%) BPSS Clearance
2 1,742 (70.70%) Systems Engineering
3 1,431 (58.08%) Degree
4 598 (24.27%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 543 (22.04%) Validation
6 435 (17.65%) Electronics
7 397 (16.11%) Software Engineering
8 366 (14.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 349 (14.16%) Verification and Validation
10 346 (14.04%) Rational DOORS
11 330 (13.39%) Chartered Engineer
12 292 (11.85%) Collaborative Working
13 285 (11.57%) Automotive
13 285 (11.57%) Agile
14 279 (11.32%) IBM
15 261 (10.59%) SysML
16 252 (10.23%) Technical Leadership
17 243 (9.86%) Project Planning
18 242 (9.82%) Algorithms
19 240 (9.74%) Test Planning
19 240 (9.74%) Mathematics
19 240 (9.74%) Signal Processing
20 225 (9.13%) Telecoms
21 213 (8.64%) Physics
22 186 (7.55%) Decision-Making
23 185 (7.51%) Software Assurance
24 169 (6.86%) Def Stans
24 169 (6.86%) IEC 61508
25 166 (6.74%) Waterfall
25 166 (6.74%) Law

Principal Engineer 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:

Application Platforms
1 13 (0.53%) Confluence
Applications
1 67 (2.72%) Simulink
2 33 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (1.06%) Mathcad
3 26 (1.06%) Mathematica
4 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.081%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 33 (1.34%) AWS
2 17 (0.69%) Azure
3 8 (0.32%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (0.32%) GitHub
4 6 (0.24%) GCP
5 5 (0.20%) OpenShift
5 5 (0.20%) SaaS
5 5 (0.20%) Serverless
6 4 (0.16%) IaaS
6 4 (0.16%) PaaS
7 3 (0.12%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (0.12%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (0.12%) Amazon S3
7 3 (0.12%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.081%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (0.081%) Matillion
8 2 (0.081%) Snowflake
9 1 (0.041%) Amazon EventBridge
9 1 (0.041%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.041%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (0.93%) Wireshark
2 4 (0.16%) TETRA
3 1 (0.041%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.041%) Modbus
3 1 (0.041%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (1.34%) Tableau
2 15 (0.61%) Relational Database
3 14 (0.57%) MySQL
4 10 (0.41%) SQL Server
5 9 (0.37%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (0.28%) NoSQL
7 5 (0.20%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.20%) Redis
8 3 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.081%) Big Data
10 1 (0.041%) Amazon Aurora
10 1 (0.041%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.041%) Hazelcast
Development Applications
1 346 (14.04%) Rational DOORS
2 81 (3.29%) JIRA
3 22 (0.89%) Git
4 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.12%) Selenium
5 3 (0.12%) Subversion
6 2 (0.081%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.081%) GitLab
6 2 (0.081%) JUnit
7 1 (0.041%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.041%) CMake
7 1 (0.041%) Gatling
7 1 (0.041%) git-flow
7 1 (0.041%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.041%) Mockito
7 1 (0.041%) NUnit
7 1 (0.041%) SpecFlow
General
1 435 (17.65%) Electronics
2 285 (11.57%) Automotive
3 225 (9.13%) Telecoms
4 166 (6.74%) Law
5 124 (5.03%) Social Skills
6 80 (3.25%) Aerospace
7 39 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (0.69%) Finance
9 14 (0.57%) Military
10 11 (0.45%) Analytical Skills
10 11 (0.45%) Local Government
11 9 (0.37%) Manufacturing
12 8 (0.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (0.32%) Public Sector
13 5 (0.20%) Retail
14 4 (0.16%) Games
15 2 (0.081%) Legal
16 1 (0.041%) Aviation
16 1 (0.041%) Banking
16 1 (0.041%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (0.65%) .NET
2 12 (0.49%) React
3 8 (0.32%) Node.js
4 7 (0.28%) Spring Boot
5 5 (0.20%) Lambda Expressions
5 5 (0.20%) Spring
6 4 (0.16%) ASP.NET
6 4 (0.16%) CSS
6 4 (0.16%) HTML
6 4 (0.16%) Kafka
7 3 (0.12%) .NET Framework
7 3 (0.12%) ASP.NET MVC
7 3 (0.12%) Java EE
7 3 (0.12%) React Native
8 2 (0.081%) Flash
8 2 (0.081%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.081%) Jest
9 1 (0.041%) .NET Core
9 1 (0.041%) Redux
9 1 (0.041%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 242 (9.82%) Algorithms
2 9 (0.37%) SCADA
3 8 (0.32%) NHS
4 7 (0.28%) Greenfield Project
5 6 (0.24%) Cloud Native
5 6 (0.24%) Life Science
5 6 (0.24%) Operational Technology
6 5 (0.20%) Data Centre
6 5 (0.20%) Product Ownership
7 4 (0.16%) Enterprise Cloud
7 4 (0.16%) Wiki
8 3 (0.12%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (0.12%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.081%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.081%) FPGA
9 2 (0.081%) Robotics
10 1 (0.041%) CPLD
10 1 (0.041%) Tandem
10 1 (0.041%) Verilog
10 1 (0.041%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 37 (1.50%) Linux
2 32 (1.30%) Windows
3 4 (0.16%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.12%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.041%) Android
5 1 (0.041%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.041%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,742 (70.70%) Systems Engineering
2 598 (24.27%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 543 (22.04%) Validation
4 397 (16.11%) Software Engineering
5 349 (14.16%) Verification and Validation
6 292 (11.85%) Collaborative Working
7 285 (11.57%) Agile
8 261 (10.59%) SysML
9 252 (10.23%) Technical Leadership
10 243 (9.86%) Project Planning
11 240 (9.74%) Mathematics
11 240 (9.74%) Signal Processing
11 240 (9.74%) Test Planning
12 213 (8.64%) Physics
13 186 (7.55%) Decision-Making
14 185 (7.51%) Software Assurance
15 166 (6.74%) Waterfall
16 164 (6.66%) Chemistry
16 164 (6.66%) Logistics
17 158 (6.41%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (2.88%) MATLAB
2 46 (1.87%) Ada
2 46 (1.87%) Ada 95
3 28 (1.14%) Python
4 25 (1.01%) C#
5 19 (0.77%) Java
6 16 (0.65%) C
6 16 (0.65%) SQL
7 10 (0.41%) C++
7 10 (0.41%) JavaScript
7 10 (0.41%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.24%) Perl
9 5 (0.20%) Objective-C
9 5 (0.20%) R
10 4 (0.16%) Bash
11 3 (0.12%) Go
12 1 (0.041%) Embedded C
12 1 (0.041%) PHP
12 1 (0.041%) Ruby
12 1 (0.041%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,921 (77.96%) BPSS Clearance
2 1,431 (58.08%) Degree
3 330 (13.39%) Chartered Engineer
4 147 (5.97%) CESG Certified Professional
4 147 (5.97%) CISM
4 147 (5.97%) CISSP
5 100 (4.06%) ISTQB
6 72 (2.92%) Master's Degree
7 15 (0.61%) Security Cleared
8 9 (0.37%) HNC
9 7 (0.28%) SC Cleared
10 3 (0.12%) PhD
11 2 (0.081%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.081%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.041%) CompTIA Security+
12 1 (0.041%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (14.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 169 (6.86%) Def Stans
2 169 (6.86%) IEC 61508
3 153 (6.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 153 (6.21%) NIST
4 147 (5.97%) JSP 440
4 147 (5.97%) RMADS
5 42 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 35 (1.42%) Data Quality
7 34 (1.38%) ISO 9001
8 12 (0.49%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.081%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.041%) AUTOSAR
10 1 (0.041%) MISRA
10 1 (0.041%) MISRA C
System Software
1 12 (0.49%) Docker
2 6 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.041%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 18 (0.73%) Kubernetes
2 11 (0.45%) Terraform
3 8 (0.32%) Ansible
4 2 (0.081%) Grafana
Vendors
1 279 (11.32%) IBM
2 78 (3.17%) Siemens
3 37 (1.50%) Microsoft
4 9 (0.37%) Atlassian
4 9 (0.37%) SAP
5 6 (0.24%) Rockwell
6 2 (0.081%) EMC
7 1 (0.041%) Apple
7 1 (0.041%) Red Hat