Principal Software Engineer Jobs

Principal Software Engineer
UK

The median Principal Software Engineer salary in the UK is £68,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 July 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 536 681 824
Rank change year-on-year +145 +143 -30
Permanent jobs requiring a Principal Software Engineer 203 228 86
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.34% 0.21% 0.097%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.38% 0.23% 0.11%
Number of salaries quoted 108 152 66
10th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £67,750
25th Percentile £67,250 £70,000 £76,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £68,000 £80,000 £90,000
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% -11.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £77,500 £100,000 £113,750
90th Percentile £108,750 £112,500 £160,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £68,000 £75,000 £82,500
% change year-on-year -9.33% -9.09% -2.94%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 53,646 100,958 81,022
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.91% 94.82% 91.25%
Number of salaries quoted 29,258 71,135 54,610
10th Percentile £27,500 £28,573 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £38,750 £44,180
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £73,708 £70,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +4.74%

Principal Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Principal Software Engineer in the UK

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Principal Software Engineer.

Salary trend for Principal Software Engineer in the UK

Principal Software Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Principal Software Engineer over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Salary histogram for Principal Software Engineer in the UK

Principal Software Engineer
Top 14 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Principal Software Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 6 July 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
UK excluding London +221 187 £68,000 -9.33% 56
England +166 185 £68,000 -15.00% 80
South East +134 84 £68,000 -2.86% 16
Midlands +129 65 £73,750 -13.24% 1
West Midlands +102 42 - -
East Midlands +67 23 £73,750 -13.24% 1
Work from Home +64 15 £102,500 +36.67% 60
London +49 15 £125,000 +35.14% 35
Wales +45 12 £68,000 -32.00% 1
North of England +34 9 £75,000 +15.38% 14
North West +8 9 £75,000 +15.38% 9
South West +87 6 £100,000 +33.33% 3
Scotland +53 6 £75,000 -13.04% 5
East of England +32 5 - - 11

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 July 2025, Principal Software 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 featuring Principal Software Engineer in the job title.

1 157 (77.34%) Agile
2 150 (73.89%) BPSS Clearance
3 140 (68.97%) Software Engineering
4 100 (49.26%) Degree
5 94 (46.31%) Computer Science
6 87 (42.86%) UML
7 84 (41.38%) Chartered Engineer
7 84 (41.38%) Waterfall
8 66 (32.51%) Configuration Management
8 66 (32.51%) MATLAB
8 66 (32.51%) Simulink
8 66 (32.51%) Aerospace
8 66 (32.51%) Validation
9 65 (32.02%) Software Testing
10 64 (31.53%) Automotive
10 64 (31.53%) Systems Engineering
11 63 (31.03%) Ada 95
11 63 (31.03%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 63 (31.03%) Ada
12 23 (11.33%) AWS
13 20 (9.85%) Python
14 19 (9.36%) Mentoring
15 18 (8.87%) Microservices
15 18 (8.87%) Kubernetes
16 16 (7.88%) Java
17 15 (7.39%) Cloud Native
18 13 (6.40%) Docker
19 12 (5.91%) React
19 12 (5.91%) CI/CD
20 11 (5.42%) C++

Principal Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 3 (1.48%) Confluence
Applications
1 66 (32.51%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 23 (11.33%) AWS
2 10 (4.93%) GCP
3 7 (3.45%) Azure
4 3 (1.48%) Serverless
5 2 (0.99%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.49%) Azure API Management
6 1 (0.49%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (0.49%) Firebase
6 1 (0.49%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.99%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.45%) MongoDB
2 5 (2.46%) NoSQL
3 3 (1.48%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.48%) Redis
4 2 (0.99%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.49%) Big Data
5 1 (0.49%) MySQL
5 1 (0.49%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 9 (4.43%) Git
2 5 (2.46%) JIRA
3 3 (1.48%) Subversion
4 1 (0.49%) Ant
4 1 (0.49%) CMake
4 1 (0.49%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.49%) webpack
General
1 66 (32.51%) Aerospace
2 64 (31.53%) Automotive
3 8 (3.94%) Banking
4 7 (3.45%) Finance
5 6 (2.96%) Law
6 5 (2.46%) Retail
7 4 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.97%) Marketing
8 3 (1.48%) Electronics
8 3 (1.48%) Games
8 3 (1.48%) Military
9 2 (0.99%) Front Office
9 2 (0.99%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.49%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.49%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.49%) Social Skills
10 1 (0.49%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.91%) React
2 9 (4.43%) Kafka
3 7 (3.45%) Node.js
4 5 (2.46%) .NET
4 5 (2.46%) Lambda Expressions
5 4 (1.97%) Micronaut
5 4 (1.97%) Quarkus
5 4 (1.97%) RESTful
5 4 (1.97%) Spring
5 4 (1.97%) Spring Boot
6 3 (1.48%) CSS
6 3 (1.48%) Drools
6 3 (1.48%) GraphQL
6 3 (1.48%) HTML
6 3 (1.48%) Jest
7 2 (0.99%) Boost C++ Libraries
7 2 (0.99%) FIX Protocol
7 2 (0.99%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.99%) pytest
7 2 (0.99%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.39%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.93%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (3.94%) Greenfield Project
4 7 (3.45%) Algorithms
5 6 (2.96%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.48%) Data Structures
6 3 (1.48%) Public Cloud
7 2 (0.99%) Derivative
7 2 (0.99%) Equities
7 2 (0.99%) Fixed Income
8 1 (0.49%) Embedded Systems
8 1 (0.49%) FPGA
8 1 (0.49%) Housing Association
8 1 (0.49%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.49%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.49%) NHS
8 1 (0.49%) PKI
8 1 (0.49%) Robotics
8 1 (0.49%) Verilog
8 1 (0.49%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.97%) Apple iOS
2 3 (1.48%) Linux
2 3 (1.48%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.49%) Android
3 1 (0.49%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (77.34%) Agile
2 140 (68.97%) Software Engineering
3 94 (46.31%) Computer Science
4 87 (42.86%) UML
5 84 (41.38%) Waterfall
6 66 (32.51%) Configuration Management
6 66 (32.51%) Validation
7 65 (32.02%) Software Testing
8 64 (31.53%) Systems Engineering
9 19 (9.36%) Mentoring
10 18 (8.87%) Microservices
11 12 (5.91%) CI/CD
12 11 (5.42%) Event-Driven
12 11 (5.42%) Problem-Solving
13 9 (4.43%) Architectural Patterns
13 9 (4.43%) Artificial Intelligence
13 9 (4.43%) DevOps
14 8 (3.94%) Machine Learning
14 8 (3.94%) Mathematics
15 6 (2.96%) Physics
Programming Languages
1 66 (32.51%) MATLAB
2 63 (31.03%) Ada
2 63 (31.03%) Ada 95
3 20 (9.85%) Python
4 16 (7.88%) Java
5 11 (5.42%) C++
5 11 (5.42%) TypeScript
6 10 (4.93%) C
7 7 (3.45%) JavaScript
8 6 (2.96%) SQL
9 5 (2.46%) Objective-C
10 4 (1.97%) Go
11 3 (1.48%) C#
12 2 (0.99%) Rust
13 1 (0.49%) PHP
13 1 (0.49%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 150 (73.89%) BPSS Clearance
2 100 (49.26%) Degree
3 84 (41.38%) Chartered Engineer
4 6 (2.96%) Security Cleared
5 5 (2.46%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.48%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.48%) PhD
7 2 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.49%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (31.03%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 3 (1.48%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.99%) QA
System Software
1 13 (6.40%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (8.87%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.96%) Terraform
3 1 (0.49%) Ansible
3 1 (0.49%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 1 (0.49%) Apple
1 1 (0.49%) ForgeRock
1 1 (0.49%) Okta
1 1 (0.49%) Ping Identity