Principal Consultant Job Trends

Principal Consultant
UK

The median Principal Consultant salary in the UK is £90,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 628 618 698
Rank change year-on-year -10 +80 -20
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Consultant 191 48 71
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.097% 0.097%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.11% 0.10%
Number of salaries quoted 89 21 47
10th Percentile £43,800 £25,625 £55,550
25th Percentile £72,500 £30,000 £71,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £82,500 £88,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -6.25% -4.86%
75th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £100,000
90th Percentile £112,000 £103,750 £107,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £85,000 £35,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +142.86% -50.00% -12.50%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 109,799 44,474 69,871
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.81% 89.76% 95.31%
Number of salaries quoted 74,691 25,606 40,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,718 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,589 £54,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,566 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.11% -6.87% -4.76%

Principal Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Principal Consultant' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Principal Consultant job vacancy trend in the UK

Principal Consultant
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Principal Consultant job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Principal Consultant job vacancies in the UK

Principal Consultant
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Consultant over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Principal Consultant in the UK

Principal Consultant
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Consultant within the UK over the 6 months to 6 October 2026. 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
England +19 184 £85,000 +1.49% 178
UK excluding London -64 106 £85,000 +142.86% 94
London +2 81 £100,000 +2.56% 88
Work from Home -17 49 £80,000 -5.88% 65
North of England -37 40 £95,000 - 22
South West -43 39 £80,000 +128.57% 17
Yorkshire -18 27 £100,000 - 11
East of England - 21 £75,000 - 12
North West - 13 £87,500 - 9
Scotland - 3 £110,000 - 5
South East -44 2 - - 20
West Midlands -38 1 £77,500 -8.82% 6
Midlands -59 1 £77,500 -8.82% 14

Principal Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 October 2026, Principal Consultant 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 featuring Principal Consultant in the job title.

1 39 (20.42%) Security Cleared
2 38 (19.90%) SC Cleared
3 23 (12.04%) Azure
4 21 (10.99%) Microsoft
5 19 (9.95%) AWS
5 19 (9.95%) Presales
6 17 (8.90%) Microsoft 365
7 16 (8.38%) Collaborative Culture
7 16 (8.38%) SAP
8 15 (7.85%) AI
8 15 (7.85%) NIST
8 15 (7.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 14 (7.33%) Business Transformation
9 14 (7.33%) Incident Response
9 14 (7.33%) Stakeholder Management
10 13 (6.81%) DevOps
10 13 (6.81%) Technical Leadership
11 12 (6.28%) CISSP
11 12 (6.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 12 (6.28%) Python
11 12 (6.28%) Roadmaps
12 11 (5.76%) Business Development
12 11 (5.76%) CISM
12 11 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
12 11 (5.76%) Digital Forensics
12 11 (5.76%) DV Cleared
12 11 (5.76%) Mentoring
13 10 (5.24%) Commercial Awareness
13 10 (5.24%) GCP
14 9 (4.71%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering

Principal Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 3 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 1 (0.52%) AutoCAD
1 1 (0.52%) Revit
Business Applications
1 4 (2.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.05%) SAP CO
2 2 (1.05%) SAP FI
2 2 (1.05%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 23 (12.04%) Azure
2 19 (9.95%) AWS
3 17 (8.90%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (5.24%) GCP
5 7 (3.66%) Microsoft Purview
5 7 (3.66%) OpenShift
6 6 (3.14%) Amazon Bedrock
6 6 (3.14%) Amazon SageMaker
6 6 (3.14%) Azure AI
6 6 (3.14%) Azure Machine Learning
6 6 (3.14%) SaaS
7 3 (1.57%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (1.57%) dbt
7 3 (1.57%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.57%) OCI
7 3 (1.57%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.52%) Collibra
8 1 (0.52%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.09%) Wireless
2 3 (1.57%) Firewall
2 3 (1.57%) LAN
2 3 (1.57%) Network Security
2 3 (1.57%) SD-WAN
2 3 (1.57%) Software-Defined Networking
2 3 (1.57%) WAN
3 1 (0.52%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.57%) BigQuery
1 3 (1.57%) Data Vault
1 3 (1.57%) Metadata
1 3 (1.57%) Semantic Layer
2 1 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.52%) Power BI
General
1 27 (14.14%) Social Skills
2 14 (7.33%) Finance
3 9 (4.71%) Public Sector
4 6 (3.14%) Retail
5 5 (2.62%) Telecoms
6 4 (2.09%) Billing
6 4 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (2.09%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.57%) Aerospace
7 3 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.52%) Analytical Skills
8 1 (0.52%) Banking
8 1 (0.52%) Games
8 1 (0.52%) General Ledger
8 1 (0.52%) Law
8 1 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.14%) Terraform
2 5 (2.62%) ModSecurity
3 1 (0.52%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (0.52%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (0.52%) Spring
3 1 (0.52%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.24%) Cloud Native
2 9 (4.71%) AI Agents
3 4 (2.09%) Greenfield Project
4 3 (1.57%) Data Centre
5 1 (0.52%) Blockchain
5 1 (0.52%) CCTV
5 1 (0.52%) Data Structures
5 1 (0.52%) Life Science
5 1 (0.52%) Management Information System
5 1 (0.52%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.52%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.52%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.52%) Self-Motivation
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (9.95%) Presales
2 16 (8.38%) Collaborative Culture
3 15 (7.85%) AI
3 15 (7.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 14 (7.33%) Business Transformation
4 14 (7.33%) Incident Response
4 14 (7.33%) Stakeholder Management
5 13 (6.81%) DevOps
5 13 (6.81%) Technical Leadership
6 12 (6.28%) Roadmaps
7 11 (5.76%) Business Development
7 11 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
7 11 (5.76%) Digital Forensics
7 11 (5.76%) Mentoring
8 10 (5.24%) Commercial Awareness
9 9 (4.71%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
9 9 (4.71%) CI/CD
9 9 (4.71%) LLM
9 9 (4.71%) Security Architecture
9 9 (4.71%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 12 (6.28%) Python
2 2 (1.05%) ABAP
3 1 (0.52%) Java
Qualifications
1 39 (20.42%) Security Cleared
2 38 (19.90%) SC Cleared
3 12 (6.28%) CISSP
4 11 (5.76%) CISM
4 11 (5.76%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.71%) CRISC
6 6 (3.14%) Azure Certification
6 6 (3.14%) Degree
7 5 (2.62%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 3 (1.57%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.57%) CCIE
8 3 (1.57%) CCIE Security
8 3 (1.57%) CCNP
8 3 (1.57%) CCSA
8 3 (1.57%) CCSE
8 3 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.57%) JNCIE
8 3 (1.57%) JNCIP
8 3 (1.57%) SAP Certification
9 1 (0.52%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.85%) NIST
2 12 (6.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (4.71%) JSP 440
4 8 (4.19%) GRC
5 5 (2.62%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (2.09%) QA
7 3 (1.57%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.57%) GDPR
7 3 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (1.57%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.52%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.52%) COBIT
8 1 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.52%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.52%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (1.57%) Ansible
2 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 21 (10.99%) Microsoft
2 16 (8.38%) SAP
3 9 (4.71%) Databricks
4 7 (3.66%) Red Hat
5 6 (3.14%) Foundry
6 3 (1.57%) CheckPoint
6 3 (1.57%) Cisco
6 3 (1.57%) Fortinet
6 3 (1.57%) OneTrust
6 3 (1.57%) Palo Alto
6 3 (1.57%) Varonis
7 2 (1.05%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (1.05%) Oracle
8 1 (0.52%) Cloudera
8 1 (0.52%) Cognizant
8 1 (0.52%) Concur
8 1 (0.52%) Google
8 1 (0.52%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.52%) VMware